673d CS hosts boat regatta

  • Published
  • By Airman Ty-Rico Lea
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  The 673d Communications Squadron hosted their annual cardboard Boat Regatta race June 7.

Service members, as well as Department of Defense employees, worked on various boats for the event to test each other's architectural ability and craftsmanship.

Tech. Sgt. Patrick Van Winkle, 673d CS quality assurance evaluator, molded a vessel on his own and received great praise for his work.

"This would be my first time actually using a boat design I researched. All my past boats have all been off-hand creations," Van Winkle said. "I tried that technique in the past and they were complete failures."

Van Winkle told his peers he worked on the boat for 200 hours that spanned a total of 11 months.

"I was deployed for some time during the project and had to put the boat's construction on hold until I arrived back to my home base," Van Winkle said. "I sealed the boat in plastic to preserve its contents and when I arrived back I immediately resumed progress."

Active-duty members of all ranks chipped in for the event by assisting in the construction of other boats.

"The hot pink boat with the purple trimming would be the one boat I worked on today," said Senior Airman T'Nezia McLaurin, 673d CS cyber operations technician. "The name of the boat is The Pink Cornelius."

Just to liven up the event and make it more of a challenge for others, non-participant boats were placed around the regatta course.

"Some boats were created to obstruct and sabotage the other boats," McLaurin said. "This is something that makes the regatta a lot more fun."

These non-participant boats hurled water balloons, attempted to capsize participating boats and rammed them off course.

Rules outlined for the race clearly indicated this was permissible.

Racers were required to limit the materials they used to build the boats to simple cardboard, tape and glue.

Further rules and regulations officially decided upon by the 673d CS staff dictated only corrugated cardboard could be used; it could be of any thickness, but not bonded to any other material such as vinyl.

Non-corrugated material could not be used, especially the kind of resin or wax-type coating found in packing cases.

No solid cardboard and no carpet roll tubes could be used.

Wood, metal, Styrofoam or other materials that would aid in flotation or make the hull rigid were also prohibited.

Boats were subject to inspection and disqualification for each violation would be applied to any of the general rules.

The race itself required boaters to sail out to a buoy placed in the middle of the lake, circle it once and arrive back on shore - without sinking.

The winner of the race would be awarded a cardboard trophy.

When asked if there would be multiple trophies awarded, McLaurin said, "You either win or you lose."

"I've been stationed here on JBER for a while now and we've held this event every year," McLaurin said.

Despite the event being a social, relaxing environment, the regatta got pretty competitive.
"Helping work on a boat was actually very enjoyable, and it would make me all the happier to actually have my shop's boat win the race," McLaurin said.

"My advice to all the future Airmen who participate in this event is to just have fun with it,
and have a good time witnessing the results of your hard work."