Smooth waters did not make for a smooth ride at Lake Casitas when Buena High School wood-shop students recently tested their hand-built, solar-powered boat in preparation for next week's Solar Cup 2008 competition.

Students from 40 Southern California high schools will race solar-powered boats they've designed and built at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's annual Solar Cup contest May 16-18 at Lake Skinner near Temecula.

Scott Manninen, the wood-shop teacher and Solar Cup team adviser at Buena High in Ventura, said the team's skipper, senior Curtis Galarza, set off at full throttle on Lake Casitas.

"About 100 yards into this fury of a speed run, the boat stopped dead in the water, and Curtis had to paddle back to shore," Manninen said.

After finding and fixing the seized propeller shaft, the eight-member team of seniors plunged the boat back into the water and ran it successfully for 90 minutes before swapping batteries, Manninen said.

"All went well the solar panels charged the batteries," he said.

Buena and Camarillo High School are the two Ventura County competitors in this year's Solar Cup, a contest designed to teach students everything from natural resource stewardship to mathematics. This is Buena High's first year. Camarillo High is competing for the fourth time since 2004.

"When the boat is in the water and they see it go, they understand how a boat works and that they can take an idea and transform it into something real," Manninen said.

Manninen was immediately attracted to the contest, thinking, "Wow, that's right up my alley as a teacher, because I have a background in boat building. When I'm enthusiastic about something, they (students) tend to be more enthusiastic about it."

He floated the idea to students, and the eight formed a dedicated team that started work in November.

"In the beginning of the year, I was into how canoes and kayaks were built," said team member Joshua Griego, 18. "As soon as he said we were going to build a solar-powered boat, I just jumped in on the project. I learned a lot as far as woodworking goes," Griego said.

Manninen said he saw the team go through "a lot of head scratching and trying to figure out how to work with wood in a curved way. There is no square joint in this boat."

Dustin Draper, 18, is not in Manninen's wood-shop class but still joined the team as an engineer — for the fun and experience. "He's been an instrumental part of this," Manninen said.

Draper said advanced placement physics and general chemistry gave him the knowledge to engineer the boat. Draper plans to attend California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, next year and study mechanical engineering.

In addition to building the boat, the process includes getting a sponsor, taking four trips to Los Angeles for technical workshops and doing a variety of reports on water conservation. The Buena team created a radio spot about turning off the tap.

"It got me a lot more interested in solar power and green energy," student Chase Warmuth, 18, said of the project.

The Metropolitan Water District gives every team a wood boat-hull kit and leaves the rest — from solar panels to nuts and bolts — to students to find, finance and fit together. The single-seat boats are 16 feet long and weigh about 50 pounds.

About three months into the project, Buena found a sponsor in the city of Ventura. The Calleguas Municipal Water District is sponsoring the Camarillo team.

The price tag for each boat cannot exceed $3,500 for rookie teams and $2,500 for veteran schools.

Donald Crowell, a science teacher and Solar Cup adviser at Camarillo High, said his team might not even use the entire allowance.

"We're reusing lots of materials from old boats," Crowell said. The 10-member team includes students from science and industrial arts classes such as wood shop.

"It really is a collaboration between the sciences and industrial technology," said David Seidler, the industrial technology department chairman and another Solar Cup adviser at Camarillo High.

"The whole idea for me was to get my students to learn a little bit about physics and at the same time, it's to get the physics students to learn industrial technology — woodworking, metal-working," Seidler said.

"This brings their education full circle. It really allows them to see practical applications for the math they've learned."