HEBER SPRINGS — The theme for the 32nd annual World Championship Cardboard Boat Races is “Boat Wars.”
The event, hosted by Scouting Adventures in Leadership and the Heber Springs Chamber of Commerce, will take place Saturday at Sandy Beach on Greers Ferry Lake in Heber Springs. Rich Florczak of Batesville is this year’s organizer for the event, which will start at 10 a.m.
“Our tag line is, “May the paddle be with you,’” Florczak said.
In addition to the boat races, there will be a watermelon-eating contest, a treasure dig and a volleyball tournament.
But something new this year will allow spectators to build their own boats the day of the race.
“This year, we’ve added a ‘day of the race race,’” Florczak said. “We’re going to bring out materials so that the audience, if they want to participate in the race after they’ve watched it all day long, and after we give out the trophies at 3:30 p.m., we’re going to allow them to take the boats that they’ve built on-site and race the course.”
The registration fee will be $60 for the “day of” boat races. That includes the materials, plus loaner life jackets and paddles.
“This is a brand-new thing for the event,” Florczak said. “One of the things is, every year we hear people want to do it and say they just run out of time and don’t get a chance to build a boat. And people are trepidatious about building a boat, anyway.”
Cardboard boat are something that Florczak does with his charity Scouting Adventures in Leadership (SAIL).
“One of the activities I’ve developed over the years is a cardboard boat race,” Florczak said. “I would give people two sheets of cardboard, a sheet of Visqueen and a couple of rolls of duct tape and a razor knife.”
This is part of a team-building activity Florczak does with SAIL. A team of six would have 45 minutes to build a boat, and two of the members would have to ride it in the water.
“I don’t care if you’re a 50-something-year-old adult or a teenager, people loved it,” Florczak said. “It is a fun team-building exercise.”
Florczak said that when he and his family moved to the Batesville area about 14 years ago, they looked for things to enjoy and came across the cardboard boat races. He attended them for years before SAIL was asked to handle parking for the event in 2017.
“We were trying to see all the different things in and around the area — different events and festivals,” he said. “That was an easy one — take your family to the beach, and watch a bunch of cardboard boat races.”
Florczak is complimentary of the Heber Springs people and the way they handle events such as the cardboard boat races.
“After you’ve worked up there with people a little bit and get to know them, people in Heber Springs are so friendly and so warm,” he said. “When you run an event like the cardboard boat races, you get a real appreciation for the way the community comes together for an event like that. It is truly their event. We’re just up there trying to keep all the ducks in a row. The people there help out. To me, that is encouraging.
“When you see what Heber Springs has, it’s something special.”
At some point, Florczak said, he would like the event to run Friday through Sunday.
“I’d like to get it to the point where we have activities starting Friday and running all the way through Sunday so that people can come up and enjoy the whole weekend with us,” he said.
In addition to the cardboard boat races, the third annual Rock the Dock concert series will be featured at the Dam Site Marina, 319 Heber Springs Road, from 6-8 p.m. The concert features the Lowballers. It is the third of four concerts there this summer.
For more information about the race, go to www.heber-springs.com and click on events.
Staff writer Mark Buffalo can be reached at (501) 399-3676 or mbuffalo@arkansasonline.com.