The sixth annual Red Hook Regatta took place at Valentino Pier on July 23, by Nathan Weiser

It is the only 3D printed boat race in the world.

It was a hot summer day and many people came to enjoy an array of activities and watch the 3D printed homemade boats compete in the water with views of the Statue of Liberty. There were many 3D printed boat races and then the need for speed race.

They had a station where people could tie dye Red Hook Regatta shirts. There was an oyster shucking workshop with The Real Mothershuckers, the Brooklyn Public Library and RETI Center had tables with information and the event was DJ’d by Bene Coopersmith.

The boats race in some choppy waves that came in. There was a massive oil tanker cargo ship and NYC Ferry boats that went by in the distance.

The Red Hook Regatta is organized by Pioneer Works and Noah D’Orazio was the producer of the event this year. This was his third Regatta that he has been part of.

His first event was similar to the one this year and the second one was much different due to the pandemic. This one had more of a community focus than previous ones.

“The second one was a digital game jam so we made custom video games with students and people played those games to win prizes because it was in 2020 during the middle of the pandemic,” D’Orazio said. “During this one, we were trying to make it more community centered with more community tabling options. We had more participatory workshops throughout the park.”

Other Pioneer Works staff did lots of community outreach to make the event happen the way it did this year.

D’Orazio’s main focus was on the boat building aspects and tying everything together at the end. He was the boat mechanic and focused on teaching classes to the Harbor School students.

The general DIY race started at 2:00 p.m. with four boats and it lasted for 15 minutes. The second heat started at 2:35 with a five second countdown.

Each boat received a point after their teams’ fishing rod from the pier picked up a brick, supplied by Pioneer Works, from the boat.

The First official 3D printed race started at 3:05 pm. The winner in this category won three points.
There was then a halftime show on the beach from a band called Bombayo, an African derived music and dance tradition developed in Puerto Rico. People danced to the music.

“It is never too hot to dance, that is our medicine,” the drummer said.

After the performance, another 3D printed boat race took place, this time with five boats. The announcer said before this heat that “it’s the coolest summer of the rest of your life.”

Each team tried to get as many bricks picked up as possible from their boat in 15 minutes. The Gowanus Roadsters, who previously won in 2017, won the overall competition with eight points and Everything Must Go came in second place with five points.

All of the boats that were still in tact and survived the previous races participated in a need for speed race at 4:35. After a countdown from three all the boats took off.

Pioneer Works paid for gift cards from Ample Hills Creamery, which has a location in Red Hook. Gowanus Roadsters won a $100 gift card and two others were given out to the second and third place winners.

Niels Brouwers, who won the competition with the Gowanus Roadsters boat, was looking forward to going to Ample Hills later on and getting some ice cream since it was hot outside.

There was a young kid who wanted to know the date of next year’s Regatta since he was really looking forward to participating again. Anyone is encouraged to participate in the Regatta.

“Everything is free for this event,” D’Orazio said. “We try to keep everything free so anybody can do it and we want to encourage people of all ages and all walks of life to participate in the Red Hook Regatta.”

The teams could get creative with their design and one that stood out was the post office team. Their entry was a DIY one and it had a strong aesthetic and was built using a basket.

Pioneer Works reached out on Instagram to get participants involved and many also came from their partnership with the Harbor School on Governor’s Island where they were taught about the process. The Harbor School students raced in the event right before the need for speed race.

“They have a lot of nautical engineering classes in their curriculum,” D’Orazio said. “I worked with a class of Harbor School students for six weeks on 3D design and 3D printing.”

D’Orazio worked on teaching the students about constructing the boats with the creator of the event, Dave Sheinkopf. He is really good with 3D design.

They mapped out the curriculum so they could be done with the 3D design concepts in three weeks. They then did 3D printing, had a day for building, a day for electric and a day for testing.

During the Regatta, Brouwers most enjoyed meeting all the other people at the event. He likes the energy during the afternoon.

He has been in the competition for many years and he has found that one or two people had participated previously but every year there are many new people in the Regatta for the first time. He thinks it is really cool.

“Everyone is enthusiastic about it,” Brouwers said. “Everyone is kind of nerding out and making cool stuff and I like seeing all the different boats.”

Brouwers first found out about the Regatta back in 2016 when he was living in Gowanus. His boyfriend was plugged into what was happening in Red Hook since his art studio was there.

He found out about it after recently moving to New York and he thought he would try it. He really likes building things and it helps that he is a software engineer.

He was able to enhance his boat to get his to go faster than other boats.

“I basically just put a bigger motor in,” Brouwers said. “The motor is bigger than what typically comes in the kit. You get a kit from them but you can also use your own electronics. If you make a boat this big and have a standard size motor, it doesn’t really move that fast.”

He was able to use the free Onshape software to design the boat, and he already had the extra battery that he used for his boat. He drew in 3D the shape of the hull and then he could design the inside.

The components of his 3D boat are basically the same as a remote control car. His boat has a battery and motor but they are not connected directly.

His boat had a speed controller, which goes to the motor and gives it power. If he gives the receiver a throttle, it will know how to tell the speed controller how fast to turn the motor.

The other person on his team was controlling the boat from the pier.

“I was waiting in the water putting the blocks on the boat,” Brouwers said. “He was on the pier by the lamppost, so he could really see everything and I was here putting the boat in the water. I put blocks on every time the boat came back.”

Bio Bus also had a tent with science education that they usually have on buses. They had microscopes, smaller digital microscopes, seaweed found off of the beach and jellyfish in water.

They work a lot with public schools and their main focus is in Harlem and the Lower East Side, but they will go all over the city. The buses started going around the city in 2012 after their founder bought their first bus on Craig’s List in 2008.

They are usually on the bus but during Covid they have done a lot of pop up labs with tables.