Rule #1: The boat is made of cardboard.

When I first learned of the annual Glen Ellyn boat regatta I didn’t understand how a boat could be made of cardboard and actually float. I thought, “this must be a joke seeing a piece of cardboard used as a boat;" my thoughts went right to Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. I could not have been further away from reality with my thinking---these babies not only float, they are actually boats.

This year’s regatta had some new themes that really caught my eye. We had boats in honor of the World Champion Chicago Blackhawks, the economy (and keeping it afloat,) and the best one, a BP floating oil drill. How people think of these ideas, and build them, makes this annual tradition memorable and popular.

If you are wondering what happens if a boat sinks, it happens every year; often more than one time during the race. They do have rescue boats on the lake to pick up the teams, and when the boat rolls over there are two choices: It sinks or you have it towed in and it's placed in a giant trash container. Eventually most of the boats end up in the container because they are water logged and what are you going to do with it any way?

At today’s regatta we even had a team that was so desperate to win that they broke the rules by using their oars to hold another boat back. They were caught, but it was the closest race I have seen in the 8 years. Had I not had my camera with me, and after looking at the pictures saw he was holding the boat back, I never would have seen it. Oh the competition in our community. I have no idea what you win, but it’s probably nothing more than a trophy; our community, like others, is not thriving in our current economy. (We’ll see tomorrow night when the fireworks occur as to how bad the economy is—last year’s fireworks show was 15 minutes.)

So the next time someone says a boat can not be made of anything but Plexiglas, wood or plastic, let them know you can even make it out of cardboard. If anything you might win a few bucks on a bet.

The photo above is from one of the races today---you can only imagine the time and energy that went into building these boats. The best part about it, they finished the race, the sad part, when finished, they ended up in the trash bin.

Thanks for stopping by.