Announcements

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2007 South African Concrete Boat Race
Victoria Lake, Germiston
September 15, 2007

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"Wisconsin Wins in Netherlands!
September 7-9, 2007

Congratulations to Wisconsin's Six Pack!

The comments below were secured and paraphrased by ConcreteCanoe.org's webmaster, John Gilbert, while communicating with Wisconsin team member, David Blodgett (video)...

  
The 2007 NCCC Champions (UW-Madison "Badgers") represented the U.S. on September 7-9, 2007 in the Netherlands (see below) and placed first overall!

The width of the sprint course, about 30 feet, required very good control of the canoe to avoid people running into the walls or each-other.  The race start was under a bridge so teams had to duck and could not really paddle.  Half way through the course there was another similar bridge that presented a bit of an overhead obstacle.  A low wall on the right side of the course led to a large field and a much taller wall on the left was bordered by a walkway along the entire length of the course.

The race format was elimination based.  In the first round everyone competed with three boats in the canal at a time.  The winner moved on to the quarter finals.  There was a half final and a final race.  The categories of racing were all tandem (two person) putting Wisconsin's well rounded design... able to handle two, three, or four... at a bit of a disadvantage.  There was a men’s, women's, and coed category.

In their first race, Wisconsin came out from under the bridge slightly behind the other boats.  The team on the far side from them veered left, pushing another boat in the center toward the Badgers who were on the far left.  The Badgers were hit on the right side and pushed toward the wall.  But, after putting on the breaks momentarily, Wisconsin was able to pull behind the other teams to the right, pass them, and take the race decisively.

Most of the rest of the races were similar.  Wisconsin's canoe sustained a large amount of aesthetic damage, but structurally, it faired beautifully.  After a brutal T-Bone in one of the coed races, the team wasn't sure if the side would be cracked from top to bottom but they breathed a sigh of relief after finding that the damage was mostly aesthetic.  Crack propagation was not visible, and the only concrete that broke off was that placed for aesthetic purposes while finishing the canoe.

UW came away with awards for best construction for their design report and general canoe construction; and, best innovation for use of lightweight environmentally sound concrete to achieve great stiffness and strength.  In the races, the Badgers took first in all but the women's endurance which they did not place in.

  A summary of the results for Wisconsin appears below.

Men's 200m 1st place
Women's 200m 1st place
Coed 200m 1st place
Men's 400m 1st place
Women's 400m did not place
Coed 400m 1st place
Construction 1st place
Innovation 1st place
Overall 1st place!

This year's competition was hosted by the University of Twente and run in cooperation with the Netherlands Concrete Association (Betonvereniging).

2007 Beton Kano Race Website

Blog - National Concrete Canoe Competition Travel Log
by
David Blodgett

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2007 Japanese Nationals - 13^th All Japan Challenge
Saiko , Japan
August 25, 2007

   
Concrete canoes racing in Saiko, August 2006.
(Coverage and Video - 13 min... You'll love it!... click on gallery)

 The 13th Annual All Japan Challenge took place recently.  This year's event was sponsored by the Kanto branch of the Japanese Society of Civil Engineers.

2007 All Japan Concrete Canoe Website

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2007 National Concrete Canoe Competition
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
June 14-16, 2007

Wisconsin "Badgers" Win  Fifth National Title

  
The Badgers did it again!

Continuing their tradition of concrete dominance for the fifth year in a row, the University of Wisconsin-Madison captured the ‘America’s Cup of Civil Engineering’ at the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) 20th Annual National Concrete Canoe Competition in Seattle.  Wisconsin's technical skills, ingenuity and dedication propelled them to victory in their 19.11-foot-long, 179-pound, natural gray canoe canoe called "Descendent."

2007 Vital Statistics - Boats and Presentations

ConcreteCanoe.org - "2007 NCCC Coverage" - links to official sites, conference qualifiers, racing venue, pre-national photos...  top picks and commentary for 2007 plus photos of boats, questions posed during oral presentations, race coverage, and commentary from the 2007 ASCE National Concrete Canoe Competition in Seattle, WA.

Florida finishes second overall and nearly nips Wisconsin on the pond.
Race points... "Badgers" @ 22.9 points; "Gators" @ 21.9 points

Racing conditions were good under cloudy skies with winds from the Southwest at 10 mph.

The University of Florida paddled into second place overall with the blue, orange and grey, 135-pound, 19.105-foot-long Gladigator; and the University of Nevada, Reno finished a close third with the white and blue, 177-pound, 19.11-foot-long Cerulean... read all about it here.

Co-Ed Final.  From front to back: Michigan Tech (4), Cal Poly-SLO (1), UW-Madison (3), and Florida (2).
Times: Poly 1:14:71; Florida 1:14:81; UW-Madison 1:14:94; Michigan Tech: 1:15:79; UW-Platteville: 1:22:35.

As mentioned in "The Front Line" ... I thought that the Florida Gators would give the Wisconsin Badgers a run for their money on the pond.  So...

The question was: How well will "Gladigator" stack up to "Descendant"?

"A Comparison of Hull Designs"

Twenty-two (22) teams competed in the 2007 National Concrete Canoe Competition.

The Wisconsin "Badgers" strut their stuff on their table top display.

  
The Florida "Gators" place second overall after weighing in (left) and getting a thumbs-up in the flotation test (right).

The University of Nevada-Reno demonstrated their pre-stressing technique on their cross sectional display.  The team placed third overall in the competition.

Western Kentucky who finished fourth overall provides some entertainment during the product judging... with a concrete guitar.

  
 Skye Orvis demonstrated her artistic talents on Cal Poly-SLO's canoe.  She created and stained dozens of individual caricatures on a fiberglass scrim that her team grouted into the bottom of their boat.  Poly finished fifth overall.

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2007 German Nationals - 11^th Deutsche Betonkanu-Regatta
Hanover , Germany
June 15-16, 2007

Every few years, the Federal Association of the German Cement industry (BDZ) in Düsseldorf organizes a special type of spectacular... a concrete canoe regatta.  This year over 90 teams registered and 60 boats competed... with participants coming from a number of other countries including Switzerland and Hungary .

The ingenious craft shown at the left, called the "Drehsden" ("Dreh" is German for rotate) was designed as a paddlewheel and won the open class in 2005.  It currently rests peacefully on the Dresden University campus (center) as a treasured work of art.  But the artist's rendition at the right depicts how "concrete structures may go from the stone age to space age"... and they will... see Team UAH.

     
The action was fierce at the 2007 Germany Nationals (left).  Leipziger won both the men’s and women’s races (right).

Competition Results

Some very interesting entries were showcased in the open class (video) and a photo gallery is on line.  Concrete canoes and their paddlers are being taken very seriously in Germany.  The top three finishers in both the men's and women's races automatically qualified to paddle against the world champions at WM 2007 in  Duisburg, August 8-12, 2007.  With only one year to go before the Summer Olympics (Beijing, August 8-24, 2008), this will be the largest field yet... with teams representing 80 different nations.

  
Concrete canoeists paddle with world champions... Can they qualify for Beijing?

  
Concrete canoes on the Neckar in Heidelberg, June 2005 (Regatta History - Dresden)

2007 Deutsche Betonkanu-Regatta Website 

For translation of other articles into English... try typing the string "Beton Kanu" into your browser and click "translate this page" to the right of the hits when you reach your favorite search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.).  You'll get a whole new perspective on concrete canoeing.

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2007 Canadian Nationals
Queen's University - Kingston, Ontario
May 10-14, 2007

Université de Sherbrooke Successfully Defends Canadian National Title

Universite de Sherbrooke with "Le Synergie."

The Université de Sherbrooke successfully defended their  title at the 2007 Canadian National Concrete Canoe Competition.  The event was held May 10-14, 2007 and hosted by Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. 

 

The final sprint races were covered live via the web by Canada's Discovery Channel.  The webcast could be viewed all over the world... but re-broadcasts are limited to restrictions and may not be available in some countries. 

This landmark coverage was hosted by "Survivorman" Les Stroud (left) who did a great job.  A wilderness survival instructor, film-maker, and musician, Les' award-winning work has chronicled his knack for getting into the most extreme wilderness situations on Earth, then living to tell the tale. His stories (always caught on film) have seen him appear on TV across North America, including a recent episode of The View.

Next year's competition will be held in Halifax and hosted by Dalhousie University. 

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2007 South African Concrete Boat Race
Victoria Lake, Germiston
September 15, 2007

  
Last year's competition (left) was won by a team from the University of Johannesburg (right).

The racing season begins in Southern Africa this September at the Germiston Lake Club.  The event is sponsored by the Concrete Society of Southern Africa.

2007 South African Concrete Boat Race Website

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Concrete Canoeing Celebrates 35^th Anniversary...

"A brief history of concrete canoeing," by John Gilbert for Concrete Canoe Magazine, Vol. 1 No 1, pp. 6-10 (2006).

If you enjoy our coverage please consider linking to us from your site with...

ConcreteCanoe.org's promotional graphics

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Wisconsin-Madison Posts Top Design Reports from 2006 NCCC

The Badgers have contacted the teams that finished top five in the design report category (Badgers; Drexel; Bears; Nevada, Reno; and, 3CT) at the 2006 NCCC.  The reports are posted on ConcreteCanoe.org's...

  design report page

Way to go Badgers...  We really appreciate your support!

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- In Canada... Concrete Canoe Magazine -

In 2006, alumni from Laval (eight time Canadian National Concrete Canoe Champs - statistics) published the inaugural issue of "Concrete Canoe Magazine."    Their intent was to disseminate knowledge and recent developments in concrete canoeing and to share experiences among concrete canoe enthusiasts and former participants. If you haven't seen the magazine yet, you can download PDF copies of the first two issues... free... by visiting. 

Concrete Canoe Magazine

    
The inaugural issue (left) and the newest edition (right) can are free on line.

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Concrete Canoe Racing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

The University of Sharjah, American University of Sharjah, Dubai Men’s College and Abu Dhabi Men’s College participated in the first concrete canoe contest held in UAE at the Hiltonia Beach Club in Abu Dhabi.

Competition Report (PDF)

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Optechnology Moves One Step Closer to Exploring Cementitious "STARS"

Optechnology's Phase II proposal entitled,  " Strategically Tuned Absolutely Resilient Structures," submitted to the Army's Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, has been awarded.

The company completed Phase I research in conjunction with the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) where Dr. Houssam Toutanji, one of the faculty advisors to the school's ASCE Student Chapter, served as the contact person.  Kirk Biszick, the corporation's chief engineer, notes, "STARS technology was introduced to the concrete canoeing community by Team UAH."

Corporate President and CEO, Dr. John A. Gilbert, explained, "STARS are unique in that their component materials are purposefully stressed and deformed to the largest extent possible to store the maximum amount of potential energy.  The latter may arise as a result of terrorist activities; or, could be purposefully generated by strategically tuning the structure to resonance, then changing boundary conditions as potential energy is converted to work."

According to Andrea Barnes, Optechnology's chief administrative assistant, "During Phase I, we addressed the fundamental relationships between the structure of cementitious composites and their mechanical properties as influenced by composition, processing, environment, stress state, and loading rate.  Consideration was given to damage initiation and progression, failure mechanisms, and life prediction... factors essential for the development of new heterogeneous structural systems." See:

Gilbert, J.A., Ooi, T.K., Biszick, K.R., Marotta, S.A., Vaughan, R.E., Engberg, R.C., "Strategically tuned absolutely resilient structures," Proc. of SEM Annual Conference & Exposition on Experimental and Applied Mechanics, Portland, Oregon, June 7-9, 2005, Paper No. 222, 14 pages.

Optechnology, Inc., located in Huntsville, Alabama, has underwritten ConcreteCanoe.org's domain registration and maintenance costs since this site was launched on August 28, 2001.

Cementitious "STARS" may eventually enhance the performance of things like bionic dolphins.

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Cementitious Composites Targeted for Aerospace Applications

"UAH conducts research to improve aviation safety"  - Congressional set aside awarded to fabricate "smart" aerospace structures from cementitious materials.

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We've reserved this partition for links to announcements of any kind and would like to get one or two schools to volunteer to publish (on the web) a concrete canoe newsletter on their site for ConcreteCanoe.org.

We envision that the host school(s) would write an editorial section and collect information from other organizations.

If you're interested in volunteering, please contact us.  Simply provide an email address to which information should be sent.  We'll make the announcement here, include the link to your newsletter, and give you plenty of credit.  Thanks!

Until we get a volunteer to host the newsletter, please fell free to let us know what your organization is up to and we'll provide a link below.

Typical examples of announcements are:

Joan Buhrman, ASCE, Kelly Mawby, Degussa, Susan Polowczuk, Clemson, "Badger's Determination to Three-Peat Solid as a Rock" June 27, 2005.

ASCE/MBT Press Release - "Badgers Defense of Their Championship is Rock Solid"- official press release for the 2004 ASCE/MBT National Concrete Canoe Competition.

ASCE - "Clemson University Students Provide a "Concrete" Example of How to Win a Canoe Race" - official press release for the 2002 ASCE/MBT National Concrete Canoe Competition.

Team UAH - "Concrete Canoe Competition Becomes Part of U.S. Congressional Record" - Washington, D.C., June 28, 2001.

Team UAH - "Alabama State Senate Passes Resolution Commending UAH on Winning an Unprecedented Fifth Concrete Canoe National Championship" - July 12, 2001.