Blue's Clues: Hope Floats in Forest Park

While we were on our way to the History Museum, we were distracted by several homemade boats and a sign that said "Hope Floats" Cardboard Boat Races. How could you not stop? We decided to forego our Vatican Splendor exhibit plans and stop to watch the races!

We quickly learned that this was the first annual cardboard boat race sponsored by Wings of Hope which is the oldest and largest volunteer Humanitarian aviation-based charity in the world. From its headquarters here in St. Louis, the charity organizes and maintains over 3,000 volunteers at 153 bases in 43 countries. Their mission is provide children and family members of low-income patients with free air travel to hospitals across the world.

The race took place in a man-made lake area filled with fountains at the base of Art Hill. Art Hill is best known for its sledding options during the winter months.

We walked around and took pictures of several of the boats prior to the races began. There were 3 categories - under 12, 12-17, and 17+

The pirate boat that you see in this photo had some difficulties with entering the boat. The sails made them too top heavy and they kept flipping. Ripping the sails off made for a quick fix and they easily caught up with their competition.

Definitely one of the best designed boats. The group involved with the Banana Boat even had matching yellow t-shirts printed for the event.

The USS Grandma won the award for Most Unsinkable. It may have taken them forever and a day to get there, but they crossed the finish line!

Can you tell which boat engineering students designed? This was by far the best design in the competition. They even printed out pictures of the instrumentation panels to attach inside to make it look as realistic as possible. It was impressive.

It did have some issues with being top heavy and swayed pretty badly until the racers got it under control. They were able to come back and win their heat, but finished outside of the Top 3 in overall time.

The poor Engineered Lubricant boat. His pontoon boat concept was good in theory, but I forget how many times he flipped trying to get on it. Finally, he just hopped on and kneeled between the 'pontoons' and paddled! It actually worked pretty well!

The other side of the Hope 4 The Best boat said But Prepare 4 the Worst. It was cute! They ended up finishing in second place in overall time. We did learn that if we ever build a cardboard boat, it will definitely be a canoe shape. Both of the canoe shaped boats performed very well.

Another one of the really well designed boats. It actually performed quite well. We were excited when they paired it and the Banana Boat up to race each other. The two stayed neck and neck for most of the race and even rammed each other a few times during the turn around the second fountain!

This boat was all pink and adorable. I forget the exact name, but it was the princess something. They even hung a crown over the back of the boat and both racers wore tiaras. They also creamed the little boy that they raced against in their heat.

You can see the little rescue boat trailing along. He stayed close when the boats were struggling. I was actually surprised by how well the boats stayed together. I was expecting to see many more designigrate in the water, but most held together well. Only one really fell completely apart and it was right at the end of the race. Not to fear, we did see several people end up in the water as many racers had issues with successfully enterting their boats at the start of the race!

The little purple race car was cute!

This was easily one of the most entertaining races. The boat was initially designed to fit two people - a guy and a girl. After flipping over several times at the starting line, the girl gave up. Undeterred, the guy tried a new approach. He took off running and just dove into the boat. It was a good effort, but the boat still dumped him. That's okay. He just climbed on top and rode the boat upside down. As you can imagine, he was nowhere near the winning time!