This was our first year to be involved in this fun, challenging and slightly crazy event and it was great watching the boys work together with Kevin to build the best boats for the races. 
They agreed that they wanted as lightweight and buoyant a craft they could create, so the material of choice was Styrofoam. 
Kevin allowed the boys to draw the shape they wanted in the foam and then he cut it out and handed them over for decorating. 
Each boy painted his ship a rainbow of colors and Kevin had to resort to a blow dryer to get the paint to dry on the surface of the foam.
The finishing touch to each of the boy's ships was the "sail". We tried to think through all the advantages and disadvantages to the stereotypical sail design and decided that since we couldn't easily lower the sails if the wind was against us, we'd needed something that could accept the push from the wind in any direction OR be removed completely. Our solution? A balloon. We figured that since it was round it would catch the wind no matter which direction it was coming from and if the wind was counter-productive to our forward progress we could remove the balloon by popping it easily enough.
Our results? I will post pictures and a video from the actual race as soon as I am able!
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