Pagliacci Does Seafair

Pagliacci had an absolute blast at the July 14 Lucerne Seafair Milk Carton Derby. This unusual Seafair event has been held annually at Green Lake since 1972. From much smaller beginnings, it has sprouted into a major event with live entertainment, a beer garden, and loads of food trucks. This years' event occurred on Saturday, July 14. Not only did we enter a boat in the Team Boat Building Challenge, but we also hosted a dough-tossing booth.

Dough tossing is fun for kids and adults. There was dough flying—sometimes every which way—from the hands of both. We came ready, maybe with more dough than we needed, but there’s nothing worse than having a kid waiting in line for a chance only to find out that his brother got the last dough ball! As it turned out, we used the very last dough ball as we were taking down our tent.

We were excited to be a part of the Team Boat Building Challenge, and hardly anything could top the spectacle of watching Pagliacci’s creative daredevils build and race their milk-carton dreamboat. Pagliacci’s team, Team Boatiacci (boat-ee-achee) was led by Mike Young (General Manager, Columbia City), along with Max Levine (General Manager, Miller Street), Justin Wehrell (General Manager, 85th Street), and Chase Honey (Shift Lead, Valley Street).

Challenges were apparent right away—our neighboring opponent was called the Seattle Design Nerds. Each team has one hour to build a seaworthy craft that can hold at least four adults—and hopefully float them across the finish line! We were provided gloves, saws, hammers, staple guns, wire cutters, 250 milk cartons, yards of chicken wire, nails, strips of wood, a plywood plank, staples, duct tape and zip ties to build our boat. Each milk carton has enough buoyancy to support about 4 pounds of weight. Given the collective weight of our crew, we needed every last one of the milk cartons to ensure seaworthiness.

Then it was race time. It’s basically a soap-box derby on water, which means nothing goes very fast. After the starting gun went off a frolicking frenzy of splashing and laughter ensued. When the madness was over, Team Boatiacci’s craft had survived the rigors of the high seas, losing only the team sign. Not a single milk carton (i.e., critical floatation device) fell off. We didn’t win any of the top prizes—but we didn’t finish last (second to last), although it took some creative thinking from our team of daredevils. About halfway through the course, they pulled their winning move, having two guys jump off the back and kick the boat across the finish line, which was an entirely acceptable move.

We had so much fun and can hardly wait for Seafair Weekend coming up on August 3rd, 4th, and 5th. We're looking forward to more fun in the sun, so if you missed us at Milk Carton Derby, or you've just missed hanging out with us since, stop by the big orange tent at Genesee Park this weekend! We also can't wait for the exciting opportunity to be able to help the Blue Angels team fuel up on pizza one day before they fly. Watch the show with us. Plus, just wait until you see smiles in the photos of your loved ones trying to toss that perfect pizza crust, or just getting creative with the dough.