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from the KEY WEST ART & HISTORICAL SOCIETY 281 FRONT STREET, KEY WEST, FL 33040 295-6616 Fax: 295-6649 |
Attention: News editors, news directors, features editors and programming directors. Please use the following item as a news story, public service announcement or community event. Pix available. For immediate release. |
Bob Wandras, Jr., wanted a boat to launch at Smathers Boat Ramp, but didn’t want to get a trailer, so he put an axle and wheels mid-ship on his hand-made 21’9” boat, thinking he could tow the boat by bicycle. Once he installed the axle and wheels, he sat on the bow and saw a resemblance of a child’s Big Wheel. So he got online and found a heavy duty unicycle wheel and installed it to the bowsprit and added the handle bars. He said the name of the boat came to him when he was peddling it down the street and thinking of a song from the Funkadelics – “Fried Ice Cream is a Reality.” He decided to enter his boat at the Mallory Square Bicycle Show held Dec. 10 and took first place in his category – Modified. He said riding his bike-boat to the show was like being in your own parade. He, with the help of his neighbor, Kai Kai Sandles, peddled the bike-boat from his home by the Key West High School to White Street to Truman Ave., then down Duval Street to Mallory Square. Bob works at the Key West Lighthouse Museum which he noted is a property that is land-locked with no place to launch a boat, but he speculated that Lighthouse Keeper Barbara Mabrity, who tending the light from 1832 to 1862, could have used such a rig, as Key West’s first lighthouse was much closer to the shore at the Southernmost Point of Key West. Bob’s boat has a lateen rig sail, one rowing station and a two and a half Mercury outboard motor on the back.
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