How To Build A Sandcastle

You?ll get sand up your crack no matter what you do, so you may as well be creative!

Ah, those lazy days of childhood, when you could spend all summer at the beach and nothing was more important than crafting the biggest tower of sand the world had ever seen. But now you work for a living, and you get one weekend at the beach?if you?re lucky. With just one chance to show well-tanned honeys you?re in touch with your inner child, you better make it count.

Tools

Sandcastling tools fall into two categories: found tools and specialty tools. Studies show that intense dedications to sandcastle sculpture is directly related to an inability to get laid, so don?t overdo it. Things you will need to bring are a shovel (with a long handle to spare your back) and a bucket. You?ll also need carving tools: Swipe some plastic utensils from the overpriced burger shack. Break off the middle prongs of the forks and you have the perfect tool for forming columns. Or bring putty knives and melon ballers from (you don?t have melon balers?). Also bring some cans of beer?this is just a good general philosophy.

Digging

Select your location carefully?it should be far enough from the sea that your work will be protected from the tides, but not so far that you?ll need an oil rig to reach water. Look for the spot where the darker, wet sand shifts to white sand that blows easily: This is the high-tide line. Set up your construction site just up hill from it, and make sure you?re in full view of at least half a dozen scantily clad hotties. Dig down until you hit wet sand: The key to a solid foundation is moisture. Use your hands like a bulldozer, scooping out the web mud and depositing it at your building site in an ever-increasing mound.

Tamping

This is the process of accumulating enough wet mortar sand to carve a solid structure. As counterintuitive as it may seem, the goal is not to bash the sand into submission; instead, mold your wet sand into pancakes with gentle jiggling motions (see, isn?t that fun?), retaining as much water within the patties as possible. To retain structural integrity, carve from the top down and always carve outward: Your castle is the one thing on the beach you don?t want to be top-heavy. Concentrate first on building a simple shape as the main structure. You can add sand later for towers, walls, and the large torture chamber.

Sculpting

Cut the tops of the walls straight across, then carve out little squares (called crenellation; the walls are battlements). This is where you get to show off your artistic side. Be sure to make lots of ?thinking noises? and French-sounding grunts. Cut the tops from your empty beer cans and invite attractive onlookers to mold outposts, turrets, and whatever other beer-can-shaped structural additions you can devise. Only you know when the sculpture is finished. ?You were my muse,? you?ll tell your beach bunny as you share a brew and watch the sunset. ?It?s getting cold. Come here under my blanket.??Chris Connolly

Maxim For Men, May 2000, How To Build A Sandcastle, pg. 69, Chris Connolly

More Information

• growabrain: Sand Sculptures Archives