“Best Manufactured Ski” at the 2024 National Ski Championships

I love a niche event, especially when there’s a little competition. So when my partner and I found ourselves living for a season in Camden, Maine—home of the International Ski Championships—we went all out.

The National Ski Championships have been held for decades at the Camden Snow Bowl. At the heart of the action is the historic wooden toboggan chute covered in ice. At the top of the hill, riders load 2-4 people onto a sled, their arms folded like a mummy, and their legs wrapped around the rider in front. The lever is then pulled, and your sled drops onto a wooden track for a fun ten-second ride that will propel you onto a frozen pond. Sleds gain speeds of up to 40 miles per hour! The professionals manage the flight without screaming, but I let out some noise: part of joy, part of terror.

Our first job was to build a sled. Sure, you could buy or borrow a sled, but as a lumber school student at the time, I wanted the full experience. We have studied the rules and guidelines that define acceptable crimp height, allowable distance between slats, and overall weight restrictions. On New Year’s Day I milled a ten-foot, 8/4-inch slab of air-dried ash into strip material ready for steam bending.

We bent the strips to two thicknesses: ⅜ for the regular strips and ½ thickness for the runners. Steam bending my curls was a matter of trial and error. We learned about compression failure the hard way, and eventually gathered enough wisdom to find some tricks. We pre-soaked the wood before steaming it, bent it with plastic, and made a long, curved strip out of tin flashing which helped compress the outer fibers of the wood. After bending the braids, we place each one in a drying style that maintains the curl. Our bend shape had a radius of 10 inches, and the fillets “spread back” to form a total curl of 12 inches. While the official rules allow for wavy and cut curls as well, steam bending seems to be the more traditional option. I hand milled the mahogany stretchers and arm shape using hand tools.

For a mid-ski project, I happened to be taking a class in double bevel inlay, so I hand-cut an inlaid panel of a snowy moonscape to accompany our team name “Moonwalkers.” Probably the hardest part of the build was creating a stretcher to hold the ends of all the wraparound slats. I treated the ends of the slats as tenon, and cut a long groove using a dado stack on the table saw to become mortise. We wrestled those tricky notes into the hole with the help of some epoxy.

For a finishing touch, I inlaid racing lines that resembled bowling alleys using a small router, chisel, and ⅛-inch pieces of mahogany. We assembled the sled with brass nails. My partner tied nylon cords to hold the braid in place and give us a handle, while I sewed a colorful pillow (required by regulations). Seven or eight coats of marine varnish brought the 30-pound beauty of the sled to life. My partner applied several layers of cross-country ski wax to the runners before each race.

Race weekend feels like walking into a winter tailgate party! After the sled passed the official inspection, we could relax and enjoy it. One of the sports announcers kept his eyes on the track, announcing hundreds and hundreds of teams as their sleds raced down the track. There was a fashion show, food and drink vendors, and people gathered around campfires to keep warm. We met people from all over the country, and many locals who return every year to test the limits of their skis. Our friends at Wood School were shivering in the cold just to cheer on our 10-second landing. There is no feeling that can compare to riding a toboggan across a frozen pond, wondering if it will stop before you get to the other side.

On race day, we learned from some of the pros – if you really want to win the race, you need a sled with more weight. Build your sled near the 50-pound mark, and consider using plywood in your sled. Although we may not have had the fastest sled (we placed 42nd out of 100 in our category), we turned out to have the most beautiful sled. Late Sunday evening, we gathered for a small awards ceremony. To our delight, we won the award for Best Sled Made, which was awarded to us through a mysterious judging process. It was a cold and windy weekend, but one I will remember fondly for a long time.

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