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SuperBrick Challenge
By Bruce Hector

What's big, and ugly, has flies and will make you a $1000.00? A Bolger Superbrick of course!

A few crazy boatbuilders and lovers of Phil Bolger and Friends designs have come up with a paying challenge, $887 at today's date (15 May/03), but it's climbing fast, to the first builder to launch and sail a Bolger Superbrick. Why, even at today's rates it's over a grand, in Canadian dollars!

What's a Bolger Superbrick, you say? Why, it's 20 feet of Bolger Box in it's purest form, it's a finger in the eye to proper yachtsmen everywhere, it's a sailing shanty boat! And you can be the first to build one! Featured in "Boats With An Open Mind" by Philip C. Bolger it was an immediate hit with Bolgeristeros everywhere. It had it all: fabulous form, function, floating fun, fantastic roominess inside and out, some might say it had too many F's associated with it. As Phil said, "The joke is blunted if the thing doesn't perform reasonably well"

But no one built one.

That was a crying shame. People everywhere were building homemade houseboats, why there was even a chapter in Russell Conder's "Handmade Houseboats" on the subject. Many were unsafe, unstable, unsafe, ugly, or unlikelely to ever be sold, perhaps all five U's in one boat.

So I created the Superbrick Challenge. I challenged other Bolgeristers on the Bolger eGroup, Michalakistas, and Boatdesigners to join me in pledging some of their hard earned bucks to the first builder/launcher of a Superbrick. And they responded, in spades! Post and counter posts flew, rules were discussed ... and cussed! Soon however a consesus was arrived at, and the rules (liberterians don't need no stinking rules!) ended up being pretty simple.

To win the pledges the builder must;

A: Build a recognizable Bolger Superbrick from Phil Bolger & Friends supplied plans (currently $200) that follows the spirit (as Phil says, exercise creativity ONLY above the waterline!).
B: Sail or wallow (with or without the help of a motor, scull or oars!) around a 1 mile triangular course with the sail up. C: At the owners/builders convenience permit the pledgers to inspect and/or ride in the said Superbrick. Since making friends is the best part of owning a unique vessl (and a Superbrick will lead to MANY dockside conversations, believe me!) this should not be too onerous.

All pledgers agree to being named, with the ammount pledged, regularily on the Bolger list. This will help to ensure that honour is fulfilled, and they actually cough up the bucks when the time comes. As one member of the group said, (it's over 1400 strong now) if we all pledge only $25 someone can build it at a profit!

We all hope some intrepid builder will take up the torch, and get one built. It'll be a real dreamboat.

Bruce Hector
www.brucesboats.com