thunder wrote:
On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:20:34 -0700, Tim wrote:


Every year, Vincennes University the engineering students, have a
build-you-boat contest, in which you are given so much cardboard, so
much tape so much of whatever, and you have to build a craft to float
or actually race paddle race on the Wabash river. It's interesting to
see some of the stuff they create that actually works. Alot of it
doesn't though.

Reminds me of some of the stuff the Cubans were floating over on back in
the '90s. I remember one raft made out of rebar. The whole thing was
wrapped in a blue poly tarp, and used a couple of chunks of Styrofoam for
floatation. Frankly, I wouldn't have crossed a small pond in it, let
alone 90 miles of ocean. Guts, desperation, or both.

In Key West I saw an innertube with a door strapped to it. Supposedly it
was used to make the 90 mile crossing from Cigarland.

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:45:14 -0400, Jim wrote:


Reminds me of some of the stuff the Cubans were floating over on back
in the '90s. I remember one raft made out of rebar. The whole thing
was wrapped in a blue poly tarp, and used a couple of chunks of
Styrofoam for floatation. Frankly, I wouldn't have crossed a small
pond in it, let alone 90 miles of ocean. Guts, desperation, or both.

In Key West I saw an innertube with a door strapped to it. Supposedly it
was used to make the 90 mile crossing from Cigarland.

In the early '90s, there was a Cuban restaurant in Miami, that had a
collection of rafts that had made the journey. Most all of them were
damn scary. Now, apparently, they are a thing of the past.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/exile/vanishing.htm