Richard Bush rows the dory he built at the Great New York State Fair on the Fair pond on Labor Day 2017. In 2018, the winner of the Name The Boat Contest will win that dory. Entries may be submitted at the new Maritime History exhibit at the Fair. Photo: New York Sea Grant.

One Great New York State Fair Visitor Will Win a Boat;
Daily Contest Winners Receive Family Pack to H. Lee White Maritime Museum


Credit: Michael Pittavino/H. Lee White Maritime Museum.

Contacts:
 
Dave White, New York Sea Grant, Recreation and Tourism Specialist, P: 315-312- 3042, E: dgw9@cornell.edu

Kara Lynn Dunn, NYSG Great Lakes Publicist, P: 315.465.7578, E: karalynn@gisco.net

Syracuse, NY, August 2, 2018 - The Great New York State Fair visitor who submits the best name for the dory that was built on-site at the Fair last year will win the boat. Those who submit Name-the-Boat entries at the new “Path Through Maritime History: Lighthouses and Lifesaving” exhibit will also have the opportunity to win a daily prize of a family pass to the H. Lee White Maritime Museum at Oswego, NY. The Fair runs from August 22 through Labor Day on September 3, 2018.

Fair-goers will find contest rules and can submit entries at the “Path Through Maritime History: Lighthouses and Lifesaving” exhibit developed by New York Sea Grant and sponsored by the Central New York Boating Industries Association, Central New York Boat Show, Great Lakes Seaway Trail National Scenic Byway, and Great New York State Fair.


(Above, at right) This dory was built at the 2017 Great New York State Fair by Richard Bush. Here it is primed and awaiting the installation of its center seat. (Above, at left) Richard Bush has taught boat building classes at the H. Lee White Maritime Museum for the past 13 summers. Here is a set of finished work by his students of all ages. Credit: Richard Bush/H. Lee White Maritime Museum.

A dory is a small, shallow-draft boat with a flat bottom. A 9-foot-long dory was built by Richard Bush at the NY Maritime Heritage Exhibit and launched on Labor Day at the 2017 Great New York State Fair.

At the 2018 Fair, Bush will build a 12-foot-long strip-built kayak and talk about his techniques with visitors daily 11 am-12 pm, 1-2 pm, and 3-4 pm at the Lighthouses and Lifesaving exhibit.

Bush has been teaching basic boat building to families at the H Lee White Maritime Museum for the past 13 summers. His first experience with building a boat at the State Fair was last year. He built the dory and a stitch-and-glue kayak.

“Some Fair visitors came back several days to watch the process. They were intrigued by the techniques used and that someone could actually use their hands and in less than 15 hours have a useable boat,” says Bush, an Associate Professor in the Department of Technology at the State University of New York at Oswego.

The winner of the Name That Boat contest will be selected from the 12 daily winners and announced at 10:30 am on Labor Day when the kayak built at this year’s Great New York State Fair is launched into the State Fair Pond.

In addition to the boat building demonstrations and dory naming contest, the “Path Through Maritime History: Lighthouses and Lifesaving” exhibit includes an interactive kiosk with information on the more than 70 existing lighthouses in New York, female lighthouse keepers, and the technology of lighthouses, and maritime artifacts associated with the lighthouse and lifesaving service.

Activities at the exhibit include a real-time fish-cam broadcast, and the daily 2-4 pm opportunity for Fair visitors to try operating an underwater remotely-operated vehicle used by the Great Lakes Research Consortium for freshwater coastal research.

For ticket information, directions to the “Lighthouses and Lifesaving” exhibit at the western end of the Fairgrounds and more details about the 2018 Great New York State Fair, visit nysfair.ny.gov.

More Info: H. Lee White Maritime Museum

H. Lee White Maritime Museum at Oswego, NY, is in the heart of the historic Oswego Maritime District and overlooks Lake Ontario. The Museum is spearheading the restoration of the historic Oswego West Pierhead Lighthouse and offers lighthouse tours. The collections at the Museum include numerous artifacts illustrating life on the water and along the shore. At dockside, the Museum is home to the National Historic Landmark LT 5 World War II tugboat, the 1927 New York State Canal System Derrick Boat 8, and the Eleanor D, a commercial fishing vessel built in 1948.  The archives at the Museum feature thousands of historic photographs, documents, publications, ship plans, and maps. The Museum hosts an annual boat building class for families. Learn more at www.hlwmm.org.

More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 33 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University in Long Island, Brooklyn College and Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly. Our program also produces an occasional e-newsletter,"NOAA Sea Grant's Social Media Review," via its blog, www.nyseagrant.org/blog.