Riverhead's Cardboard Boat Race: Teens and seniors go head-to-head

It wouldn’t be surprising if Ava Mitchell starts dreaming about duct tape. The rising 10th grader from Sag Harbor has been stretching and pressing layers and layers of it over cardboard to help build a boat her team hopes will float at Riverhead Chamber of Commerce’s 12th annual Cardboard Boat Race.

“We have to make it very thick, so water doesn’t seep through,” explains Mitchell, who is 15.

Mitchell’s teammates are members of the First Robotics Team 28 at Pierson Middle-High School in Sag Harbor. Typically, they build robots to enter competitions with other high schools. But this is the second year that, as soon as their robotics season ended in April, they started building two boats to enter in the cardboard boat race set for Aug. 5 on the Peconic River.

After all, building a boat from scratch using only cardboard, duct tape, glue and paint takes their kind of skills — engineering and teamwork. “My biggest fear on race day is we get into the water, we get everybody into the boat, and it just sinks right down,” says Toshi Shiga, 13, of Sag Harbor. The team is doing everything it can think of to make sure that the boat not only stays on the water but is designed in such a way that it will prevail as the fastest.

Their race-day competition will include, among other teams, a group on the opposite end of the age spectrum: the staff and residents of Acadia Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, a long-term care and short-term rehab facility in Riverhead. Staff members built the vessel they’ve dubbed “All Hands On Deck,” and the finishing decorative touches were put on by the residents, who lined up in their wheelchairs for a turn to dip their hands in paint and add their handprints to the sides of the boat.

This is the first year Acadia is entering the race; three staff members will ride in the boat. “The day of the boat race, we’re going to film it, and then we’ll have a movie night for staff and families for everyone to view it,” says Christine Livingston, 52, director of admissions.

INSPIRATION FROM THE INTERNET

The first step to building a viable boat is procuring enough cardboard, Shiga says. “I had to jump into the Dumpster to get cardboard,” he says, seeming to have enjoyed experience. The school custodian also helped channel them cardboard, and the local post office donated more, team members say.

“After we got the cardboard, we had a meeting. We had to plan everything out on paper,” Shiga says. The Pierson High team looked at what worked from the previous year and searched for videos on how to build a cardboard boat on the internet. Boats have to be less than 33 feet long, and riders are allowed to use one-sided paddles (i.e., no two-sided kayak paddles).

“We collaborated on ideas for the shape of the boat and functionality,” Mitchell says. “If it’s too wide, you don’t get as much speed. If it’s more in the shape of a canoe, you get more speed.” The team decided on one boat that is canoe shaped and the other boat that looks more like a rowboat with a pontoon sidearm for stabilization.

After they decided on the shape of their frames — the 9th and 10th graders are in charge of one boat, the 11th and 12th graders the other — they had to add the duct tape. The team used between 60 to 75 rolls of duct tape to waterproof the boat, says Susan McCarthy, a history teacher at Pierson and the lead mentor of the robotics team. They might also use a heat gun on a low setting to warm up the tape and press it down harder, McCarthy says. 

“You want the least amount of wrinkles possible,” McCarthy instructs Erion Ruhani, 17, a rising senior from nearby Southampton High School who was invited to help the team. He is hard at work one laying duct tape one recent July day in the Pierson High robotics room, a fan blowing to try to keep the room cool in the summer heat.

IT’S SINK OR SWIM ON RACE DAY

The final step is the painting and deciding on a theme, team members say. “I think we’re doing a Viking theme,” Mitchell says. They plan to have four to six students ride in each boat.

“We do not pretest our boat, so when we get to the river, that’s the first time they try them out,” McCarthy says.

“I have more than enough confidence in our team,” Ruhani says. “I’m heading into the day with optimism.”

In addition to a prize for the fastest boat, there are also prizes for best spirit, best constructed, most creative and — if worst comes to worst — Titanic sinking.

The whole experience offers more than just fun on the day of the race, participants says.

“I’ve learned cooperation skills and collaboration on ideas from this,” Mitchell says. “And also developed a lot of friendships.”

Cherylann Duffy, 26, of Brentwood, associate director of nursing at Acadia, says the boatbuilding experience has been great for staff morale at the care center. “It got us back in a better mood after COVID,” says Duffy. “The team bonding, just the process of it and the buildup to the big day.”

Duffy will be one of Acadia’s three riders on board their boat. “If it stays up even three seconds,” she says, “I’ll be happy.”

By Beth Whitehouse

beth.whitehouse@newsday.comBethWhitehouse1

Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.