Luke has a tough time on Kon-Tiki

Being PL of a competition that we haven’t done for a few years was rough (last time we attended Kon-Tiki was in 2017). There was a lot of uncertain planning and a bit of confusion to go with it. Pre-build was great and definitely a good idea, although it didn’t help that we decided not to put the cabin on (and so this resulted in two of the uprights being in the centre of the walls rather than in all four corners on the weekend of Kon-Tiki. This meant that the cabin wasn’t held down and so we had a maze of ropes, which we had to put up in the first hour of being on the water, all over the cabin trying to hold down the roof and cabin and prevent them from blowing away). One of the major highlights of the prebuild was the raft design. Although incomplete, it still looked great and had loads of scouts excited.

Arrival on Friday was late and so we had to hurry to catch up to where we should’ve been with construction. A few people decided to sleep over under the raft, while others went home and came back. The raft team consisted of six people (in order: Luke F, Holly R, Nina S, Rachel C, Ethan G, Malaika K). On Saturday the raft team departed and lived on the raft for the next 24-26 hours.

When I asked the rest of the raft crew how they found it, these are the responses I got (copied and pasted):

1. From Malaika K:

“Kontiki was such a fun experience that I will remember forever. It was nice to bond with the people on the raft and make great memories with them.”

– Malaika (the coolest person on the raft)

2. From Holly R:

It was a very rounding experience, even though it was mostly doing crafts on a raft it allowed me to connect with my team members more than what you usually do on competitions. I enjoyed the preparing process and would love to do it next year again.

3. From Rachel C:

I think this was a great experience for many and hopefully it will be even more successful in the future with an even greater attendance than there was this time.

4. From Ethan G:

It was a once in a lifetime experience … interesting but really tiring. The build was really fun. One obstacle was having to been able to work with everyone on the raft. I personally found it pretty bad for various reasons which I will not dwell upon. Even so, I hope that 1st Claremont continues to take part and in future years have an even greater attendance than there was this year, getting scouts even more hyped. One thing I did enjoy seeing was the camaraderie among the scouts and watching everyone get excited to launch the raft, even if they weren’t part of the raft crew. From that perspective, it was great and really good to see so many people pulling through to make it a success.