Procrastination. If it were an Olympic event, I'd be a gold medalist.
Jacob is in Cub Scouts, and he really seems to enjoy it. Our local "Den Mother" is a bit of a task master, though, and routinely assigns "homework" to the Scouts that rivals what the school district assigns... which makes the job of getting the child to do the work that much harder.
Today is the first den meeting in almost a month... and Jacob is supposed to bring his Raingutter Regatta Boat to the meeting (not due until the NEXT meeting) for preliminary judging in various categories (Most Colorful, Best Design, Leader's Choice, etc). Needless to say... we didn't even start the boat till yesterday.
Jake really wants to win something. He's eight years old, and not what anyone would call a nautical engineer, so I did my best to design and shape the hull for maximum success in a breath-driven race. I have left the hull as nearly flat as I could, thinking that the less surface area in the water, the less drag produced by the water, with a razor sharp stem and a gently tapered stern/transom line. I have found that the factory placement of the mast is off center by nearly an eighth of an inch, so I compensated by placing the keel and rudder off center by an equal amount, ensuring that the boat rides the surface as level as possible, but with the keel just a little further astern, to keep as much weight aft as possible. This way (I think), when Jake blows on the sail, it will give the boat a bow-down position in the water more nearly to level than if the keel were centered directly behind the mast step. I think the sail of the boat (thin plastic that slides over a dowel mast) will ride as low on the mast as possible, so as to provide as much forward movement as possible with as little pressure on the bow as possible... thus maintaining that level-in-the-water aspect that I think it will need to be competitive.
The child has very little patience for crafting this sort of project... especially since CoD: Black Ops came into the home... but I let him design and paint the boat as he saw fit, with Liz and I entering in only to make sure the worst of his drips and runs were addressed before the paint dried.
The sick aspect of all of this is that so many of the boats that are going to compete against Jake's were NOT made by Scouts... they were made by Scout parents. How many 8 and 9 year olds could have dreamed up a catamaran-design for their boats with no adult consideration? Yet, that is what Jake is up against... people that have split the factory designed hull in two equal parts and fashioned a boat accordingly. I mean, I have sailed boats... real boats... and I understand the basic principles in boat design. I followed the principles that I think functioned best in a boat we owned when I was a young man... a 19' Lightning. Sharp prow, flat bottom, high transom, almost no draft (outside of the centerboard). I'm just not sure my late-starting efforts are going to pay off against some of these other boats, that's all...
I'll let you know how the boat fairs...
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2 comments:
Good luck,I am a life long Scout coming up through Cubs and ending in the Senior Patrol and member of the Order of the Arrow. I remember my raingutter regattas and pine wood derbys and I woulnd't have given them up for the world (win or no win). My boys never wanted to go into Scouting and I find it pretty sad actually but those were some of the best times of my young life.
Thanks, man... we went to the den meeting last night, and found that the date for the regatta had changed to this coming Sunday at 4 PM, which means I won't be able to make it. Liz will have to cheer him on.
The good news is that last night, the scouts brought their boats in and had them judged and Jacob won "Most Colorful Boat". He got a certificate and a $5 cash prize (that I should have applied to his dues... but didn't). It was his color scheme, his paint and sticker design, and all we did was paint the USA on the stern (he didn't like his letters) and sand out between the various coats of color.
So, even if he doesn't win a race, he'll have won something for his efforts.
Oh, and he also brought his Pokemon card collection for a sort of "show-and-tell" session. Many of the boys brought something, but Jake's got the biggest applause and all the boys wanted to see his collection book afterward. He really seemed to like that attention, and I hope it goes a long way to making him some friends at the den meetings.
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