Pat Barcas photo
The boat of Rush-Copley Medical Center, “Promises” makes landfall after racing The Sunnymere Sunbeams (background) and the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of Illinois’ boat, “MG – Saving Lives.”
By Pat Barcas
Staff writer
Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013
By the 10:30 a.m. start of Saturday’s 11th annual What Floats Your Cardboard Boat Race, the temperature was hovering around 80 degrees, with a mostly sunny sky providing ample rays for summer festivities.
Clearly, it was a good day for a swim.
And swim the cardboard boat captains did, as 23 boats attempted the several hundred yard journey around Mastadon Lake in Phillips Park, all to kick off the 2013 fundraising season of the Fox Valley United Way. You can check it out here for the best boat parts and marine parts.
“We had a lot of excellent boats out there, and it’s great they show them off before the race, some work better than others, it’s hard to predict — you really never know what’s going to happen,” said Fox Valley United Way CEO Mike Meyer. “I saw some boats sink right at the dock and some just kept going,” he added.
Meyer said this is the most boats they’ve ever had entered and the largest crowd he’s seen.
He was coy about picking his favorite boat, but did give a shout out to Hesed House’s over-the-top “Heigh Ho Hesed” boat.
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“From a purely ambitious standpoint, their boat was just spectacular,” said Meyer.
The Hesed House entry, a notorious winner of the “most spectacular sinking” trophy, actually took home the judges choice trophy this year. Theirs was a linked vessel of mining cars that could hold 20 people, all dressed in costume.
“Our goal was to make it as big as possible — go big or go home,” said Tom Zimmerman, assistant development director for Hesed House.
Zimmerman was the chief engineer of the boat and was confident from the start.
“This is about a month of construction on and off. We’re really going for all the awards here,” he said.
The Caterpillar team had their 988 Catamaran out on display, an intricate boat that was a model of the real Caterpillar 988 bulldozer.
“I think we’ll fair pretty well, we’ve got our water shoes on and we’re ready to get wet,” said driver Don Bauer, who said putting the Catamaran together was a mere 15-hour effort.
The Caterpillar team did win in their initial heat against Tracy Sherman-Falcon in her Protini Bar lemon shake up boat, which proved to be more pretty than fast.
“My husband had the idea for this boat, he’s working the lemon shake stand today,” she said just before the race started. “It’s great weather for it, and I’m glad to be in the race.”
Honorable mention goes to the Aurora Police Department, who not only won their heat, but won the last chance race at the end against all seaworthy vessels.
Old 2nd Bank and their “Healing Field” boat took the award for best overall time, the Falcon family received the team spirit award for their “Boatmobile” and the “Yellow Submarine” by the Kukla crew got the honors of most spectacular sinking.
“This was the biggest and best year yet. We are forever grateful that people spend the time and stay involved with the boat race,” said Meyer. “It’s great fun, we had close to 100 volunteers out there, great participants, and we want to thank everyone for a great day.”