Huldenberg (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – A rowboat competition using concrete canoes worked for architectural students from Brussels and students from Hoboken in the Belgian province of Flemish Brabant, as well as Aarschot. Where the striking race is held: the fishpond ‘De Zeemeermin’ in Huldenberg. “A fun project, but also the perfect preparation for the real thing.”
This week, architectural students and high school students put their creative minds together and combined them with solid engineering know-how and good school esprit in their concrete-built canoes as they paddled down the still waters of Huldenberg’s ‘De Zeemeermin’ fishpond, as reported by VRT.
The Concrete Canoe Race, which is now in its second year, and which involved the LUCA School of Arts Brussels, the Damiaan Institute Aarschot, and Don Bosco Hoboken, provided more than just a fun novelty race. The event was a creative task for both the students and the organisers to learn and prepare for upcoming challenges in the construction industry.
“It’s no easy task,”
says teacher Christophe Ryckeboer.
“A canoe like that is incredibly heavy, so the risk of sinking is high. You can only avoid that if you make sure that you displace more water with your canoe than it weighs.”
“In other words, if the weight of the boat were to be crammed together, it would immediately sink, because the weight at that one point is much greater than the amount of water it can displace,”
Ryckeboer explains.
“But by increasing the surface area and the hollow shell, it floats.”
The students and pupils had to make all sorts of calculations to find out how much their canoe could weigh, how much water it would displace and how deep it would lie in the water.
“And after they had calculated everything, they had to put their plans into practice,”
the teacher said.
“They had to make a formwork, feel out the right concrete thickness and reinforce the concrete.”
“So it was a matter of trying, reworking, trying again, and sometimes completely changing the plans,”
says Ryckeboer.
“The end result is also different for each team: some canoes hang half a meter above the water, while others only have 2 centimetres of clearance.”
The teacher, therefore, finds the concrete canoe race the ideal preparation for his students, who will soon have to do everything on their own.
“As soon as they start working, they will also have to deal with unforeseen circumstances, with problems in transporting some parts and calculations that do not work in practice,”
he says.
“This competition prepares them for that in an adventurous way,”
says Ryckeboer.
“And the students and pupils have also really enjoyed tinkering with their canoes in recent months. It promotes the group feeling among the students enormously.”
Second-year students Tara Ceuppens and Emile Bertoe Dewachter agree:
“We had a lot of fun with our team,”
they say.
“Although we did panic a few hours before the start, because our canoe had crumbled in several places when we de-moulded it (removing the canoe from its mould, ed.),”
says Emile.
“So we rushed to the store to get a chemical anchor with which we could repair the canoe,”
says Tara.
In the end, Emile and Tara’s team won the competition.
“I think our trump card is our design,”
Emile thinks.
“We built a narrow canoe. That makes us go much faster than the other teams. And our canoe was also by far the lightest. It only weighed around 90 kilograms.”
What is the history of Who Rows the Fastest in Concrete Canoe Races?
The game “Who rows the fastest with a concrete canoe?”. Competition is a unique event that provides students and pupils the opportunity to design and race canoes exclusively from concrete materials, demonstrating their creativity and engineering abilities. This was one of the many traditions that civil engineering students started in the 1960s, and the first official contests occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Participants should use their knowledge of engineering to build a canoe that combines strength and lightweight characteristics suitable for successful racing.
The process entails a lot of research on cement ingredients, building the canoe and participating in mind-testing races to test performance and endurance. As well as the examination of engineering and creative talents, the event also supports the development of team spirit and project management. Due to its extended outreach, races are today run in many parts of the world, ranging from Huldenberg, where races are held, and students from different schools fight to display their abilities on the water.
