Hampton Beach New Hampshire ~ Sand Sculpture Contest!

Hampton Beach New Hampshire has loads of summer fun scheduled all summer long every year! This year is a little more special in that it's the
"100th Anniversary Celebration of the Hampton Beach Village District" of Hampton NH.

To kick off this year's special celebration, Hampton Beach held their 'Seventh Annual Hampton Beach Master Sand Sculpting Contest". And what scultping masterpieces they were, too! WOW!

The Master Sculptors who take part in this event come from all over North America. This year's competitors hailed from Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Ontario, Quebec, Texas, and Ohio. Many of these competitors have been competiting for years, and out of the 13 master sculptors taking part this year, five of them are considered to be the strongest carvers in the world.

To start the competition, 10 tons of sand was delivered for each competitor, and they each were assigned to a 16' x 16' plot area. This sand comes from one of the local sand pits.

Competitors are each provided at least two 55 gallon drums of water, and shared hoses for their areas. The only other material allowed is Elmer's Glue, or some other bio-degradable similar product, to help preserve completed sculptures.

For creating their sculptures, no molds of any kind are allowed, however they can use wooden or plastic forms filled with sand and water to help gain the desired height needed for their creations. Platforms can be used to carve from the top down, and then the platforms are removed as they move down the sculpture.

Each competitor has an allotted 21 hours over 3 days to complete their sculpture. At exactly 4pm on Saturday, the horn sounds loudly for the competitors to cease working and begin picking up their tools, etc.

We were there for the last hour of the voting for the "People's Choice Award", and saw the organizers notifying each competitor when they had one hour left, then 30 minutes, and then 10 minutes. As they approached the final countdown, voices all over the place could be heard counting down the last 30 seconds before the horn sounded. It was kind of exciting to see everyone scrambling to get those last little touches completed, and to see those voting in the "People's Choice" hurrying to make their selections, too!

Despite the cloudly overcast and somewhat chilly weather, Hampton Beach was packed with visitors and locals alike, all craining our necks to get as much as we could of each of these amazing sand sculptures. It was absolutely fascinating to think each of these was actually carved solely of sand - the detail was amazing on some of these!

Take this tour below to see each of the winning Master Sculptures in this fun contest, as well as some of the other entries - amazing detail in these sand sculptures!

Living here on the Coast of New Hampshire provides for so much great living all year long. Of course, life in the Seacoast offers great summer time fun, like this fabulous Sand Sculpture Contest!

If you're interested in checking out making this great area I call home YOUR new HOME, let me know...... I'm happy to show off how awesome coastal New Hampshire and Southern Maine is! I'm at your service!

Follow this link to view some great tours on this beautiful part of New Hampshire and Maine. There are alot of beautiful pictures included in some of these tours, so allow them to all load - well worth the wait, I promise!!

Ann Cummings, Maine and New Hampshire REALTOR
RE/MAX Coast to Coast
Portsmouth NH
ann@anncummings.com
888-349-5678 x 3839
Servicing the Coastal Areas of NH & Southern Maine