America's Cardboard Cup Regatta

America’s Cardboard Cup Regatta

“I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener …..” Todd Collins of DeKalb sings the well-known jingle from his cardboard boat, floating on choppy waters of Crystal Lake. The 24th Annual America’s Cardboard Cup Regatta attracted Collins and his friends and their offbeat sense of style, deciding next year to build a cardboard salad bowl or a cardboard ice cream truck. I met Collins and dozens of other creative cardboard boat builders on the beach at Crystal Lake for the event that attracts hundreds of people a year and brings thousands of dollars to charity organizations in the northwest suburbs.
First of course, I had to work my way to the finish line, where over the years, I’ve interviewed the builders of a Star Wars boat, a whale, a truck, pirate ships, tanks, and anything and everything that could potentially float at least long enough for a spectacular sinking. They told me of the cold water and bragged of their unsinkable boat and how they knew they’d finish. Some of the Cup contestants wore unusual costumes, looked like pigs sometimes, or pirates, or just wore bathing suits and life jackets. They’d tell of buying dozens of rolls of duct tape, of working three weeks steady in their friend’s garage building the cardboard shape, taping it together, painting it, and lugging the finished boat to Main Beach for the regatta. With recorder and microphone, I positioned myself at the finish line, usually in front of the throng of people watching. The crew of the green Tank must have realized the cardboard had taken on water about half way to the finish and they lumbered, rowing as best they could, the four young guys pushing water away from the tank from their perched positions on the sides of the tank, and slowly but steadily, they ran out of water, reaching the shore, exhausted, but excited, only to try and pick up the extremely heavy tank. Instead, each tore at the tank like they were tearing lettuce for a salad until the tank was nothing more than wet cardboard. They disposed the sheets of cardboard in the already filling dumpster. The dumpster held secrets of cardboard building, but mostly secrets of unsuccessful cardboard design. Yet some of the successful designs lay next to the dumpster, that of the Weinermobile and kids seemed to take to it, by walking inside what now was a soggy hot dog shell. Only problem, looked like nails protruding from the sides of the dog. I stayed clear and eventually finished taping the participants with the unusual boats, ending with Mike Bowers, a local guy that couldn’t seem to catch his breath after finishing . His boat resembled an old railway car…that you have to push a bar up and down, over and over. This was his design, so he got stuck working it to death , almost.
America’s Cardboard Cup Regatta……..a slice of creativity for all to see at Main Beach in Crystal Lake.

EEO