Cardboard and duct tape
make boats that float

Jamaica High School completed its fifth annual cardboard boat regatta.
Teams of up to six students built boats out of only cardboard and duct tape. Two students from each team had to actually ride in their boat and paddle the 75 feet across the swimming pool. This year’s race was expanded to include teams from Thomas Edison, John Bowne and Francis Lewis High Schools. Twenty-two teams – 130 students – competed, with coaching assistance from 25 faculty members. The event was sold out and there were approximately 160 spectators. The boats competed in two categories: speed and theme.
The best boat completion is won by the team with the fastest time across the pool. Only the four best times qualify for final heat.
“Knight Rider” proved to be the speediest vessel, narrowly edging out “Cherie Haiti.” It was “JR 10” and “Bulbie 58” from Thomas Edison High School that garnered third and fourth places.
Senior Franklyn Lalla attributed his team’s win to “the boat’s design, eating lots of pizza and the powerful motor named Trevon Phillips,” whose muscular arms supplied the power. Pilot Jayme Gooderdhan kept the boat on course, he said.
Thomas Edison’s
entry was in the lead in the final heat, but capsized just yards from the finish line, making the race an especially exciting one.
In the theme category, contestants were judged on the creativity of the boat’s appearance and the teams’ costumes. “Rub-a-Dub Tub,” which won for best theme, was decorated as a bathtub complete with a cardboard shower head and yellow duck cutouts. Teammates wore shower caps and held bath brushes. Senior and Captain Arianne Watson attributed their win to “a last minute idea that required the team to pull together. We had a creative design with lots of detail. Our team really took a bath when our boat capsized half way across the pool.”
“Twilight,” pursuing the literary theme of vampires, was decorated as a coffin with team members dressed as Dracula – they won second place. “Island Breeze,” had a Caribbean theme, suggested by boat’s purple and yellow duct tape. Team members wore grass skirts and took third place. “I Boat,” decorated as an iPod, won fourth.
“Commodore”?Scott Pecorino, the physics teacher and race organizer, said, “The race’s success and popularity are due to the combination of science, art and the students’ competitive natures.”
–Courtesy Scott Pecorino