Ed Phalen’s first attempt at cardboard boat building and racing in Baldwin ended about as well as expected — it was an outright failure.
The boat was too narrow, and it capsized almost as soon as Phalen climbed aboard the flimsily built vessel at Milburn Creek. He got back in and managed to paddle across the water before his creation began to sink, leaving a passing rowboat to tow him — and what remained of the boat — back to shore.
That might have been the end of cardboard boat racing in Baldwin. However, Phalen figured out how to build a better boat.
Nearly three decades later, Baldwin and Freeport residents have kept the tradition alive. The annual cardboard boat race will return to Milburn Creek on Sept. 13, continuing the event created by Phalen, now 94, that has spanned three generations of his family and drawn hundreds to the waterfront.
Phalen, then president of the Cross Island Motorcycle Club and a member of the Freeport-Baldwin Elks, was initially asked by the Elks to organize a motorcycle event. He didn’t think the club could compete with established motorcycle events, so he looked toward the canal near the Elks Lodge for another idea.
“I said, 'We can go right over the bridge, and we can go into a cardboard boat race,'” Phalen recalled.
Cardboard made sense because Phalen wanted the competition to be accessible.
“It was a poor man’s sport,” he said, explaining that a wooden boat required a workshop, equipment and experience, while a cardboard boat needed little more than boxes and duct tape.
The first race was held with the Elks in 1998, according to Phalen’s daughter, Sonrisa Pastore, a Baldwin native and longtime competitor.
“I just remember the whole entire community coming together and the excitement of building the boats to see who would float,” Pastore said.
Phalen ran the race with the Elks for roughly three years. Even after the lodge lost interest, participants continued to ask whether he would do it again.
Phalen, who sculpted metal as a hobby and made trophies for the race, continued organizing the event for close to 20 years.
Along the way, the race became as much a Phalen family tradition as a community one. Pastore competed alongside her brothers, cousins and neighbors, and later raced with her own children.
Phalen, meanwhile, became a much better boat builder than his first attempt might have suggested.
“My father was an expert cardboard boat builder,” Pastore said. “He just knew from memory how to cut, construct, tape the boat so that it was structurally sound.”
The tradition eventually reached a third generation, with all 11 of his grandchildren competing over the years, Phalen said.
He remained a competitor himself well into his 80s. In what Pastore remembered as his final race before he moved to South Carolina in 2021, Phalen found himself competing against one of his grandsons.
“I basically competed against my grandson for a trophy,” Phalen said. “And I beat him by inches.”
John Cools, the Sanitation District 2 commissioner, was already a familiar face at the race. His children competed, and Cools helped with cleanup. When Phalen stepped away, Cools decided to take over.
“I said, ‘You know what, it’s a fun event. Let me see what I can do to pick this up,’” Cools recalled.
The Irish Pub in Baldwin now sponsors the boat race, covering the cost of trophies so competitors can participate for free and hosting a pre-race breakfast.
Cools estimated that 200 to 300 spectators line the waterfront each year, with four to six boats typically competing in the children’s division and roughly 12 to 14 in the adult division. The race is open to anyone.
The rules have remained simple, inviting cardboard, duct tape and creativity while prohibiting wood and flotation devices.
Cools has seen boats transformed into Viking ships, spaceships, a UFO and even a floating tiki bar, often accompanied by costumes.
Pastore’s family plans to bring back their boat, “allegedly” after pulling it from the water intact last year and reinforcing it for another race.
One longtime member of the family’s racing crew, however, will be missing. Pastore’s younger son, who began competing when he was 7, recently entered the Coast Guard Academy. She said this will be the first race he has missed since he started participating.
Pastore, who now lives in South Huntington, said race day has become an annual reunion.
“You see generations of people that you haven’t seen in years when you go down to that event,” she said. “And it’s also brought different communities together.”
Since moving to South Carolina after his final race in 2021, Phalen no longer gets to watch from the banks of Milburn Creek, but Pastore said her father still looks forward to seeing photographs and videos of the tradition he started.
“His face lights up, and he looks forward to us competing every year,” she said. “And I feel like it’s a tradition that is important to my family to just carry on and be there.”
At 94, Phalen readily acknowledged that the dates and details of the race’s earliest years can be difficult to recall.
“The things I enjoy, I remember,” he said.
And apparently, he still enjoys the idea of putting cardboard boats in the water. Phalen said dragon boat races are held near his home in South Carolina, and he has tried to persuade people there to give his old competition a try.
“I was trying to get them to do a cardboard boat race,” he said.
