Virginia Tech Concrete Canoe Takes on Nationals
- Annabell Koehler (‘28)
- Nov 1, 2025
- 4 min read
The Team
During the summer of 2025, Virginia Tech’s Concrete Canoe Club participated in the ASCE National Competition at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. In a close competition amongst nineteen concrete canoe teams from around the world, Virginia Tech placed second overall. As a new big player in the Concrete Canoe world, Virginia Tech came to the competition with over twenty students and their advisor, Thomas Carnes. The team was led by captains Conor Thoresen and Leah Goulet. Throughout the year, the captains guided the design and construction of the team’s innovative canoe, Desperado. At 20 feet long and just 110 pounds, Desperado was the lightest and one of the longest canoes in the competition. Desperado’s theme was “Old Western,” reminiscent of cowboys and outlaw gangs. The canoe sported a classy Virginia Tech orange with an external stain depicting a scene of five cowboys riding away in the sunset as a lone cowboy looked at them from a distance. The sides of the canoe are lined with a long stripe designed to resemble a rope to make the canoe appear as though it is being lassoed.
The Canoe
The product of two semesters of hard work and hours of sanding, Desperado is an engineering feat. The process began with intricate planning from the team captains, leads, and advisor. After reviewing the request for proposal, the club leaders created a technical proposal and plan for the year. The work was divided into three main categories: construction, mix design, and aesthetics.
The interior of the canoe consists of multi-colored concrete inlays. Aesthetics lead Austin Minnick created the design of these inlays with a cowboy as its focal point. He surrounded it symmetrically on either side with two smokey revolvers and designs commonly found on cowboy boots.
The mix design was led by Leah Goulet and Michaela Foster, who formulated and tested dozens of different concrete mixes to optimize for strength, durability and lightness. They tested different ratios with the aggregates and other components to settle upon a mix for the canoe.
Additionally, Thomas Walker led the construction process. The first step was creating the form on which the canoe would be constructed. Before the form could be made, extensive planning was necessary. Walker went through an extensive hull design planning and testing phase. He then guided the team through cutting foam and glueing it to pieces of wood that were precisely cut using CNC machining. Once the form was assembled, it was covered in joint wall compound and sanded.
The form was then covered in a polyurethane layer to create a waterproof seal for reusability. Foam pieces in the shape of the inlays were placed on the form and concrete was placed at a thickness of one eighth of an inch to be troweled. After this initial placement, there were two more phases of mesh reinforcement and concrete troweling. The canoe was left to sit for two weeks in a humid environment before the form was removed. The foam inlays were also taken out and replaced with different colored concrete and the canoe was extensively sanded. The bottom of the canoe was then stained with the old western mural. Once the sanding and aesthetics processes were completed, the canoe was sealed and vinyl stickers of Virginia Tech and Desperado were added.
The bulk of the competition canoe building was done in the spring semester, but in the prior fall semester a practice canoe with the same hull design was created. This was in part done so that the paddlers on the team could practice paddling in a canoe with the team’s intended hull design. Paddling Lead Hugh Green conducted paddling practices, and eventually try-outs to assemble an elite paddling team. He ultimately decided on Leah Goulet, Michaela Foster, Lucy Browning, Elizabeth Webbert, Katie Hutnam, Andrew Donaldson, Thomas Walker, and Will Burger. The team practiced rigorously throughout the spring semester to prepare for competition.
The team’s hard work and craftsmanship led to a clean sweep victory of the Virginias Regional ASCE Symposium and invitation to the national competition. The national competition lasted three days and consisted of display, presentation, and race days.
The Competition
Display day was an early morning for the team. Everyone showed up to the Cal Poly campus hours before display time and set the scene for Desperado. The canoe itself was placed on black old western-themed stands. There were also two dark wooden displays set up to demonstrate the process of the canoe’s creation. The displays were designed to appear as a Wild West Saloon and tied the overall theme together. Presentation day consisted of all nineteen teams presenting their technical proposals and explaining their processes. Captains Thoresen and Goulet, assisted by Walker, gave Virginia Tech’s presentation. Thoresen and Goulet spoke to the intricacies of the entire process before being joined by Walker for extensive questioning by the judges. Hosted at a nearby lake, race day was intense. Throughout the day, nineteen teams competed in five different race categories: men’s and women’s sprints, men’s and women’s slalom, and coed sprint. Virginia Tech performed very well in the races. Browning and Webbert placed fourth overall in the women’s sprint finals and Goulet and Foster won second overall in the women’s slalom finals. Additionally, Green and Burger placed fourth in the men’s sprint finals and Green and Donaldson placed second in the men’s finals for slalom. Each of those participants won third place for the overall coed sprint. The team’s tireless preparation and work led to some promising results throughout. Overall, it placed fourth for technical proposal, third for technical presentation, second for the races, first for the final product, and second overall. A very successful race day for Virginia Tech!
If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of Concrete Canoe at Virginia Tech the instructions to donate can be found on our instagram: ccanoe_vt
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