UMaine Engineering Team Advances to National Concrete Canoe Competition
Contact: Will Manion (207) 581-2184; Mathew Kinney (207) 316-6323; Tom Weber (207) 581-3777
ORONO — For the third year in a row, a team of University of Maine students is headed to the prestigious American Society of Civil Engineers National Concrete Canoe Competition to be held in Montreal June 19-21.
The UMaine engineering team was selected as the New England representative to the 2008 nationals after its showing in a regional competition held recently at Laval University in Quebec.
The win was sweet, of course, even if the 27-member UMaine team never got to paddle as much as a single stroke in their 20-foot-long craft, called Spitfire. A combination of scheduling problems and unsafe water conditions forced the cancellation of the racing portion of the competition, so the teams were judged entirely on their written design reports, presentations and the buoyancy of their canoes.
The host team from Laval originally took first in the judging, but was later disqualified from further competition when the ASCE ruled that the university’s international student group had not met all eligibility requirements and thus could not participate in the nationals.
UMaine was then advanced by default to represent New England in the 18-region nationals, dubbed “The America’s Cup of Civil Engineering,” which will run its races in the Olympic Basin on Montreal’s Notre Dame Island.
Mathew Kinney and Adam Jandreau, the team’s junior co-captains and third-year veterans of the competition, learned of the surprising turn of events four days after the event.
“We happened to have a team meeting scheduled for that same night, so we tried to keep it hushed up until then,” Kinney says. “The other team members were absolutely thrilled when we told them. No one could believe it.”
UMaine’s Spitfire, its bow painted with the saw-toothed shark design reminiscent of the famous World War II British fighter planes, is the result of countless hours of hard work and resourceful engineering, says Will Manion, a civil and environmental engineering instructor and the team’s advisor.
“One of the bigger benefits of the competition is that they learn about organization and project management, which involves things like scheduling, procuring materials, testing and refining their designs,” says Manion.
Rather than use a common concrete mix, the students experimented with a number of formulas to find one that was both buoyant and strong enough to hold four canoeists. They chose a mix that incorporated ultralight glass spheres in place of sand, which made it less dense than water and thereby capable of floating.
Although the Spitfire is a hefty 230 pounds, it is light compared with UMaine entries of the 1970s that typically weighed 500 pounds or more.
Before heading to the nationals in Montreal next month, the team members will be actively seeking business and individual sponsors to help defray the $3,000 to $4,000 in personal expenses and trucking costs. They also hope to get in some paddling practice before the big event, where the competition is sure to be tough.
“We’re hoping to finish in the top 10 this year,” Kinney says. “Everyone has worked so hard on this, and it would be extremely exciting if we could pull off something like that.”