Anchors aweigh!

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT BEACH -- It was sink or win for physics students at Corona del

Mar High School on Tuesday when they built cardboard boats and climbed

aboard for the race of their lives.

Teams of three students were given three 4-by-8 pieces of cardboard, two

rolls of packing tape, a knife and one hour to assemble a boat.

Amid laughter, squabbling and frantic cutting and taping, students

managed to create 27 boat-like contraptions.

The first rule of the race, as determined by physics teacher Jackie

Vorona, is that the object made by students must be a boat.

A boat is defined in the rules as a craft that will displace water and

not accelerate downward.

By that definition, some were boats and some were not.

After the hour had expired, students gingerly placed their creations at

the edge of the school’s swimming pool and waited for the signal to climb

aboard. At the signal, they began the frantic journey to the other side

and back.

Each year, Vorona said, about 70% of the boats make the round trip

successfully. The builders of the boats that sink would be fortunate to

already have a good grade in the class, since the assignment is worth 50

points.

It is also one class project guaranteed to garner great attendance.

“I came all three years,” Ryan Jetton said as he taped and cut. “It’s

kind of scary knowing you’re going to sink.”

Unfortunately, Ryan’s premonition -- or lack of faith in his

boat-building abilities -- proved correct. When he and his teammate, Greg

Stampling, climbed aboard their vessel, the “Pooh Canoe,” it promptly

sank.

Others, perhaps, should have had more confidence.

Katy Lewis paddled one of the two boats that tied for first place in the

first of four heats, but didn’t think she would make it.

“Actually, at first I thought it was going to sink -- but it didn’t,” she

said.