Yaletown Entertainment filmed 13 episodes of Weird Wheels and the Port Townsend race was one of those episodes.

Simple attempts to patch the suspected source of the leak failed. This left only one option—strip off all the styrofoam and start over.

At the left, Bob begins the messy, tedious, and downright not very fun job of removing the laminated sheets of blue foam.

Several weekends later, Bob and Sherry managed to remove all the original foam, ground away rusty parts, and pounded out a few dents.

The last time the vehicle looked like this was 1996.

To contain the spray foam (it expands as it cures), foam tori needed to be constructed. At the right, you see one torus. Leftover foam pieces were used to provide support at each seam. Each torus is made of 6 sections, cut to match the diameter and arc of 8' wheels.

At left, two tori are held in place with none other than duct tape.

Two-inch pink foam sheets were used to construct the tori.

The cavity at the left was gradually filled with expanding spray foam. The depth is 16" and tapers from 7" at the inner most ring to 3" at the rim. The spokes were inside the pink tori. This would increase flotation, at least on paper, so that even with a mud load, the vehicle and its artwork would be stable and stay afloat.

The new foam adhered to the pink tori and created a very solid foam core.

This chore, we should mention, was done with one week to spare.

There was the matter of a large (10' wingspan) butterfly to make. The inspiration came from a presentation by Bill Burbach at one of the Kinetic Workshops. Bill works with folks such as Michael Curry in the design and making of huge, animated puppets. Sherry wanted to work with fabric and a giant butterfly offered her a challenge.

The body of the butterfly needed to be light. The weight of the ostrich from Running Mate taught Bob that much. So styrofoam was minimized (at left) to be covered by lightweight fabric. At right, Bob mills holes in PVC pipe that will become butterfly support.

Large butterfly…check!

Animated butterfly…check!

Flicking proboscis…check!

Reason for butterfly…uhhhhh.

Clearly we needed a reason to have a butterfly…

"In the real world, what do you associate with butterflies?"

"Nets."

"Who uses the nets?"

"Kids."

Hence, Andi was created and designed to sit atop the third wheel.

Using a hot wire and sharp knife, Andi was re-sized to fit into a set of used kids clothes from a local second-hand store. Her net was made from iridized white mesh fabric and affixed to the handle of net that was missing the net. Her hair was cut from brown yarn and carefully attached using hot glue. She was painted the same color as our house—red-brown and this gave her a nice bronze tan. We didn't put a face on her, her hat mostly covered her face, anyway. Shoes are fabric and rick-rack hot glued into place. Stiffened fabric butterflies were glued onto her hat.

Plastic grass was attached (spray foam) to the flotation for the third wheel. Two years ago, this was Dung Ho's beetle head.

Shown here (left to right) are Gabi, Peter, Michael, and Dwight (Bob's CalTech classmate) Carey; Barb (Bob's sister, front row) Hargand; Sherry (Bob's wife); Bob (the pilot and builder); and Kerry (Bob's long-time friend, and co-builder) Montgomery.

Monafly's wings are in the "folded" position in this photo. The wings are fashioned from black, rip-stop nylon (The Rain Shed is a great resource). Lightweight orange cotton and iridescent white (100% polyester) make up the coloration of the wings. The white was affixed to the rip-stop using double-sided fusing. The orange was sewn onto the nylon. The pattern was created by enlarging a photo of a monarch butterfly onto paper.

The body (see assembly above) is covered with lightweight polyester fabric that looked hairy. The total weight of the butterfly (wings and body) is under 7 lbs. This was a vast improvement over the ostrich of Running Mate which weighed 25–30 lbs.! Thanks again to Bill Burbach for his sound and creative advice.

The team won Committee's Choice Award on the first day of the race. $50 in da Vinci food court script was enjoyed by the entire team.

The second day includes a safety check. You must have various items on board and demonstrate that you and your vehicle can start, stop, float, etc.

Next comes the parade through town and campus.

The parade is followed by a brief respite and then the race begins. The course is about 8 miles and includes a sand dune and hilly terrain.

At right, the scissor jack contraption that lifts the butterfly above the wheels and opens the wings simultaneously, can be seen.

The "flower" covering over the wheels was made by reusing red netting last seen on one of the Tomato versions. This time, yellow, macromesh (The Rain Shed) was sewn on the older red netting. The center of each flower included a life-size face of, who else, Mona Lisa. The rim of this piece was decorated with leftover Tomato, Dung Ho, and Running Mate notions.

Andi warmed everyone's heart.

The wild, tie-dyed t-shirts were purchased from Sarah's shop (Expertees).

The mud proved to be doable for Bob. However, he had to go out on the handlebars a couple of times. It was deep and sticky in that bog. Some vehicles had to be towed out by their pit crew or mud-happy spectators.

This bath took place while a few vehicles were still struggling to get to the other side of the nearby mud bog.

An added advantage this bath offered was to let Bob (for the first time) try out the flotation of the new, improved wheels.

Next time, we'll plan better and bring brushes. The sandy, rocky mud was a bit rough on the hands.

This portion of the race is about a mile downstream. Monafly was stable and floated level. Hooray!

Bob exited the river with no problems.