The much-anticipated Coast Guard Festival cardboard boat race hit choppy waters this week when its new sponsor, the Tri-County Cardboard Recycling Initiative, admitted they were “deeply disappointed” by the entire concept of people building seaworthy vessels out of their product.
We gave them this cardboard to recycle, not to float around in it like drunken pirates,” said recycling director Jeff Maloney during a press conference by the dumpster behind City Hall. “Every time one of those boats sinks, that’s perfectly good corrugated material ruined. Do you know how many pizza boxes we could’ve saved?
The annual race, a crowd favorite, typically sees dozens of contestants duct-taping together soggy cardboard creations, only to capsize 30 feet from shore to the delight of thousands of spectators. But this year, the festival’s eco-friendly sponsor wasn’t laughing.
I watched an entire kayak disintegrate before my eyes,” Maloney continued. “That could’ve been a cereal box reborn as another cereal box. Instead, it’s fish food. This isn’t recycling. This is chaos!
Contestants, however, defended the event.
If cardboard wasn’t meant to be a seaworthy material, why does Amazon ship me everything in it?” asked race participant Kyle Newton, 22, of Grand Haven. “This is just applied science.”
Festival organizers admitted they didn’t think through the sponsorship match.
“We just saw the words ‘cardboard’ and ‘boat’ and thought it was a slam dunk,” said marketing volunteer Carol Simmons. “We didn’t anticipate the recycling people would get… emotional.”
By the end of the day, the Tri-County Recycling Initiative threatened to pull its support unless participants promised to dry out their boats after sinking and sort them into the correct curbside bins.
At press time, sources confirmed next year’s sponsor will likely be Gorilla Tape.
