Floatable Boatable

[Doc Tinker]

When I was a kid, the community used to put on a Foatable Boatable event. We built floating contraptions to race down the river with and boy was it fun. Anyone else get to do anything like that?



Doc

 

[redneckdr]

sometning similar

in our town here, there is a container manufacturer. each year there is a box boat derby. all boats must be constructed of cardboard. sometimes it's a riot to see some of the contraptions dreamed up. sometimes the most unlikely looking ones end up doing better than the fancy well thought out designs. most every body gets wet.

 

[QRTRHRS]

Not sure if this one is still going or not. Based on folklore of some pioneer escaping Indians by floating down the Delaware River in a barrel.



Once a year people would have a boat race down the river to commemorate this "story". The boats were built with several 55 gal drums welded end to end. Paddles, bicycle pedal setups, you name it, they would put it together. These suckers were big with several guys manning them.



Sounds like fun and it was but a lot of work and if the water was low, you would get hung up and have to manhandle the craft off the sandbar.

 

[Deezul1]

When I used to live in Salem Oregon they had a river raft race every year and the main rule was no power. Boy you should see the contraptions entered. The one I remember most was a queen sized bed 4 poster made to float some how, a lot of folks just tied a bunch of tubes together with a ice chest in one of them full of beverage of choice. Great fun

 

[me4osu]

They have one in Tulsa, OK every year.

I think it is on Memorial day. Everyone makes rafts out of lots of different stuff: milk jugs, barrels etc... Our Civil Engineering department at OSU would always enter a concrete canoe, and finished the race. I don't know what they used as aggregate, but it obviously floated.



The TDR guys in Oklahoma would know more about it. I have not lived there in thirteen years.

 

[Briar Hopper]

When I was a kid, one spring, in Alabama. we found a discarded plastic kiddie pool in the dump near the creek. It was one of those with stiff walls about 12 inches high, 5 feet across, and round, not the inflatable version. One guy ran home to get a roll of duct tape, so we could patch the holes in it. It worked quite well. Being spring, the creek was flooded, a miniature version of the Gauley river in West Virginia. Debris, tree branches, a refrigerator, even an occasional water moccasin, were all spotted floating by at what looked like 50 mph. One guy stole his dad's canoe paddle, and we were off! We made it two miles downstream before we could grab a tree branch and get to shore. Not quite what we planned, the fool thing spun like a top going down stream, we couldn't enjoy the scenery.

I never, ever went river rafting again. It's been 30 years. Maybe it's time again?Somebody want to talk this middle-age clown out of taking a trip to West Virginia this year? www.aceraft.com

 

[illflem]

When I lived in the apple growing country of eastern WA the town threw a once a year apple bin race, three miles total, one mile across the lake. An apple bin is a 4'x4'x3' high plywood container, had to be human powered, most had bicycle wheels and pontoons. Most sank in the lake. The winner always was the highly muscular team of the USFS smoke jumpers, their entry was named Smokey the Bin.