["What We Call Sound" by Zephyr plays] Boatnik.

What is Boatnik?

Boatnik is one of Southern Oregon's signature annual events, featuring one of the state's largest parades, a carnival, beer garden, concerts, outdoor fun, and much more.

But core to Boatnik's identity is, of course, boats.

So we're doing the deep dive on boats at Boatnik.

Boats that go fast, boats that go really fast, and boats that make tight turns while going really fast.

Along the way, our crew even gets to experience the glory of high speed on the Rogue River.

I'm Keegan Van Hook, and this is Us As We Are.

["What We Call Sound" by Zephyr plays] Us As We Are is made possible in part by The Roundhouse foundation A private family foundation that supports creative solutions to the unique challenges associated with rural culture and the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.

And by the Members of Southern Oregon PBS, thank you.

I'm Jim Thompson with the Grants Fast Active Club.

We create Boat Nick in Josephine County and have for 67 years.

Started in 1952.

Guys just saw an opportunity that, hey, let's kick off the summer, Give them something to do.

And, hopefully, we'll make a few bucks for the kids.

As we've talked before, it's harder to tell people everything that's going on at Boatnik because it's built up so nicely.

What's a day?

We're deep, deep within Boatnik.

Embedded within Boatnik It's gonna get loud here in a minute.

So again, if you have littles, if this thing fires off, it's gonna get a little bit noisy here.

Yeah.

Why don't you just tell me about the boat here?

Okay.

This is an older boat.

It's a 1983, and we've been running it since 2016.

So we've been running it quite a bit.

We just got back from Texas, went the fastest we'd ever went with it, a 164.

So we're racing back east quite a bit this year.

Is that Donnie LeVon?

Woah.

Man, that's Donnie LeVon.

This guy's pretty famous.

Can I have your autograph, sir?

Get out of here.

We saw you last night put this in the water and fire it up, and it was the loudest boat I have ever heard.

We used to run this open without a capsule.

And then we put the capsule in and then we just started increasing horsepower.

This boat as it sits weighs like 1,800 pounds.

And it's got 3,100-3,200 horse.

So the weight for horsepower is... It's, you know, it's... Favors the horsepower.

Yeah.

This is Us As We Are.

We believe our parade is the second biggest in the state.

It's a good solid two hours long and tons of kids organizations, church groups, of course bands.

Just great to see kids of all ages out there and some adult kids being silly themselves.

Hey, what's up?

What do think of the parade?

I think it's awesome.

Yeah.

What's up?

Do you like the parade so far?

Yeah.

Awesome.

Why are you dressed as a caveman?

Well, the caveman have quite a history here.

104 years.

Originally, they were created to promote the Oregon caves and Southern Oregon in general.

And they have an amazing history.

I have pictures with president Nixon, both Kennedys, Shirley Temple.

The history is pretty amazing.

Always have a lot of community involvement, but also a lot of businesses.

Built a lot of great floats.

Yeah.

I'm proud of the parade.

It's fun for everybody.

Very little slow spots and keeps happening.

I like the candy.

Great experience for all kids.

This is a 2022 Stealth.

It has a 500 cubic inch Allen Johnson motor in it.

Probably approximately 170 miles an hour.

170 miles an hour.

Yep.

Yeah.

We're gonna probably do one high 160s here this weekend.

It has grown monstrous.

So we have three boat races now.

Course started with one hydros, which has been around, I believe, about 70 years.

And that was pretty much all we had.

We've had various various flotillas, make your own raft, some some real fun silliness over the years.

But about 20 years ago, the Sprint Boats reached out and they put on such a good show right in front of the park and then the drag boats came in also.

This is staging right now mainly is for the sprint boats and then the drag boats will come rolling through and then the launch go downriver, make one pass up, and then pull out.

I'm Jeff Green.

I am from Central Oregon.

The boat's called Psychotic Behavior.

That's why my wife married me.

For the folks at home who don't know, what's the difference between a drag boat and a sprint boat?

It sounds like we're seeing both those today, and I don't really know much about the difference myself.

The sprint boats are a shorter boat.

They're all jet powered.

They have a specific course that they have to go through.

And then the drag boats, they have jets in those that weren't typically the shortest.

Drag boat is 18 foot.

Sprint boats are like 16 foot or less.

And the drag boats are just straight on.

Point a, point b as fast as you can get there.

So that makes this... Which one of those?

This is a drag boat.

So you're wearing a life jacket obviously, but then in the back you've got this pouch and I understand that's a parachute?

That is a that is a parachute behind me.

The parachute is designed to deploy in the case of a wreck.

The boat that I have is is a canyon flat bottom.

I've had the boat a little over 20 years.

This is my 18th year here at Boatnik So a flat bottom, that would be a variety of drag boat.

Correct?

Correct.

It's it's basically the the design of the the bottom of the boat.

So we saw you just did a little run there.

I've got some guys in the VIP deck, so they probably shot you when you were down there.

How did that run go?

It was great.

We were kinda a little lazy out of the out of the head or the hole, as they call it, just because it's the first run of the year.

But, as they say, it, it really started to eat on the big end, so we're really starting to move.

So we're probably a 130.

Always have a great time at Boateng.

It's it's one of the most enjoyable things for the year for us.

It's a... There's no pressure.

There's no... It's it's not a race.

It's an exhibition.

So we just come out here and have fun and and hang around with bunch of our friends that have the same interest.

What else could you have for?

Beautiful day in Grants Pass.

Yeah.

My name is Steve.

I drive a boat named Shellshock.

Blown alcohol hydro.

We're running about a 150, 160 miles an hour on the river.

I've been driving for five years and absolutely loving it.

Good friend of mine gave me the boat and I put the motor together and you know, been loving five years.

Nice.

How much does all this cost?

I mean, this like a a car essentially, but but what does it cost?

You know, basically throw me your wallet.

You know?

Mean, yeah, I've got I've got about 75,000 into the engine, about $30,000 in paint, and you know, miscellaneous probably another 10,000, maybe 15,000.

A sprint boat will turn.

The drag boat won't turn.

I mean, they're made to go in a straight line real fast.

We're substantially faster than a than a sprint boat, at mile per hour, But they've got the handling.

We've got the speed.

And so that makes this a drag boat?

That makes this a drag boat.

This machine will strictly go in a straight line.

I could literally take my hands off the steering wheel going down the river, and it will still go straight.

Here we go.

Rider number 2.

So we did a project with The Harbor Freight.

They gave us 10,000 dollars, we collaborated with other three other schools, including Grants Pass.

So, four in total.

We tried to make four boats, but we finished two of them.

And that's one.

The other one's the GP one out there on the water right now.

And as you can see, GP one's running pretty good.

We have a little bit of trouble with that one.

And then all these other boats are boats that were put together by a lot of the people that are here right now and their kids are racing it.

Yeah.

They've been running really well.

It's not as well as like the 17 r that's running the 750, but they've ran super well.

Nice.

And who drives these is it you?

It's kinda just whoever wants to go race them around like Kyler and, Marky.

They go and whip them around and just show them what the boats got underneath the motors or in the motors.

What does it take to be good at this?

Really just precision.

I mean, you just gotta know how to drive anything, and you can drive these things, sir.

If you know how to drive a quad, you know how to drive one of these.

Just real quick about what you're about to do.

I'm about to do the buoy races just like all these other little kids just did.

How'd it go for you out there?

I lost twice.

Lost twice?

Yeah.

I'm trying my best though.

Is it fun?

Oh, it's fun.

Was that you who bumped into someone out there?

Yeah.

How was that?

It was pretty fun.

I got jolted around a little bit, but it wasn't too bad.

Did you see that?

Oh my.

This is a 13 foot 6 sprint... Sprinter.

And it's got a 409 with Whippled injected methanol, put in 1,200 horse and 1,100 foot pounds of torque with 8 and 3/4 inch Scott pump.

So it's not a propeller driven boat, It's like a jet?

Yeah.

It's two plates in there.

There's a bullet.

There's one that's like a bullet.

It's a wedge, and that goes up in here, and then it compresses.

And then a lot of people change the pitch on here to get it more aggressive to compress it a little bit more.

How do you feel?

I feel great, man.

I love this stuff.

Nice.

Nice.

Yeah.

You're... We've been... We use this this show to to get ready for our race season.

We're trying to work on a couple different bugs.

We did some major changes to this particular move.

We're running a 412 cubic inch small box Chevy, 17 to 1 compression, race gas carburetor.

Good luck.

Have fun.

I always have fun.

This is the Knuck and Putz, and we're out of Spokane, Washington.

My navigator is a local.

She decided to jump in the boat and have a little fun.

And are you loving it?

Loving it.

Loving it.

So anyway, it's a great event.

It's for the kids, and we're having a blast.

We drove 12 hours to get here, so we're hoping for a few more rotations, but it's it's been a great time.

So this is a Sprint Tech hull, 400 Chevy in the back.

It flies.

What kind of top speed do you get?

We've been told, like, 80, 85.

I don't know.

You know, I don't have a speedometer.

They didn't install it.

I'm Mike.

This is my wife, Sandy.

Our boat was built here.

It's a... What we call a slip slagger hull, 400 Chev engine, and an awesome jet unit from New Zealand.

Alright.

Looks like you guys are good to get going, so I'll leave you to it.

Good luck.

Thanks, Mate.

Hey, Donnie.

How did it go?

It's us, the camera team again.

You were going fast.

It was obvious, but what was your top speed today?

I think they said it's like 156, something like that.

Yeah.

It's kinda weird here because you got a little bit of a bend down there.

So you kinda aim yourself to get it where you can go, but you don't really have enough room to run them all the way out.

So what's the process you're working on now?

Do have you to kind of dismantle this?

No, they're pulling us apart.

We take... Put it on them, pull it out.

Boy, we got a motor stand That motor stand we set it on.

And they'll look at all the bearings and make sure that, you know, everything looks good in the bottom.

Sometimes this stuff backs off a little bit, and if you don't catch it, the next run, it's gonna catch you.

That's usually what happens.

These guys are the best.

My team, I've had them for six years now, and they're they're great.

It it makes my lot job easier.

I can relax.

I know everything's taken care of and it's just it's better.

Does it take any kind of a special skill to drive a very high speed boat like this?

It takes a lot of ability.

Left leg, your hands, your feet all have to be tied together to make consistent ET runs.

You have to do it the same every single time.

All depending upon the boat that you're driving, the flat bottoms, obviously I'm biased, but it takes probably the most skill to do because they're multiple times to run.

You're actually adjusting the cavitation plate As opposed to a hydro or jet where you just recall it stab and steer.

Yeah, it's just a lot of.

Not hand eye coordination, but foot eye coordination.

What does it take to be good at driving a boat like this?

I don't know.

I'm working on it.

Yeah.

The only thing we're... The only rule we try to abide by is rule number one, don't go broke racing.

Nice.

Yeah.

But it's really easy to... It's really easy to get You get dollars going out.

Right.

You wanna go faster, you break out the checkbook.

You gotta have a love for it.

It's not a money sport at this time.

We're looking for people to recognize how cool it really is.

You talk to all these guys.

These are like my family.

Right?

We're all... We all compete against each other, but when one boat doesn't work, everybody comes together to make it happen.

Out here on the river, this is nothing to what these boats are capable of.

Normally, we're in a man made course with a series of islands.

We show up on Friday.

They give us a map.

Each corner has a number.

There's probably 36 to 40 corners, and we do them in a minute.

We gotta memorize that stuff.

Our navigators are insurance to make sure that we're turning the right way.

Yep.

Then the fastest out of the nine boats go into the eliminations.

So 35 corners you have to memorize at 65 miles an hour.

Don't mess up because it hurts when you hit out... Hit land.

You like literally flip over it.

Oh, yeah.

That's why there's roll bars on every single one these things.

And I've used them before.

They they save your bacon for sure.

Our long time crew chief, we gave him a drive in 2019.

And if you YouTube why not crash, you'll see the footage where he leaks it over the safety fence and into the woods, and he... Yeah.

It was not a happy boat after that.

Watching these sprint boats do what they do obviously got me thinking, you know, I should try that.

For journalistic purposes, of course.

I poked around the hot pit trying to catch a joy ride from a team, but ran into the reality that due to event insurance being what it is, event organizers couldn't allow members of the public to actually get into these boats.

Apparently, it's kind of risky.

Lucky for us, we found the Bad Idea and Why Not racing teams, who on a fully private basis, on fully private riverfront property, entirely separate from the actual event of Boatnik, invited us to come over to get a much more firsthand experience of what sprint boat racing is all about.

So we brought our boat down, which is a jet sprint boat, and it's name is Bad Idea number 509.

We raced it, you know, all year long and it's an engine that's about 650 horsepower.

The thing goes from about 0-80 miles an hour in about three seconds.

And it's all direct drive.

There's no transmission, but once you start it you're going, it makes grown men squeal like little girls.

One of my buddies, he had a gal that lives down here and put her in as a navigator for the Boatnik event thing last year, yesterday.

And I asked her, when it's all over.

Said, do think?

And she's like, I'm addicted.

I'm getting one of these things.

And I'm like, yeah you are.

Be prepared to spend a lot of money, but, yeah, you'll have fun.

Alright.

We'll see if we catch the addiction today.

Eric, I'm looking forward to this.

Really appreciate you setting it up.

No problem.

Let's go.

Any last words, mister Van Hook?

This is Us As We Are.

[Engine Turns on] [Keegan screaming] Wow.

[Keegan Screaming] [Aidan Screaming] Oh my God.

Oh yeah lets do it.

[Tripp Screaming] I'm Keegan Van Hook, and this is Us As We Are.

Yeah!

Oh my God.

Wow.

That was incredible.

You like that?

Yes.

I did.

Oh my gosh.

Amazing.

Yeah, you can't really describe that experience in words.

Well I forgot to wear my brown pants today, but I think that went pretty well.

This experience was incredible and for us just about good climax to our Boatnik weekend as we could possibly ask for.

But the finale of boat Nick itself concerns an entirely different variety of racing boat, hydroplanes in the Tom Rice Memorial Day race.

[Choir sings "The Star-Spangled Banner"] Dear lord father, we thank you for this beautiful day, and we invoke your presence, your peace, and your protection to rest on us this Memorial Day.

A wise man once said that only two can have brought... ["Taps" plays] [Bagpipes play] [Engines Rev up] [Gunfire] They're hydroplanes.

We race whitewater.

That's... We're gonna do, four legs today.

Main thing is finish the race, but you gotta race hard.

We do 70s to lower 80 mile an hours.

It's a rush.

No seat belts, no roll cage.

I'm a rookie driver this year, so this is my first race.

Have you done any training at all for this?

We've done practices.

Yeah.

But nothing nothing full course yet.

I mean, nothing we've done has been over a couple miles, so this is gonna be really put it to the test.

I've been racing this boat for 14 seasons now.

Seems to be holding up pretty good now.

So Wonderful.

Hoping for the finish up.

Yeah.

Right.

What is it that makes a hydroplane a hydroplane?

The bottom, it's like... They're built like a plane.

It's shaped like a wing.

They're basically floating on air when they're running right at a high speed straight.

You're you're touching water.

Like, the only part of the boat touching water is about this area right here back.

That's why they call them hydroplanes because they're they're built to fly, not... They're not a boat.

Kind of the special thing about it is the air traps to see that run down off the back.

And funny enough, it uses wind to actually gain speed.

And so the faster we get going, the more wind packs underneath it.

And there's a tunnel that goes all the way back.

And hopefully, the boat's not touching the water.

It's kinda flying in a way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What does it take to be good at driving these?

Oh, he's gotta hold it wide open and go all out.

No fear.

We do, each leg you gotta stop and then stand up there in the back and pull it and hopefully it pulls in the first quarter.

If not, you gotta wrap it again and keep going till she fires.

Is it easy to crash?

It's very easy to crash.

I've done it too many times.

You will end up upside down if you're not careful.

You think we'll see any crashes today?

Yes.

Nice.

Hopefully not me.

I hope not.

I'm sure there'll be a couple of those today.

Hopefully not me.

In second was 85 and then 10 follows closely behind.

Then we had a group of two, 15 and 22. followed then closely by number five.

Oh, got a few more of them on the way.

They just keep going.

Alright, those boats are about to go by.

Number 99 looks like.

For out 2026 Tom Rice Memorial Cup, in third place... Boat 10k of Grants Pass, Drew Dechenne.

In second place, Boat number 50 from Hoopa, Jude Hostler.

And in first place, and I believe this is the ninth time, if I got that right, ninth time Boatnick champion, your 2026 Tom Rice Memorial Cup winner, B200, Roger Sanderson from Hoopa.

So you just ran the race and won for, I think if I heard correctly, that was your ninth time.

Ninth time.

Yeah.

I've been trying to win this this event since 2019.

I had four in a row that I won.

I was gonna do five and it didn't happen.

It was fun.

It was a it was a good race today.

You had to really pay attention to the course.

It was a good race.

How how many years total have you been doing this?

My first my first Boatnik was 1980, I think.

So I've been at this quite a while.

What does it take to be good at this sport?

Well, you gotta be a little a little goofy because you gotta go fast.

You know?

You can't be you can't be scared of speed.

You can't be afraid to get thrown out of a boat at 80 miles an hour.

And you gotta study the water, learn how to read it, read the wind when it's on the water.

There's so much to it.

You gotta be a mechanic, and you gotta know how to glue things and kinda improvise, you know, and figure out how to go faster.

And I think a lot of it is just going decently quick, having good acceleration, and driving hard.

Quite a few boats started this race, and I think only... I basically count six boats on the shore.

Were there a lot of wipeouts out there?

I don't know if there was wipeouts.

A lot of them are just attrition things, know, meg... Their magnetos, electric problems.

Some guys get holes in their boats, you know, some guys get thrown out, but a lot of it's just mechanical things that don't don't survive.

This town is pretty amazing.

We feel good that really kicks the summer off nicely.

Small town spirit that unfortunately we've lost in a lot of areas in this country, and this town's really got a heart.

I got it.

I made it there.

It's been a ball.

It's always a ball.

Yeah.

As I said, we come and do this as often as we can.

And, yeah, we just enjoy the s*** out of Boat Nick.

It's awesome fun.

The active club does a good job with the active club kids, you know, raising money for them.

Boat Nick, I mean, they do a great job, so my hats off to them.

Not a lot of people get to go in these, so, you know, we're really pleased to be able to give you the opportunity.

It puts a cherry on top of this entire Boatnik experience.

Yeah.

Well, I've never been called a cherry on top of anything before.

Thanks so much.

Hey Jason.

Thanks for talking to me.

I appreciate it.

Good to meet you, Jeff.

Thank you.

Appreciate talking to you.

Thanks for coming by.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

Enjoy the day.

Good to meet you.

Thanks for talking to me.

Hey.

It was really good to talk to you both.

Who are you?

Brad Castle.

And just spell it real quick.

B r a d c a s s e l l. Perfect.

Alright.

Good luck, Brad.

Thanks so much, guys.

You're a class act.

That was a perfect interview.

Well done.

I feel like I've asked everything.

You guys... These guys?

Look at these guys.

They're like, the village idiots.

Get out of here.

Hey, guys.

Love you.

We're trying to do a serious interview here.

Jim, thanks so much for having us out here.

This is fantastic.

Yeah.

Yep.

Hope you guys had fun.

Mike, good to meet you.

You too.

Chris, good luck.

Appreciate the conversation.

Hunter, thanks for talking to me.

Good luck.

Enjoy yourself.

Chris, good to meet you.

Good luck today.

Yeah.

Thank you.

You guys have a good one.

You too.

Enjoy yourself.

Roger, good to meet you.

Congratulations on the win.

Hey, That is the fastest I've ever gone on the water for sure.

Hey, thank you so much for this.

You're very welcome.

Nice and gentle.

Nice and slow.

Okay?

Okay.

Watch your legs.

Don't do the jelly thing.

Here you go, sir.

Thank you.

You.

Thank you.

You're absolutely welcome.

Thank you.

You're welcome, brother.

Us As We Are is made possible in part by... The Roundhouse Foundation, a private family foundation that supports creative solutions to the unique challenges associated with rural culture and landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.

And by the Members of Southern Oregon PBS.

Thank you.