4. The Trefethen: Making a Cork Boat

Today we did an Adventure that anyone can accomplish around the house in just a few short minutes: we made a cork boat and sailed it down the gutter.

To start, you need the cork out of a bottle of wine. I couldn't find one in any of the kitchen drawers, so I had to open a bottle of wine. I chose a nice Trefethen Dry Riesling, which will be nice in a few hours. Note what time I opened the bottle: 9:54 am. That's how we roll in this house. (Just kidding, Gram!)







So anyway, now that I've stolen the cork out of this bottle of wine, I had two options: drink it or find a makeshift cork. I decided to seal the bottle G-ma style.

Isn't that classy?





Here's Kidlet 2 helping me break into the bottle of wine. Little man knows which tools are important in this house.


And because I know some of you will wonder where Kidlet 3 was during all of this, he was fast asleep.



So now that you have a cork, you also need a penny, a knife to cut a slit in the cork, a toothpick for the mast, a scrap of paper for the sail, and a piece of tape.



Step One: Cut a slit in the cork about 2/3 of the way back, deep enough for half of a penny to fit into the slot.


Step Two: Insert the penny. Make sure it is straight or otherwise your ship will capsize. I have named our ship the Trefethen.



Step Three: Insert a toothpick for the mast.



Step Four: Tape a scrap of paper cut into a sail shape to the toothpick. The sail is solely decorative. I used a scrap from an Office Depot circular envelope because it was pretty.

So there is your finished boat. Now it's time to go sailing!


Because it was raining and hailing and pretty darn cold out there, we dressed up good and warm and we sealed our camera into a Ziplock bag to keep it from getting wet. Please excuse any blurry pictures. Ziplocks keep the camera dry but aren't exactly conducive to really great photojournalism.


Here's my little Adventurer, wearing his big sister's Hannah Montana boots. Shhh, don't tell. He thinks they're pretty.

See how crazy wet it was out there today? We're lucky we didn't melt!

Now, with a little fanfare, chuck your ship into the gutter to see how she floats.


Oops.

Too bad for the Trefethen. It looks like either her rudder wasn't installed straight enough, causing her to list and capsize, or the water in the gutter wasn't deep enough, causing the rudder to scrap along the pavement and the ship to run aground. Whatever it was, our ship mostly just tipped over, the sail got really, really, wet, and it floated away down the street.

So we brought the Trefethen inside, filled a Tupperware with water, took the camera out of the Ziplock, and played on the kitchen floor.





Obviously, we still had lots of fun. After a few minutes, the paper sail melted, and the tape fell off, but Kidlet 2 didn't seem to mind having a sail-less ship.

Time to clean up!



What's for lunch, Mom?

This was a great adventure. We had everything we needed around the house. It only took about 5 minutes to make our boat, and Kidlet 2 was so excited with the construction process. He really loved throwing the ship into the water. Older kids would have tons of fun making their own ships and having races. I am looking forward to putting the Trefethen into the bath!

Utils of Happiness: 8/10 (would be 10/10 with a drainage ditch and a sunny day)
Cost: Free!