WELDING, PHYSICS STUDENTS JOIN FORCES TO BUILD BOATS

While there was no argument over which boat supported the most weight during a competition held outside the welding shop at Ukiah High School this week, there was some arguing about whether or not the winning vessel was even a boat.

“We were told to make something that looked like a boat,” declared one student as it became clear that the very boxlike entry was going to win.

“It’s a barge,” said Riley Olson of the vessel he built with fellow student Johnny Bird. When asked what the strategy was in choosing the rectangular shape, Olson explained that it was mostly a matter of making their vessel as big as they could.

“We were given two-squarefeet of metal, and we tried to use every inch,” he said of the creation which held nearly 30 pounds of weight before sinking into the tub of water placed outside the welding shop Tuesday morning.

Welding teacher Jay Montesonti confirmed that each student team was given two-square-feet of metal to create a boat of any size they wanted.

Their only other instructions were to have a mast, he said, and to not include “pontoons (or flotation devices) of any kind.”

Once the welding students had fashioned their boats, students from Greg Martin’s Physics class helped evaluate their seaworthiness and ability to support weight.

And why did the boxy barge end up winning? Senior Bright Gipson explained that it was all about the vessel’s starting position in the water.

Because while the narrower shape of the other boats had them cutting through the surface of the water, making it easier for them to dip even lower every time more weight was added, Gipson said that the barge started higher, and took longer to sink.

But sink it finally did, though it supported 29 pounds before finally taking on too much water, while its nearest competitor held only 18 pounds before sinking.

And what did Olson and Bird win? “They get extra credit,” Montesonti said.

This week’s boat-building competition was a much smaller affair than what is typically held

at Ukiah High this time of year, as usually Physics students would be racing their much larger cardboard boats in the school pool. Unfortunately, Martin said those races had been cancelled during the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and had yet to be revived.

“But we hope to bring them back,” he said.

PHOTOS BY JUSTINE FREDERIKSEN — THE UKIAH DAILY JOURNAL Ukiah High welding teacher Jay Montesonti adds weight to a boat during a competition held outside his shop Tuesday.

The less-boxy shape of these boats had them sinking faster than the barge-like boat that won, Physics students explained.