Seattle Boat Show

When the President of the Northwest Marine Trade Association called and said he would like me to build a boat out of LEGO, I said sure. When he mentioned that I needed to build it within the ten days of the Seattle Boat Show, I said sure. When he said he wanted it to be a half scale of a twenty-foot Chris-Craft Speedster, I said sure. When he said that there would be free Twizzlers, well, I booked my ticket and started building.

I spent ten days in Seattle building what was publicized as the world’s largest LEGO boat. It was a grueling marathon in which I worked 18 hours a day for nine straight days putting together a boat that in all reality should have taken about eight weeks. I used hundreds of thousands of pieces, but in the end got a result that looked pretty close to the Chris Craft Speedster boat sitting next to me in my booth.

The build was difficult under the aggressive time frame but was a lot of fun too. I met so many wonderful people and drew a lot of publicity to the boat show. All of the local television stations covered the event, as well as the two major newspapers and several radio stations in the area. Additionally, there was international coverage on Saudi TV and BBC Radio. I think it was my best building event to date.

I got a number of different questions during the event, such as “What do you dream about?” and “What is your IQ?” but my favorite was the request, “Can I get a map of your brain?” I told her it was unchartered.