— from Elsie McFarland —

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It was a cloudy day on Thursday, June 9, and the Eastsound water was a little choppy, but members of the OIHS AP Physics Class removed a long sleek Umiak from the HS Physics Lab and transported it down to Crescent Beach. They carried the boat across the sand and kept their fingers crossed as they pushed their AP project into the water, and watched it glide gently across the surf. Cheers were appropriate.

It’s a long haul from the last fall’s AP Class trip to the sawmill. There the class selected a log for the wood most suitable for use in the boat’s ribs and seats. Many winter’s hours followed. Hours of measuring, counting, cutting, sawing, sewing, lashing, tying, sealing. And then comes the test. Will it float?

This is not the first Umiak to have been launched by the students in Brett McFarland’s Applied Physics class. But he, too, keeps his fingers crossed on that long walk to Crescent Beach, hoping for another AP success.

The pictures tell the tale–AP 2016 has another successful launch–and members of the class enjoy a well-deserved paddle on the bay.

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