Originally published
April 8, 2013
The concrete-canoe race did not go according to plan.
Originally cast to be 22 feet long and 36 inches wide, the canoe broke in half the night before the races. But the team was determined to race anyway.
“She floats, and we’re here to have fun, so I think we’ll be able to compete in the races,” said Michael Ekenstam, team co-captain and a senior in civil engineering.
It did float — right up until the very end. Just as they crossed the finish of the last event — a coed endurance race powered by two men and two women — the team’s canoe sank as did boats from three other schools.
Ekenstam and Aaron Comrie, also a senior in civil engineering, worked with their team of 12 students during the last eight months to design and build the concrete canoe, originally named “Arrowlite.”
The team had struggles all year starting with a small crack in the end of the boat. They added a new mix of concrete, which fixed it temporarily but made it heavier. Eventually, the heaviness of the two ends caused the canoe to break in the middle.
“It had several large cracks by the time we got here,” said Amanda Bordelon, assistant professor in civil engineering and the team’s faculty advisor. “It was on display yesterday. We took it off the stand and walked it to our trailer and put it in the trailer, and it just opened.”
At that point, the choices were to either duct-tape the canoe back together into one piece or lob off the end and seal it. The team made the decision to stick eight inches of foam on the end to give the back end buoyancy and seal it up with duct tape. The tape also helped prevent water from coming into the boat.
The canoe was then renamed “Broken Dreamz.”
Bordelon said they are learning how to repair, which is a very good thing for modern engineers.
“I think the team has learned some important lessons,” Bordelon said. “They learned about concrete cracking, but the most important lesson they learned is actually management. If you have a deadline that is nine months later, don’t wait seven months to start doing it. They had a lot of delays, and they kept thinking it’d be fine to wait. Especially with classes and kids, it’s better to get done before unpredictable things happen.”
She said the competition has been fun because the team gets ideas from the other schools for doing things better. Ideas about logistics the team does not think of when they are building the canoe such as how to transport it.
“They’ve been picking up a lot of ideas, like the box to carry it,” Bordelon said. “That might be the goal for next year — to find a nice way to carry it.”
The event, sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers and hosted by Utah State University at Hyrum Dam, brought 12 schools in the region together to compete in the races. Participants were USU, BYU, Colorado State University, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado School of Mines, University of Wyoming, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, New Mexico State University, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, United States Air Force Academy, University of New Mexico and the U.
The U will host the annual canoe races in 2017.