True Grit : Sandcastle Builders Make Best of Weather

Gloomy, gray weather turned Saturday into a washout for sunbathers but for entrants in the United Way sandcastle contest it just doesn’t get any better.

“For building sandcastles, this is a perfect day because the sand doesn’t dry out,” said John Reynolds, an event organizer. “Of course for viewing them, it’s not that great. It’s just been a typical summer day.”

With the cloud cover keeping temperatures in the mid-60s throughout the day, only about half of the 20,000 people United Way officials had expected turned out to watch the contest, which pitted corporations and nonprofit companies against each other in the kickoff event of United Way’s yearlong drive to raise $23 million for charitable programs in Orange County.

Braving the early morning drizzle, sandcastle teams arrived at the beach as early as 7 a.m. to talk strategy, ready their equipment and haul plastic buckets full of water for the task ahead.

“I carried a lot of water. My arms are three feet longer now,” said Celeste Salsgiver of Long Beach, who provided support for the Chevron USA Marketing and Petroleum Contractors Inc. team which took home first place honors in the castle competition.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., workers from nearly 40 teams transformed flat plots of sand into castles, sculptures and formless fantasies.

Most of the 12-member teams started with forms made of plywood, creating blocks of wet sand. For some, trash cans replaced simple beach buckets as reservoirs for the gritty building material.

Early in the day, curious spectators milled along the shore trying to guess what the finished products might be as workers continued to shovel piles of sand, carted buckets of water and carefully mixed the two.

“There is an art and a formula,” said C. B. Blohm of Anaheim, chairman of the Sandcastle Committee. “It’s actually a one-part-water-to-two-parts-sand type thing. There needs to be lots of water. And the compaction is very important.”

As the contest progressed, the forms were removed and the figures carved, exposing the elaborate designs.

Chevron Oil Field’s castle, which took third in the castle category, was constructed in pyramid fashion. Intricate detail work included arches, stones, bricks and doorways. The builders even crafted a dragon to swim through a moat and snake under turreted bridges.

Castles, though, seemed to be in the minority.

Other creations, ranging from Southern California Edison’s entry depicting hands holding the earth to Disneyland’s sculpture of Disney characters and building blocks, took shape along the beach.

In Town Publications won first place in the “formless fantasy” category for its creation titled “L.A. Drought 1992.” It featured a Western-clad skeleton sprawled next to a cactus, with a cow’s skull and empty water jug nearby.

Entries were judged on originality as well as execution, said Kent Trollen, head judge and professional sandcastle builder based in Newport Beach.

“We don’t go for what’s cute and darling,” he said. “Our primary judging criteria are design and execution. Those are the key things.”

Although castle building, itself, takes only four hours, preparation often takes months. The United Way holds sandcastle building workshops and many of the teams hold their own practice sessions.

Chevron USA and Petroleum Contractors Inc. used computer-aided drawings to model their sandcastle, building it weekly for the month before the contest. It was photographed and the blueprints were adjusted to improved the design.

Mazda went one step further in the creation of its sculpture titled “CarNivore.” It depicts an MPV van attempting to devour the smaller Miata sports car. The work took third place in its category. Mazda created scale models for each of its builders. The models were then sectioned into grids so the artists would know exactly what their pieces of the sculpture should look like.

The winner in the sculpture category, Sand Sculptures International from Redondo Beach, conceived the idea “Natural Selection” on Friday night and didn’t even have a drawing of what the finished product would be.

Its entry featured intricately carved creatures, some extinct and some still in existence, as spectators at a boxing match between a Cyclops and a kangaroo.

“The kangaroo won. So that’s why you don’t see Cyclopses anymore,” said Kevin Crawford of Hollywood.

Sandcastle fans can expect more prime weather today. Low clouds and fog are expected along the beach with temperatures reaching the high 60s, said Marty McKewon of WeatherData. Inland, the clouds may clear and temperatures are expected to range from the 70s, possibly reaching 80 in the afternoon, McKewon said.