Aka Bekko - Class 2 (mechanical)

Article By Shorty


This is my boat "Aka Bekko", sponsored by Hooters. This is the 2nd year I have entered the class 2 division, I have been trying to beat my friend Randy Smith who has won the class 4 years in a row, and the only reason he didn't win last year is because he was out of the counrty. I made a boat called "Big Blue" and ran it last year. It had some problems, I learned a lot and this is an improvement over that boat.

Here is Randy's boat "Moby Brick". I copied just about everything from her, and tried to make improvements and compromises to compensate for the differences between us. I weigh significantly more than Randy, and I am carrying 2 small girls with me, so with all that weight, I had some more needs.

Then look at what showed up -- 3 copies of my drive & steering system, which was a knock off of Randy's. And strangely there was only 1 other paddle wheel boat that showed up for the day. It's wheels fell off right away, so they didn't get to compete.

Since there were so few of us in the race, the judges asked if we wanted to run again or call it a day. I picked heads up we race again, Randy flipped the coin - and we were on for another race. Only problem is that I blew everything I had in the first race, and so did Randy. In the first race I completed the course 1:21 setting a new world record. Previously Randy held the world's record for fastest class II cardboard boat with a time of 1:41.

My crew were doing their best to entice Randy to either sleep thru the next race, or bang him on the head with the inflatable hammer.

Here we go for our second and final race. At the last turn, I sorta ran into his side and he almost went over. I stopped and backed a bit, just didn't feel right to win that way -- when Randy recovered he made the turn faster and got across the finish line first.

Really worked out good -- I won a race, and he won a race. We both think of it like a tie, and since he has won so many times, he deserves the trophy with the 1st place on it.

I learned a few new things this year and have some improvments which I think can squeeze a few more seconds out of my time, will see what happens next year.... :)




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