Most bricklayers feel good about laying around 600 bricks in a full day. Chris Quinn is chasing a very different benchmark: he’s aiming to lay close to double that total in one hour at the Super Trowel European Championships.
Quinn, 42, from Newry in County Down, qualified for this month’s European event after winning the Irish qualifier at the same college where he served his apprenticeship. The championship takes place in England, and a win earns a spot at the world finals in Las Vegas.
Super Trowel is built around one simple idea that every crew understands: production only counts when the work is right. Competitors get one hour to build a section of wall. Judges score volume, but they also inspect the finished work, and they deduct points for mistakes. That means line, level, and joint quality stay on the clock right alongside speed.
Quinn said he found the contest through one of his apprentices, Cian McLoughlin, who entered the junior competition and won the Irish junior title. This year, the apprentice travels with Quinn as his hod carrier, keeping bricks and mortar moving during the hour-long build.
That helper role matters on any jobsite. In the contest, McLoughlin has to feed units and mortar fast, and he has to keep chipped bricks out of the stack. Quinn said the pace leaves no time to stop.
In training, Quinn laid 1,085 bricks in one hour. He also noted that competitors from England work with clay bricks daily, while much of his own work involves concrete blocks, so he’s spent extra time getting comfortable handling brick.
Quinn hopes the competition pushes more apprentices to get involved. On his site, he said three young workers already want to try it.
Read the full, original article from BBC here.