2008 - "Six Shooter"

Overall length of boat: 6.1 m (19.9')      

Net weight of canoe: 67.5 kg (145 lb)

Concrete: 846.4 kg/m³ (52.8 lb/ft³)

Reinforcement: Three Layers of Spatially Separated Un-impregnated
Graphite

Placement: 4^th at Regional

Regional Conference: University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL

National Competition: Montreal, Quebec

Officers:
     P: Matthew Pinkston
     VP: Morris Morell
     S:  Florence Brown
     T: Alex Wyrick
     COB: Josh Burton
     SBC: Travis Morris

Faculty Advisors:
     Dr. John Gilbert
     Dr. Houssam Toutanji

Contact Members:
     Ms. Lori Visone (Goolesby)
     Dr. Teng K. Ooi

Concrete Canoe Project Manager:
    Matt Pinkston

Concrete Canoe Project Engineer:
    Josh Burton

Concrete Canoe Team Captains:
    Alex Wyrick
    Florence Brown

Coaches:
    Sarah Yeldell
    Todd Watts

Professional Training and Development:
    Mr. John Bentley
 
Media Relations:
     Mr. Ray Garner

Technical Editor:
   Ms. Kay Bradburn

 Our competition theme:

We had our sights set on 2008 and were shooting for our sixth national title with... 

Our boat featured a dynamically tuned hull with hydrodynamic properties that changed with crew weight to accommodate five different teams.

We placed our boat and...

  
finished up our graphics for the Southeast Conference in Orlando...

but our team finished fourth behind the University of Florida, Florida Tech, and Auburn.

Alumni Notes...

The 2007/08 stint was plagued with problems.  While building the practice boat, our Canoe Chair nearly lost his thumb while working with a table saw.  This serious accident threw our team into turmoil by severing critical links in our organizational structure… forcing us to make critical decisions never before faced by Team UAH.

The absence of our concrete canoe chair forced us to work together just to complete the tasks at hand.  Individuals, who had previously been in supporting roles, were suddenly cast into leadership positions. After strengthening our safety program, we employed continuous risk management to restore equilibrium, and relied on training sessions to achieve the quality assurance required to construct our canoe.  But there just wasn't enough time to pay attention to details and we were easy game at the regional conference in Orlando.

It was clear from the start that Florida had pulled out all the stops... and this ended up as their strongest regional performance to date.  With a clean sweep of the technical events and races, we expect them to do very well at nationals.

Thanks go our to our administration, corporate sponsors, and alumni for their support.  We really appreciated the help rendered by Jackie Whitaker, Sarah Yeldell, Todd Watts, and Dave Tidwell... and hope to see you all next year!

 We also wish the Gators and Florida Tech the best of luck... and hope that one of these teams are successful in securing a seventh national title for the Southeast.  We're rooting for you!   

Team Profiling...

During this stint, we realized that people are our most valuable resource... and consider ourselves fortunate to have worked with John Bentley, professional training and development consultant from Power2Transform (P2T), to help overcome some of the difficulties that we encountered.

See the most recent  P2T Newsletter

Consider Joining Our 2008/09 Team:

If you haven't become actively involved with Team UAH yet, we need your support.  So, please consider becoming a sponsor.

Back to Competition History

Return to Main