The National BoatBuilding Challenge is Coming to the

North Carolina Maritime Museum's

34th Annual Wooden Boat Show!

Mark Your Calenders for May 3, 2008

       A new and exciting event is shaping up for the NC Maritime Museum's   34th Annual Wooden Boat Show   .  It’s called the National BoatBuilding Challenge .

    It’s a two-man team competition (women are welcome, too).  Each team builds an identical 12 foot skiff, and a handsome one at that.  We hope to have at least ten teams competing in Beaufort.  When the teams sign up with a $100 entry fee, they are given a set of building plans so that they can hatch their game plans way ahead of time.  On the day of the challenge each team will be issued the needed building materials.  They bring their own tools.  At the command, “Gentlemen, start your Skil-Saws”, a whistle is sounded, and the teams will have four hours to complete the boat.  Speed of construction and quality of work will carry equal weight in determining the winners.  Today, the national record stands at 2:27:33, so to be competitive, there’s no time to dilly dally around.  Winning teams invariably practice building the skiff with junk wood before the event so that each team member knows what to do and when at game time.

                At least one, and possibly the three top local teams, will be eligible to compete against other top teams from Georgetown, SC, Belfast, ME abd Kingston, NY in a (yet to be scheduled) national championship saw-off.   WoodenBoat Magazine, which is behind the event, hopes to develop seven or eight team-cities in the next few years.  Beaufort NC will be the third.

                A local Beaufort champion will be crowned by adding a third element on top of building speed and quality.  This element is rowing speed. The teams build their own oars, and compete against each other in a rowing relay race, each member of a two-man team rowing one leg of the relay.  The race will happen on Taylors Creek.  Seldom do any of the boats sink.

                This is an exciting and spellbinding event for the public to watch as these woodworkers display their skill and strength in building and rowing the skiff. The teams are rewarded by keeping the boats they build.

                To present this event properly, the Challenge Committee (headed by Susan Sanders of Harbor Specialties) will need the financial support of sponsors.  A strong effort will be made to recruit sponsors (starting at$250), and in return sponsors will receive benefits: listing on the sponsor board at the competition tent entrance, listing in the Challenge program, a sponsor badge, access to the sponsor hospitality tent, tickets to the awards dinner, and the opportunity to have a booth at the competition tent or on Front Street ($35 extra) as long as the display is in keeping with the maritime flavor of the show.

Beaufort and boat building is a match, and this event will serve to promote and preserve the boat building bloodline of the Beaufort area.