Before the Tide Rolled In : Brief Moment of Glory for Sand Castles

David Peterson was sitting at home trying to decide what to sculpt from the Imperial Beach sand this weekend when his glance fell on a token from his dentist: a mold of his recently repaired lower teeth.

Peterson phoned his dentist.

The dentist phoned his technician.

And with the help of seven friends, the trio performed a little oral surgery at the sixth annual U.S. Open Sandcastle Competition, pocketing third prize in the sculpture division, one of six categories in a competition that drew an audience of 125,000 people to the Imperial Beach pier Sunday. “Smile Potential”--a 10- by 11-foot replica of Peterson’s lower teeth and tongue, a giant tube of toothpaste and an immense toothbrush--earned them $200.

“Carving teeth is a piece of cake for me,” said Bob Blumenstock, the dental technician. “I do it all day.”

More than 30 other teams carved up the beach around the pier, producing two spaceships, two tributes to the San Diego Zoo, two igloos, a crucifixion scene, several mermaids and some of the most elaborate sand castles seen here since the same time last year.

For the second year in a row, the $3,500 top prize in the masters class went to Sand Sculptors International, a Solana Beach team that has earned more than $80,000 this year building privately commissioned sculptures, said team captain Gerry Kirk.

Sand Sculptors’ “Cyborg 5”--10-foot-high creature that was part lizard, part machine--was built with 400 buckets of water and 3,500 tons of sand that was packed so well that the team could fashion free-standing arches at the top of the sculpture.

Kirk, a general contractor whose team has built a five-story sand sculpture in Florida, actually tests sand samples and searches for fault lines before creating the instant art that is almost as quickly gone with the rising tide.

“You can do a lot of things in a short period of time in terms of visual stimulation,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s any other medium in three dimensions that’s as fast as sand.”

Joe Maize of Waikiki, Hawaii, injected some politics into the competition by single-handedly constructing the “Lion Temples of Asyougo,” a series of interconnected pyramids adorned with the king of cats. A handmade sign declared the sculpture “a personal attempt against the professional sand-teams and companies.” Maize took home the $1,000 third prize in the masters class for the castle he invented on the spot, or “as you go.”

Most of the sculptures required hours of lugging heavy wooden forms, lifting sand and pouring water, followed by painstaking detailing of the sand with trowels and slices of Formica. But at least one team decided that their 1986 sculpture would be less of an ordeal than their 1985 work.

“We worked our butts off two years ago and almost died,” said Warren Porter of Escondido. “We built an Olympic torch that ultimately looked like an artichoke. It was terrible.”

Porter’s team of family and friends Sunday shaped the “Laser Eye of the Death Star” featured in the movie Star Wars. A large disc with a hole in the middle, the sculpture was adorned with odd-shaped lumps molded by an assortment of plastic ware such as silverware holders. It was the only entry in the sculpture class to finish out of the money.

Others felt more deeply about their art. Joe Schmidt, editorial cartoonist for the Star-News newspaper, led a team that created a spaceship whose alien inhabitants had stopped to pick up a copy of the paper.

“I think that’s what art is all about, to create something that might not be possible,” Schmidt said. “To do otherwise, you might as well use a camera.”

Masters division judge Tom Kirstein said he was looking for artistry, degree of difficulty, originality, use of space and special effects. After the competition, the children among the crowd would provide their own commentary, he said.

“Kids are pretty good critics. They’ll knock down the bad ones first,” Kirstein said.

In the end, the tide would have the last word, but few of the contestants seemed to care. “You know that before you start,” Kirk said. “So it doesn’t matter.”

Maize agreed that his sand sculpture will never really disappear, “not when you think of the hundreds and hundreds of pictures that are taken. It’s not gone. It’s going to live on.”