Our Island Escape Boat Design Contest
Results! Who managed to sail to safety....and win $400 in prizes?
We’ll concede this was an unusual boat-design contest—maybe the first of its kind. But it was a fun exercise and hey, as we noted in this article, it could happen—you just might find yourself stranded on a deserted island and need to cobble together some sort of a boat to escape. Of course, as one reader pointed out, the real challenge might be getting our castaways to leave, as with the present state of the world he wasn’t sure he’d be in any great rush to leave a deserted tropical Island. That concern notwithstanding, it was great to see what everyone came up with.
We offered a list of the various indiginous resources on the island, and the assortment of manmade flotsam and jetsam, and asked reader-designers to be both creative and practical in developing their escape craft. In our scenario, civilization was known to be 200 miles to the south, with prevailing winds from the east.
The judging criteria were simple enough:
• Feasibility
• Resource usage and creativity
• Seaworthiness and expected performance
You can see the orignal rules here.
Our esteemed celebrity judges for this contest were:
Boatbuilder, Shallow Draft columnist and SCA Associate Editor, Marty Loken
Author (Three Years in a 12-Foot Boat , The Five-Year Voyage), SCA contributor, and small-boat adventurer, Stephen Ladd
Small-boat designer, Chesapeake Light Craft owner and CEO, and SCA columnist, John C. Harris
Ultimately we received 10 design submissions—all of them interesting. What surprised us most was how thoughtful contestants were about survival and emergency decision-making more generally. Whether or not their designs were picked as winners, every entry profffered useful advice.
Let’s have a look at the 10 designs again, briefly, then we’ll announce our winners. (Click on the linked titles if you want to read more about a design.)
Design #2 Andre-Francois Bourbeau
The judges were tasked with a tough job, as each design offered an intriguing solution, whether it was a raft, monohull, proa, catamaran or trimaran.
“Considering the ‘given’ that prevailing winds will be from the east,” judge Marty Loken wrote, “I was most drawn to the proa designs, for speed and stability under the assumed wind conditions. I didn’t fully trust the bundled-grass boats, fearing they’d become waterlogged before completing the 200-mile voyage.”
Another consideration was how quickly an escape boat could and should be built? Some contestants tried to set off quickly before being forced to make a life on the island—others spent weeks sorting materials and building.
“How good should we make the boat?” Asked judge Steve Ladd. “A better boat would be safer and faster but take longer to build. We might weaken meanwhile.” Ladd was plenty impressed with a few of the resulting craft. “A couple of these boats are good enough that it would be a shame to throw them away when done!”
Another perhaps less-expected factor were our judges’ acknowledged biases. All three claimed to admire proas, and John Harris wote: “Having notoriety for my proa projects, my prejudices should be clear to all.”
With all of that in mind, let’s get to the winners.
After the scores were tallied, Andre-Francois Bourbeau’s raft took the 4th place spot.
“I admired Andre’s Raft-a-Maran entry,” said judge Marty Loken, “maybe more for his depth of thought and experience on the survival subject than for the actual design.”
Judge Steve Ladd also appreciated the survival skills employed. “This proa/raft gives more thought to how to cinch the bamboo together into a hull. And kudos for the signaling ideas. There are lots of ships and planes around these days in most waters.”
Third place went to Richard Sims’ catamaran entry.
“Richard's entry deserves a prize for energetic creativity,“ said John Harris. “I'm not the only one who'd place his model on a shelf to admire. Notwithstanding his care in the details and form factor, performance will more closely resemble that of a bog-standard log raft. It’d be slow going.”
Steve Ladd was impressed as well with Richard’s explanation of things. “With his detailed narration he’s really putting himself in the situation. With his central keel I think he over-emphasized stability. Good thoughts on clinch rings and rudder. Great construction details.”
Second place went to Skip Johnson’s design #1, a proa.
“Skip’s proa looks fast and able,” wrote Marty Loken.
“Skip submitted two proas,” wrote John Harris, “both of which struck me as well-found and plausible. Also: they're proas.”
Steve Ladd preferred this entry to Skip’s second design. “I think the bamboo hull of his first entry is plenty rigid and a better choice than the Egyptian reed boat.”
And finally, our first place and grand prize winner was Gregg Onewein and his bamboo proa.
“I felt Gregg’s shunting proa was well-conceived, probably faster than most of the others, and he did a good job of describing use of materials, tools, etc.” said Marty Loken. “It was hard not to also like Gregg’s way of describing the challenge and his solutions.”
Steve Ladd wrote: “Gregg Onewein’s entry showed less construction detail, but was probably the best one for forming the bamboo into a strong, well-shaped main hull.”
“While the Editor was careful to remind the judges that ‘this is not an art contest,’ I say ‘pretty is as pretty does’” wrote John Harris. “The neat proportions, from the top of the clever and functional rig to the tip of the steering oar, spoke to me. And the voices said: ‘You know you want to go collect some bamboo from the annoying neighbor’s overgrown canebrake, lash one of these together, and give it a try.’”
Steve Ladd noted the similarities between the first and second place designs: “Skip Johnson and Gregg Onewein have basically the same concept and it's genius.”
“I won't claim that Gregg's and Skip's designs will be fast, by any means,” said John Harris, “It's just that Gregg and Skip are a little less likely to die of their saltwater sores before they make landfall.”
Congratulations to Gregg Onewein and our other winners, and thank you to everyone who participated and commented along the way. Thank you also to our sponsors whose logos are at the bottom of this page. Please support them when you can.
If you’ve got an idea for another design contest we should run, feel free to send us a note or to recommend it in the comments below. We’ll also post a poll below so you can let us know how you would have voted. —Eds
I am currently reading Michener's book Alaska, my word, what a tome (as most of his books are)! Now it is historical fiction, but he describes Baranov's arrival on Kodiak Island in a boat cobbled together after a shipwreck, from driftwood and seal skins, much in the same vein as this contest.