Students crafted boat of duct tape, kiddie pools – and get stuck off California shore

Two California students saw kiddie pools, buckets and some duct tape and thought those were the perfect materials to make a boat, photos show.

The students used two kiddie pools as the bottom of the boat, photos show. Then they attached 20 buckets from Home Depot to plywood set on top of the pools. It was all held together with duct tape.

The men in their 20s set sail on their boat into the Pacific Ocean near Isla Vista, Santa Barbara County Fire spokesman Mike Eliason said on Twitter on Saturday. Then they got stuck.

They couldn’t return to shore in their makeshift boat, so they had to be rescued shortly after 2:30 a.m., Eliason said.

“They were unable to return to shore in their boat fashioned from duct tape, buckets, and kiddie pools,” Eliason said. “Alcohol was not a factor.”

Eliason told Noozhawk that the men had a paddle, but they didn’t have wetsuits. The water was only 55 degrees.

The tide had pulled the homemade boat about 900 feet offshore before fire officials were called, according to the Associated Press.

“The tide kept pushing them further and further from shore,” Eliason told news outlets.

This story was originally published May 10, 2021 at 2:15 PM with the headline "Students crafted boat of duct tape, kiddie pools – and get stuck off California shore."