Political science student and member of the UTC rowing team Abraham Mako (left) rows the concrete canoe with Chattanooga State Community College student Jack Cawood. Photo by Dixie Edmundson.
On the choppy waters of the Tennessee River, onlookers watched University of Tennessee at Chattanooga rowers race a student-built concrete canoe against a traditional rowing shell.
On Nov. 16, the “Athletes vs. Engineers” event showcased the skills of the UTC Department of Civil Engineering and UTC Rowing Team in a 500-meter race.
Chris Frishcosy, the UTC College of Engineering and Computer Science civil engineering lab director, serves as the advisor for the department’s concrete canoe project.
The concrete canoe team has become a campus staple and achieved strong results at competitions over the years. Frishcosy said the difference with this project is that students get to see the canoe through to completion.
“It gives them a hands-on learning experience,” Frishcosy said. “They go through the engineering curriculum and there are some projects, homework assignments, maybe they do a research project, but very little produces a product. This is one of the activities we promote and engage in heavily. They produce a product that needs to function.
“For their engineering side of it, they have to design, build and then test, which does wonders for their experience. In college, you can design everything on paper that you want, but you’re going to hit hiccups throughout the design process.”
The concrete canoe team traditionally competes against other similarly designed boats from universities across the Southeast in events hosted by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
“I’m very proud of the work that we do in concrete canoe,” Frishcosy said. “I hope that we improve our awareness not just within the University, but within the city of Chattanooga—which is why we’re trying to make it a larger event and bring people out.”
Michael Kinsey, a senior mechatronics major and UTC crew member, helped prepare Frishcosy to row a standard rowing shell at the Chattanooga Rowing Boathouse.
The event, organized in less than a month, was intended to showcase the skills of the two representatives on campus.
Kinsey, a coach at Chattanooga Rowing for the past three years, said this is an opportunity to showcase the talented campus organization.
“I want people to see this awesome sport because it is,” Kinsey said. “It’s a very integral part of the history of Chattanooga, if not what rowing has directly done in Chattanooga, but the people and the lives that rowing has touched.”
While coaching, he has helped both younger students and individuals in their 80s. Before the event, Kinsey taught Frishcosy techniques that all rowers practice.
“Surprisingly, you’re working on the same things that everyone’s working on,” Kinsey explained. “That’s true for rowers beginning, people who have been rowing for 30 years, collegiate athletes or Olympic athletes. Everyone’s working on generally the same thing, which makes my job really interesting.”
Frishcosy had a crash course from Kinsey prior to the competition.
The day of the event, Frishcosy and his students answered the crowd’s questions about how they built the working canoe. He used concrete’s versatile uses for different purposes as examples to answer questions.
Sidewalks and nuclear facility walls both use concrete, he explained, but different types.
“One of the considerations of a mix design is always density,” he explained. If something is going to float independently of any additional support systems, it’s got to be less dense than water based on the volume displaced. Low density is always a target, but we don’t always reach the minimum. If your density is higher, that’s going to increase the weight of your canoe.
“The second thing is pouring the canoe—and forming it is a challenge in and of itself. Keeping it standardized throughout the pouring process. As we’re padding on the concrete, keeping the layers a consistent thickness all the way around the canoe is a challenge.”
The UTC concrete canoe was estimated to weigh 1,200 pounds.
After a multihour delay, the 500-meter race commenced on the choppy water with the traditional rowing shell winning in a landslide.
Abraham Mako—a junior political science major at UTC, member of the UTC rowing team, and founder of the Chattanooga State Community College rowing team during his time there—crewed the concrete canoe after some modifications.
Mako and the UTC rowing members added weight to the canoe to address issues in competitive rowing. After the weight was added, the canoe was estimated to weigh 1,200 pounds.
“It was sitting really high in the water,” Mako said. “We didn’t quite have the rigging worked out, so it wasn’t our best rowing. It was still a ton of fun. The conditions today were about as bad as they could get.
“I’d love to work with Chris and give him a couple of recommendations for some adjustments we can make for next year to how we solve our rigging problem.”
Kinsey believes that Frishcosy may have found a new hobby.
“It was a blast,” Kinsey said. “Chris and I did a learning session yesterday and we ran into the same problem of the water not wanting to cooperate. Today was his first time actually rowing out on the water. He got less than 500 meters to learn the stroke and how to put the blade in and out of the water. After that, his second 500 meters of rowing life was a race against a concrete canoe.
“He might be a lifelong rower after that.”
Frishcosy said he had fun learning from the UTC rowing members.
“I didn’t care who won,” he said. “Either way, it’s great publicity for our organization as well as the rowing team.
“We got to see the durability of our canoe and get advice from the rowing team on how to shape the canoe and what might function better with rowing next year.”
Learn more
College of Engineering and Computer Science
Concrete and steel: Civil engineering students build canoes and bridges in national competition
Photo gallery by Dixie Edmondson
