Boat Building on the Sailstice

June 21, 2010

Ariane Paul of the Master Mariners Benevolent Association organized five teams to compete in a day-long boatbuilding contest at Saturday's Summer Sailstice festival on Treasure Island. The boat building, sponsored by Woodenboat magazine, Berkeley Marine Center and MAS Epoxies, starts at 0900 and teams must finish by 1700 with boats ready to launch and race around a mark and back.

They can use only one power tool at a time. ©2010 Sergei Zavarin/http://ultimate-yachtshots.smugmug.com

The contestants are judged on several factors including building time, beauty of design, construction quality, seaworthiness and first to finish. After a long day of building in the sun, all five boats were launched, all floated, all floated even with people in them, and all tenuously left the dock and headed to sea in gusty winds of up to 30 knots.

- John Arndt, Summer Sailstice

A close race was completed with a photo finish and plenty of spectators. ©2010 Sergei Zavarin/http://ultimate-yachtshots.smugmug.com

The winner this year was the team from Berkeley Marine Center - Cree Partridge, Dean Gurke and Steven Kibler - who built a rowing pram. ©2010 Sergei Zavarin/http://ultimate-yachtshots.smugmug.com