Bergen County Teen Finally Tests Boat He Built In Wood Shop. Here's What Happened.

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — A Bergen County high school student who began building a boat in wood shop class has finally launched it.

After growing up in a boating family, Mahwah High School student Lukas Hart was inspired to take on the challenging project in his advanced woodshop and furniture design class last year.

“My entire family loves boats,” Hart said recently. “Everyone has a boat and I have grown up around boats my whole life.”

So Hart began designing an 11-foot, 450-pound boat that he hoped would someday accommodate him and his Airedale terrier-poodle, Izzy.

He had already built a table, as did his classmates, but he wanted to try something more ambitious.

He began gathering materials and secured a $400 sponsor: TotalBoat, a Rhode Island Boat Company owned by Jamestown Distributors.

Work Continued

Over the summer, he continued with the project, hoping to test-launch the boat.

"Perhaps one of the most challenging parts of building an 11-foot boat is making the wood malleable," said a school spokeswoman. "Lukas used a process called steam bending, where he put ash wood into a steam chamber and heated water with propane to send steam into a tube. This helps create the malleable wood needed for the boat design, which he clamps in place."

Hart said, “The process failed four times before I got it right. The wood had to curve a certain amount. It was really an incredibly challenging project.”

Hart also drove more than two hours to Connecticut to find special marine-grade plywood.

Recently, he brought the boat — and Izzy the dog — to a nearby swimming pool.

Both climbed aboard and were able to take the boat for a successful test run.

“The whole purpose of this project was to challenge myself,” Hart said. “I have learned the importance of never stopping after a failure. There have been failures with every single step along the way.”

Lukas said he could relate to the quote by Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

His goal is to take his boat down the Hudson River someday.

'Most Ambitious Project'

“This is probably the most ambitious project anyone has ever attempted since I have been here,” said his teacher, Daniel Catizone.

He said because he had seen Hart at work, he had the confidence to greenlight the project.

“It would have been really easy [for him] to give up," Catizone said, "but Lukas has been very consistent with this build."

Hart hopes to study naval or regular architecture and learn to design ships, possibly at the University of Notre Dame.

His mother and grandfather both attended Notre Dame and he would like to follow them, he said.

When he is not building his boat, Lukas is the goalkeeper on the high school varsity soccer team and plays the goalkeeper for a club team. He also plays the trombone and baritone in the high school symphonic band and marching band.

He said, “If you are able to follow your passion to the highest degree in life, then you will be successful.”

Information about the Mahwah High School Career Pathways Elective Program is here.