PART 3: Sink or Float

Masco wood shop teacher Ralph Arabian called out to his students, telling them they weren't supposed to have gone into the water of Stiles Pond. He was too late.

Mike Nay's rowboat was already in the water and, seconds later, Nay was too

The rest of the day wasn't quite as disastrous, as students learned to control the ultra-tippy rowboats they'd built from a single sheet of plywood in the last few months at Masconomet Regional High School. As a hedge, some filled the bottoms of their boats with wet beach sand, a ballast intended to keep them from rolling into the sunlit waters.

Masconomet students test their boats on Boxford's Stiles Pond,.

The students kept experimenting with the boats as they raced them Wednesday morning. The first roll of duct tape was consumed within two hours, leading to bursts of panic. Boxford firefighters later volunteered another roll from their stash in an ambulance. Brooks Pellerin, a freshman from Boxford, seized the tape and the opportunity.

Plastic bags covered the bow and stern of his boat. Both were duct-taped into place, enough to keep the water out and allow Pellerin to win several back-to-back races in his boat, Nice Bass.

Some of the students said it wasn't normal for high school students to build a boat with their own hands and then to ply them, successfully, on the open water.

Kelly Houten, a junior from Middleton, said she found herself relaxing and enjoying the chance.

"I was really looking forward to this, maybe even more than prom," said Houten, 17. When she first heard of the boat project, she thought they might get tested in a little pool.

"It's very exciting we got this opportunity, because you don't get to do this in any other wood tech class," she said.
Others were more nervous. Before he or anyone else hit the water, Topsfield sophomore Mark Foreman predicted certain disaster. He said he was "probably going to die because I'm going to be rowing a boat that I built." He pointed out that he'd been "volunteered" for the competition by teammates who included junior Ethan Sisolak and team leader Eric Munson.

When the boat, called "Sinker," worked | mostly, anyway | Foreman survived.

"I am surprised, very surprised, because it didn't sink and I built it," he said.

Sisolak and Munson relaxed on the sandy beach, refusing to get on board but developing an advanced bilge evacuation system.

"We got about six coffee cups in there," Sisolak said.

Junior David Hathaway of Middleton built a boat of his own last semester, then worked as a teacher's aide this semester. He shared words of encouragement from the waters of Stiles Pond.

"Munson, your boat sucks!" he called out.

Junior Josh White of Middleton hopped on Munson's boat with Foreman for a back-to-back race with another boat. As water rushed into the bow, the boat accelerated away and downward at the same time. It all happened fast enough for them to proclaim victory.

"We won before we sunk in!" White crowed.

Boxford Fire Lt. Greg Beardsley, who helped ensure the races went safely, said the boat-building class was a far cry from his days in Masco's wood shop, when he built a clock.

Pellerin, who won races throughout the morning, said Nice Bass wasn't a bad boat.

"It's all about the balance, because if you balance the wrong way you're going in the water, and that was not on my agenda," he said.

Lee Maserian, whose son Jay painted "Chris Craft" on the side of his wood shop boat, was glad to see the students' enthusiasm. An architect, he'd had doubts about whether the boats could be properly fashioned from one sheet of plywood.

"It's amazing they're floating," he said.

PART 2: Putting it together

Five people work feverishly around the table to push their patient back into shape. A leader calls for a clamp, and an assistant scurries away quickly. Ralph Arabian steps back.

"I need a fatter screw, a fatter screw!" he calls. He raises one up triumphantly. "There we go! I've got this nasty fat one."

Masconomet students assemble and tweak the design of their boats.

The surgery isn't delicate, but precision is helpful as Masconomet High School students work to assemble their rowboats cut from a single sheet of plywood. Heavy nylon straps -- the kind used to hold old sofas in the backs of pickup trucks -- squeeze three triangular pieces to form the boat's bow.

Sophomore Andy Soucy of Boxford, the optimist of his group, isn't exactly overwhelmed by the precision of the operation.

"Do you know how much filler we're going to have to use, and epoxy?" he asks. Group leader Colin Hoffman, a Middleton sophomore, has an answer.

"I'll get some Saran Wrap from home," he said.

While the boats are an unusual project for any high school wood shop, Arabian, an engineer-turned-teacher, keeps the mood light even as he works to ensure no Masco students will go beneath the surface of Stiles Pond tomorrow when the boats hit the water. At one point, Arabian says his students will need to bring a drill pondside: If a boat springs a leak in the back, they can drill a hole in the front to let the water drain out, he says.

A few weeks later, Arabian is helping Tommy Frontera, a Boxford junior, fix a <3/8>-inch gap in his boat. A few clamps, aggressively tightened, more screws and a few reinforcing blocks of wood close most of the gap and stiffen the structure.

Arabian offers another quip from his years as an engineer: "There's no mechanical problem that can't be solved with ignorance and brute force."

Frontera, meanwhile, is eyeing another problem in his boat. When his boat was twisted together, the piece of plywood that forms the bottom shattered and split, with shards of wood sticking out four inches out into the water. Frontera figured he could sand and putty it back. When the entire side of the boat split, he and his teammates braced the boat with a pair of two-by-fours.

The boat, Frontera said, would be ready for the water.

Junior David Hathaway, who built a boat of his own before helping this semester, heard the boat design could be unstable.

"I'm pretty sure it might tip, but leaking?" he shook his head. "I don't think so."

PART 1: Using a single sheet of plywood,
teens will build working rowboats

Eric Munson of Middleton has been experimenting with boats for most of his life.

"When I was younger," the Masconomet High junior said, "I used to make boats out of household objects and float them down the street when the streets were flooded."

The next thing he floats may well be himself.

An illustration of how the boats will be cut out and assembled. The students are introduced to the project.

Munson is leading a group of three students in building a real boat from a single sheet of plywood. In all, about 10 student-built boats are expected to carry their creators onto a Boxford pond in May. The challenges for wood shop students are daunting.

Sliced from a 4-foot-by-8-foot sheet of plywood, each boat will have a floor created from three pieces of wood glued together, to sides that have to be flexed into place with brute force and strong screws.

"You'll hear it bend together. You'll hear all that," teacher Ralph Arabian told students on the first day. "You'll hear snap, crackle and pop, but it will bend."

Arabian, who was an engineer before he became a teacher, almost continuously tells his students that safety in the wood shop is the most important thing. And when the students hit Stiles Pond, firefighters with a rescue boat — and even a scuba instructor — will be there to help. Still, he plans to have the students test their boats in the shallowest water for about 10 minutes as a way of verifying there are no leaks.

Munson's group | including junior Ethan Sisolak and sophomore Mark Foreman, both of Topsfield | wondered about another group who neglected to grab the bottle of waterproof wood glue, using regular stuff instead.

Caulking made from the woodshop's own sawdust and wood glue will help fill some of the worst areas. A layer of paint should provide extra insurance, Arabian told them. Attention to detail | the students are supposed to sand the boats longer than they build them | will help reduce errors.

"See how he sealed that up?" Arabian said, pointing to someone else's example of a one-sheet boat. "He actually used whole-wheat flour and epoxy resin. Believe it or not, we don't have the money for that."

The wood for the boats was donated by two Home Depots, a Lowe's and Johnson Lumber in Amesbury, Arabian said. Students are free to paint their boats in a color other than white, but they'll need to bring their own paint, he said.

The old line about "measure twice, cut once" becomes even more important when the project is supposed to be watertight. Students find shortcuts, too. Munson stood in heavy work boots on three just-glued pieces of wood, until someone could grab long clamps. He later turned to the drill press to slice a dozen holes from the oar, making it lighter. The team used chisels and rasps to carve rounded handholds from the oar, which is being made from a 2-by-4.

Are they nervous about setting to water on boats they built in wood shop?
"No, I can swim," Munson joked. He turned more serious. "It'll hold together. I wouldn't try to make it to London on the thing, but it'll be fine on the pond."
In all, students have about seven weeks to measure, cut, glue, bend, assemble, putty, sand, paint and test the boats.