Sail into Creativity at Ohio’s Cardboard Boat Museum
Some of the most memorable participants in New Richmond’s annual Cardboard Boat Regatta are immortalized in a former gas station.
It sounds like the start of a joke: What do a Viking ship, a John Deere tractor and the SS Minnow have in common? Actually, it’s a riddle, and the answer would elude most people — unless they live in New Richmond.
That’s where, in 2007, a former gas station became the Cardboard Boat Museum. It’s filled with fun, homemade vessels that have sailed down the Ohio River in the town’s Cardboard Boat Regatta, held every August.
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Editor’s Note: This story was was published in 2017 but was most recently updated in August 2024 to specify hours for the Cardboard Boat Museum. We also noted that Ray Perszyk, who we interviewed for this story, passed away in 2019.
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Cardboard, tape and paint are the only three materials boat-makers are allowed to use in crafting their vessels. If somebody wanted to put a sail on, that can be some other material, as long as the construction of the hull itself is made out of those three things.
The annual event began in the early 1990s ago as an idea dreamed up by longtime residents Jim and Shanna Morarity. By 2017, the regatta was seeing around 70 boats at the starting line, and there are some pretty elaborate creations. One repeat competitor, an engineer for Ford Motor Co., designed boats that look like hot rod cars, the head of a walleye and even an outhouse.
RELATED: Witness the Soggy Spectacle of the Cardboard Boat Regatta
“We’ve had airplanes, we’ve had a school bus,” the late Ray Perszyk, organizer of the annual regatta, told us in 2017, “and a lot of this stuff is in the museum.”
More than 30 boats are on display at the museum, which is open Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Tuesdays from 4 to 7 p.m. year-round. (Visits at other times may be available by contacting the museum in advance.) There’s no admission charge, but donation are encouraged to help support the operation.
“It seemed like a good idea to highlight this stuff and share it with the world,”Perszyk told us. “We’re the world’s only cardboard boat museum, and we’re America’s cardboard boat river racing capital. If somebody wants to challenge it, have at it.” 311 Front St., New Richmond 45157, 513/403-1675, cardboardboatmuseum.com
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