Ahoy, me mateys

Walking through the city on a warm day, you´ll receive lots and lots of flyers for events of all kinds. Mostly it´s going to be for parties and such but sometimes, if you are lucky, you´ll get a flyer for some really fun things – like the Red Bull Can Boat Race we attended in June.

At first we weren´t quite sure what to think of it, or rather, what to do, the instructions weren´t too specific. The only thing we knew was that the task would be to build a boat – as the name o the event suggest, and that it would have something to do with cans. Nevertheless, it sounded like a boatload of fun, so our decision to take part in the competition was easy.

 We heard about the race sometime in May and thought to ourselves: “Well, we still have a long time to think about the details, like the team members and what our boat would look like!” WRONG. As always, time runs by way too fast and as June 13 approached (two days before the race) we didn´t have a clue about who was going to be on our team, how we would construct our boat. We knew we needed four team mates, unfortunately most of the girls I hang out with regularly had decided to go home to visit their families at exactly that week-end. Bummer! After calling pretty much everyone I knew in Salzburg and everyone else I knew would be adventurous and fun enough to take part, I finally got my team of four girls together. For some reason it still didn´t enter my mind that we should probably think of something to build since we would only have 90 minutes to complete our boat. But more about that later.

In hindsight, we weren´t very well informed about the whole procedure. The only things we knew were that we would have 90 minutes to build a boat of materials Red Bull would provide, and one team member would have to be the captain to sail, or better paddle, the boat around a buoy and back. Didn´t seem to be that hard.

June 15 arrived and it was time for us landlubbers to grab our bathing suits and make our way to the Waldbad, a natural swimming lake in Anif, a car of four girls ready to conquer the seven seas. Reality hit us when we got there and we realized we were the only girls’ team in the competition. Out of sixteen teams, a team consisting of at least two people and a maximum of four, we were the only girls…could that really be? And we didn´t even have a proper idea for our boat yet! It looked as if our idea was about to capsize. Fortunately, the girls at the registration comforted us and ensured us their support and how good it was to see a girls team. There was no way back now, we couldn´t disappoint them.

The competition wouldn´t start for another hour so we put our heads together to think of the most amazing boat construction imaginable. Harder that it sounds. Being the only female team, we decided to do something girly – constructing a mermaid. What would fit better that the only female icon in seafaring!? It was also very important to us to have the right accessories for our mermaid. That´s why my task was to construct the flashiest and most attention grabbing crown in the history of the can boat race – wasn´t too hard a task, this year being only the second time the race had been held.

While I was busy with the accessories, my teammates built a fish tail out of cardboard and cans. After 90 minutes, numerous cans – we should have counted them, would have been interesting to know how many exactly, and god knows how many meters of duct tape, our masterpiece was finished. In all the hustle and bustle we forgot to check up on our competition to see how they were doing, except for our neighbors who had ´creatively´ build a giant penis-shaped flotation device. What a perfect (stereotypical) match the two teams made next to each other. The mermaid next to a giant phallus symbol.

By now, our mermaid had a wonderful tail and, to perpetuate the stereotype, a wonderful crown, a necklace, made of tin caps, and her lady bits covered up by little pieces of the Red Bull logo. We patted ourselves on the backs for creating this masterpiece in just 90 minutes with hardly any preparation beforehand. That was until we saw our competitions boats.

Ranging from the Hindenburg and the Titanic, up to Rocket Ships and a giant snail, everything was featured. Now it was up to the judges to decide on which project was the most creative. Three judges held our future as boat builders in their hands. We would never know how many points we scored in creativity.

The competition was not over yet. Why would we build a boat and not see if it is ocean-going; it might be better to say pond-going in the Waldbad!? Three teams each had to race against each other, swim around a buoy and get back to the starting line! What a spectacle that was. This was the ultimate endurance test. How long would it take until the cardboard dissolves? Did we use enough tape so the construction would hold? Thousands of questions raced through our minds while we were cheering from the top of our lungs – as if it would make the swimmers paddle faster.

When everything was over, the lake was full of remnants of our boats, cans were peacefully floating about, as well as pieces of cardboard, first floating just to sink to the bottom when fully saturated with water. Luckily our construction stayed in place, unlike some unfortunate other teams whose boats fell apart.

 

This year we didn´t win or even make it into the top five , but as the Olympic motto accurately says: “The most important thing is not to win but to take part!” And man did we have a blast. Next year we´ll participate again, with a better plan and a better construction. Next year we´ll beat the boys. Next year will be the year that a girls´ team wins the Red Bull Can Boat Race and gets to go on a jet boat tour on the Salzach River.