New canoe links Canada and Belize
La Ruta Maya Belize River Challenge has in just a few years grown into one of the nation’s premier sporting events. This year’s race, aside from its usual complement of young and strong paddlers, will also feature some new technology: a canoe built with a unique blend of multicultural skills. Jose Sanchez reports from the banks of the Macal River.
Jose Sanchez, Reporting
Canoes have been travelling up and down the Macal River for perhaps three thousand years…but the one being built on the bank today, unlike its predecessors, has not been hallowed from a single massive log. Instead, it’s constructed from cedar strips, a technology borrowed from Canada.
Joan Barrett, Boat Builder
“We teach many classes in North America to amateurs who want to learn how to build a boat. We have people coming from all over the world to our workshop in Petersburg, Ontario to learn the techniques. We were very interested to come and share the wood working techniques with the people here at Chaa Creek.”
Ted Moores, Boat Builder
“These are all the forms that we began with and they were set up on a strong back, so the boat was built upside down. The planks were fastened over each of these station molds with staples. You can see how they just follow around the shape that we put into the form or the mold.”
“So once you have the shape defined, it’s a simple matter of putting the plank over the top of the form. Then we put beaded glue in here and we press the next plank down into it, so it becomes glued together. So after all the parts are on, you have your boat. You sand it down nice and put on the fiberglass and that holds it together. It brings out the color of the wood. So it makes it very strong but also very light, and the beauty is just a bonus.”
This canoe is being built specifically for the annual La Ruta Maya River Challenge, which starts under the Hawksworth Bridge in San Ignacio and ends at the Belcan Bridge in Belize City.
Joan Barrett
“One of the people here at Chaa Creek sent us tapes from Channel 5 of the race, so we were able to see what other boats were being used and study them. I think they were tapes of the different segments of the race. We were able to talk to the people here and find out about the river conditions, about the depth of the river, which is very important in considering a design”
Ephraim Ku, Competitor, La Ruta Maya
“What I have heard is that boat will be pretty fast. By going in the race we will try to do our best.”
Rupert Harris, Competitor, La Ruta Maya
“Like this canoe, I think will be a lot faster than the other one I used last year. It’s kind of tough, because we didn’t have any training and maybe this year you might train a little bit. And I think this canoe will move a lot faster than the one we used.”
The canoe will only be as fast as it’s paddlers, but weighing only sixty pounds, it will certainly lend an advantage in the race.
This venture could not come about without the assistance of Chaa Creek’s Mick Fleming, who is one of the project’s financiers. It was his love of boats and the river that got him hooked.
Mick Fleming, Owner, Chaa Creek
“They have brought down twenty-seven years of knowledge of building boats and designing boats from Canada and were prepared to come down and teach not only myself, because I wasn’t going to miss out on one, I always wanted to build a boat, but more importantly, Rupert, Ephraim, Raul and a couple other guys who have been involved on the fringes. They’ve been instructing them how to build boats. The answer is, hopefully this is not a one time boat.”
Rupert Harris
“Ted is a good man and he told me how to work and just do the job that he told me.”
Ephraim Ku
“What I have learned already, I have learnt a lot. I think we could do a boat ourselves.”
Rupert Harris
“You know when you working in this canoe here, you learn a lot. The more you learn, the more you want to build some other canoes.”
Luis Cambranes, Owner, Lea’s Furniture
“This is something that I always wanted to do. My plan is to build another one and maybe advertise it and let the Belizeans know we can do something like this using our local hardwoods or woods. I think there is a good potential to do this in a business and sell it in the Belize market.”
Ted Moores
“When I heard Luis talking this morning about what it meant to him, that really made everything I?m doing here worthwhile. I wouldn?t want to think of this as building only on boat, it?s more like planting the seeds.?
On the seventeenth of December the canoe was taken on its maiden voyage. The proud parents watched as six weeks of labor and workmanship cruise down the Macal. They hope that come next march the boat may be paddled into the La Ruta Maya record books. Reporting for News 5, Jose Sanchez.
Next year’s Ruta Maya Canoe race will be held over the ninth of March weekend.
