Redneck engineering: my homemade race boat

[Jiggerachi]

Somehow I got sucked into this ‘wacky raft race’ on lake LBJ down in Kingsland, Tx. My dad and I love building things so I thought it would be a fun project.
http://content.onlineagency.com/sites/73754/pdf/wackyraftflyer09.pdf

My dad has tons of Styrofoam at his house so we’re building it on two Styrofoam pontoons. It’s going to be 13 ft total, 4 man fixed row boat. We’re making the 8 oars out of aluminum pipe and lexan, yes they’re more sturdy than they need to be as well.
My dad just got his huge hot wire foam cutter back online so we're going to add two more feet on the rear and dovetail them and knife edge the front of the pontoons for speed.
I know 4 people is too much on a boat this size but we had to do 4 people(long story and I tested it and it floats way more than the 4 guys that will be on it. We have successfully floated over 1,000 lbs on it in my dads pool, the water level was about halfway up the pontoons.
Getting us 4 guys to row as a team with a day and a half to practice is going to be the fun part.

We’re going as ‘The Floating Elvises”, and will be wearing Elvis costumes in the race. The boat will be painted white with "USS GRACELAND" painted on teh side and decorated with gold sequins. (hey, there's a separate prize for the wackiest boat, we'll shoot for both).

Worst part is, nobody has any idea of the competetion, and I was hoping to get it ready for testing this weekend, but we missed that so we'll only have the day before the race to test it in the lake. Should be fun either way...even if we fail miseerably.

Here are the pics, let me know what you think.

[Jiggerachi]

After the race I plan to cut a few feet off of it and convert it onto a small 2 man fishing rowboat. I almost bought a small boat for fishing last year, but they were almost a grand, this one has cost under $100 will be light enough to tie to the luggage racks on the Element, like a canoe.

[Sharpie]

Wow, just wow!

[sammm]

Looks like fun! Good luck!

[MiataMike]

My friend Jason did one of these races a few years back. His was a two man boat made out of nothing but cardboard. He didn't win but he did finish.

[HudsonHawk]

Cool idea on the oar locks. That should be a fun boat. Will there be someone stearing or just oars men?

[Jiggerachi]

We might try to incoporate a rudder system controlled by foot pedals if we have time, but the rudder man would still have to be rowing at the same time, it might be confusing.

I'm trying to figure out if it would be more confusing than trying to get 4 guys to row in a straight line.

Biggest problem is I don't want to have dead weight on the end, if anyone's on the boat they need to be rowing. This of course means we'll all have to be looking over our shoulders to go straight.

It's going to be fun indeed...especially since I just found out we're not sure if two of our guys will be available the day before to practice...

[Jiggerachi]

My friend Jason did one of these races a few years back. His was a two man boat made out of nothing but cardboard. He didn't win but he did finish.

Ive heard about the cardboard boat races...how in the hell do they get two guys to float on cardboard??

[HudsonHawk]

They had concrete boat races in Lubbock. Concrete can float but I would not want to be in it. talk about sinking like a stone.

[MiataMike]

lots of glue and thick cardboard.

[creek]

How about wearing scuba fins and kicking your feet as you row It's not going to be very directionally stable, so a rudder is a good idea.

[jrj512]

Good luck! I look forward to hearing about the experience.

[Jiggerachi]

How about wearing scuba fins and kicking your feet as you row

My brother in law said we should just tie Michael J Fox and Mohammed Ali to the back with their feet hanging in the water...

[Jiggerachi]

Long Live The Floating Elvises!!

We took first place in the raft race although there was only one other boat in the race. But…the guy that built the other boat was the owner of the marina and sponsored the whole race, and he was the champion from the last few years. It was a good head to head match.
They were talking all kinds of trash so it was a nice victory. We didn’t just win though, they were still at the halfway point when we crossed the finish line, we embarrassed them bad. The people loved us so much they talked us into entering into the Sea Doo obstacle course as well. We ran it in like 2min 30 secs, as opposed to around 30 secs for the sea doos, heh.

Probably the first time i've built anything that was competitive (even though the only competition was slow as hell) so im pretty happy! We only had about 30 minutes of practice, and two weeks total for the build. Im sure with another couple weeks to build and a few days of practice we could have been much much faster. We'll be sure to be more prepared next year since we no doubt ruffled a few feathers, they won't be so easy to beat next year.

BTW we made the local newspaper, and I think I saw news cameras rolling out there when we pulled on shore, im trying to get ahold of copies of anything I can.

We had a blast, it was awesome. Here are the pics of the pink beast. Cadillac fins and headlights courtesy of my dad. Make sure to watch the video.

Here's a few pics of the final stages of the build, then some of the race.

[Jiggerachi]

...And the video...

[jrj512]

Congrats!

[Darron65]

That's great! Who won the Wackiest Raft prize? Did you get any pictures of Miss Aqua Boom 2009?