Is it-A) a heap of discarded packing material
B) a modern art masterpiece; or
C) my first naval command
The answer (of course) is all three. At the all too recent family reunion someone had the brilliant idea of having a cardboard boat regatta – and this was my family’s effort.
Yes, I know – it looks like total crap. It does, but only because our assumptions about the competition were miles away from everyone else’s.
To put you in the proper frame of mind – Assume you are one of just under a dozen factions of the family that are expected to compete. You are given oral instructions that there is a stack of cardboard and a roll of duct tape for every team. You are told to use them to make a boat by Saturday at 1pm.
If you are like me – this sounds like an immense amount of fun. Light-hearted and goofy. Everybody will slap on some tape and look silly in front of everyone.
Now, ordinarily this task wouldn’t even fall to me at all. My dad would do it, or one of my crazy uncles – and I’d be happy to step aside. This time around, dad’s gone and none of his siblings came to the reunion. That leaves Mom, Gramma, Jen’s family and mine.
Not exactly a brain trust of naval science.
Still, we have a sheet of rules and my brother in law, D-bil steps up and hauls the materials to their hotel room. I join the party late. D-bil has hit the Internet to look up boat designs. The Internet informs us that a floating rectangle with horizontal braces is the way to go.
The rules require that the boat hold one family member under thirty and one member over thirty. We hem and haw and eventually settle on my nephew as the under and D-bil and I vacillate over which of us is going to be the over.
Once we both start taping in earnest, we learn that the cardboard we’ve been given is torn in numerous places, undersized, and requires more tape than we currently possess. However, a reading of the rules informs us that packing tape is also allowed, and as they have provided none – we felt justified in trying to obtain some on our own.
This required a visit to town – which took way longer than expected since “town” didn’t actually have a hardware store and local residents directed us to some other town in order to find one. I mean, what self-respecting town doesn’t sell packing tape somewhere?
So, we’re back in the room with roll after roll of tape. The rules do not allow us to cover the entire bottom of the boat with tape, but it is obvious that in order to have any hope of staying above water, we going to tape every square inch but one. Aside from the exposed edges, there are jagged tears, gaps in corners, and an ‘S’ shaped seam running the length of the bottom.
On top of that, we’re afraid that the mostly flat boat will simply fold in half as soon as some weight gets put on it – so we wrap an inordinate amount of tape around the entire boat in the hopes that this monstrosity will hold together long enough to make a good showing.
The rules appear to have been drafted for some other kind of cardboard boat competition, they prohibit pontoons, outriggers, and a host of designs that are completely impossible given the amount of cardboard we’ve been given. They tell us we need to fly a flag using the materials provided, but no materials have been provided. I’m starting to believe I’m overthinking this whole thing.
At this point I should mention we have no idea what to expect. Given the constraints of the swimming area and the number of boats, I’m thinking a silly parade, or a contest of ‘who can float the longest?’ would make the most sense.
I’m also thinking that if everybody’s cardboard was like ours, this is going to be a very short competition. It’ll be fun, though – we just need to show the flag, and honor will have been served.
We tape and tape and tape until we have that masterwork you saw in the picture – an abomination in any category: hydrodynamics, buoyancy, aesthetics. You name a quality – our boat doesn’t have it.
But again – this for fun, and this is family – and it’s for damn sure that nobody’s going to be winning any design contests.
---
Race day arrives – we’re doing some last minute taping and I have moments of guilt about buying the packing tape – I mean it is defensible according to the rule sheet, but my cousin, BD, who announced this whole thing sure made it sound like you had one roll of duct tape and that was it. I’m readying my defense of our design, in case we are questioned. I consider offering our extra tape to the less fortunate teams – but really, I’m being silly. This is a fun race at a family reunion – it’s not like anyone’s taking this seriously.
D-bil and I get there with our boat, mere minutes before the 1pm deadline. We legged it over, afraid we’d miss the start.
I seem to have forgotten two things about my extended family:
1) Most of them believe that schedules are for other people; and
2) They are competitive as all hell.
We drop our boat by the swimming area and it becomes obvious that we are the first to arrive. Far from missing the show, there’s no one here at all. We start wondering if we’re in the right place.
Then we see another team hauling a cardboard box across the grass. Hark! The regatta approacheth!
As this team gets closer, my rules lawyer mind starts analyzing their boat. The entire underside is covered with duct tape – silver duct tape (the roll we’d been given was blue). Also, their boat was a similar design, but a whole lot deeper. Smooth sides, no seams – I’m thinking “where was that cardboard hiding when we selected ours?”
Another team shows up – their boat has a clipper bow, a printed name AND a flag.
Over my shoulder I see a team standing in front of an open van. Behind them is a stack of cardboard pontoons.
I’m like – WTH?
Still another boat shows up – the Queen of Sweden. This one has footwells for two crewmembers, a flag and a rudimentary paint job. This team has actual paddles.
D-bil and I have stopped worrying about our extra packing tape. We start feeling like the people who showed up at a state dinner wearing boxers and a gold chain.
Boat after boat arrives, each themed and clearly ocean-ready. I comfort myself in the knowledge that we’re all family.
“Pitiful”
I look back to my boat. My uncle L has decided to offer his opinion of our boat. I know he’s pulling my leg, so I grin and say “Yeah, it’s ugly, but at least when it sinks you won’t have to look at it.”
He squints at me. “You know what your dad would say if he saw this boat?”
My grin starts to melt a bit. “I imagine he’d think it was pretty silly.”
L keeps slagging on the boat until it’s clear that he’s not being funny. He really thinks that our boat is crap, and felt obliged to tell us at length.
Well… thanks.
Schedules being alien to their way of thinking, my family begins a series of water competitions that last over an hour. It’s closer to 2:30 before we get the word that the race will start.
And that’s the first indication that we have that it will, in fact, be a race.
We haul our tattered craft over to the starting line. For some reason, I've been elected the over thirty crewman. Our boat will have to carry my sprightly nephew and my own ponderous bulk. I'm looking at our boat's braces - this is not looking good.
We're on the end and I get the full vista of the family armada.
With the exception of the Queen of Sweden, all the other boats have been named after their faction's patriarch or matriarch. I hadn't bothered to name our ship, it really didn't seem to merit a name. Cousin T is MC'ing the event and is rattling off the names of the boats one by one, we're last in the order.
Gotta think.
On the other side of the Queen is the team with pontoons. These folks went minimalist; low drag and a lightweight crew- a young mother and her baby in a harness. Half my body weighs more than both of them put together.
It's really starting to get to me. These people aren't out for a lark, these people are serious! I don't know most of these people, and they'll be introduced to me by watching me come in dead last.
"Who's that?" they'll ask, and my grandmother will hang her head in disgust.
"My... grandson."
They'll look at the boat again and say without thinking, "That's RD's boy? oh.. oh, that's... that's a shame." In the back of my head, I'm envisioning my dad pacing and incredulous:
You didn't think to scrounge more cardboard? I mean, c'mon!
Cousin T finally reaches our boat. "What's it called?"
"S.S. Race to the Bottom," I reply.
---
The race is to paddle out to the buoys and back. First one to hit the beach wins. We'll be allowed to wade out to our knees to board up. Cousin T grins, "In the event your boat sinks, you are allowed to push your boat along the course and still finish."
I file that away. My nephew has his life preserver on and D-bil's holding the S.S. RttB steady for us. My nephew gets in. The boat rocks, but holds steady. I'm scanning the corners for leaks, thinking if the leak rate isn't too bad, maybe we could bail as we go-
Cheering starts, the race has started - Moment of truth. I climb in.
The boat sinks. Immediately and completely.
When a cardboard boat goes under, it's not a boat anymore - it's a balled up wad of wet garbage. This particular wad has my nephew clinging to it.
Family honor.
I put one arm on my nephew, one arm on the boat and charge out to sea. It's ridiculous, but there's no way I'm going out right here. I have no idea what is going on in the race, but it's clear that some boats are cruising and some are tanking hard.
By a quirk of physics - pushing a wrecked boat while standing on the bottom is actually faster than trying to paddle one of these things.
I'm making time. The gamer in me is looking for the straightest shot. Unlike the floaters, I can actually turn. Mid-way to the buoys it's clear that about a third of the field is underwater. The Queen is almost to the halfway point. There's no way to win this.
The good news is behind me. At least two teams are swamped and struggling to save their boats. As there was never a question of saving our boat - my going right to leg power has opened up a good gap.
The lakefloor drops away, I start the sidestroke. My nephew looks at me, says something about the boat sinking. I say (with perhaps a little more venom than warranted):
We are NOT going to be last!
We hit the buoy and turn for the return leg. I can see the breakaway leader, the boat with the deep sides and all tape bottom. The Queen is sinking, and the pontoon boat with the mom and baby has turned into a wet wad. Matriarch and Patriarchs are going down everywhere.
It's total madness. I kick away from the buoy line hard until I hit bottom and practically run up onto the shore.
We weren't last, we might have managed to be fourth from last. Cousin T announces each arrival with his bullhorn. He misses us in the order, but somebody points us out.
S.S. Race to the Bottom!
We caught a few cheers and piled up the remains of the boat.
Say what you will, the ship lived up to its name and still avoided finishing last. We didn't have much to begin with, but what little we had was served.
Family honor, that is.
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