Its been a couple of years since we competed in Raft Race, as they hasn't been a hell of a lot of water around. Our old raft was too slow and required way too much effort to get it over the finish line. This year we decided to start from scratch - well almost. Bill Rutherford gave us some of their old barrels and nose cones as a starting point (thanks).

After collecting the barrels, the next task was to shorten them. They were welded 6 long, so we trimmed them down to only 4 using a 9" grinder (big sparks). While this was occurring, the holes in the end caps (corrosion) were patched, so hopefully they won't leak like a siv. Unfortunately we used tar, instead of silicon (it was free). The bad part is that it doesn't set hard, and if you get it on your hands, it won't come off.

The barrels were the easy part. Designing a frame to mount on top of the barrels was the issue. It had to be strong, seat 6 people, and not require wood longer than what we had lying around. Brett suggested using a CAD program, so out came Chris's phone for some quick sketches.

The side rails of the frame were started on the Tuesday, but the rest had to be left until Wednesday. We ran out of time, wood, and nails. A trip to Bunnings the following day fixed that, and everyone brought along their own hammer to finish off the frame (there might be just enough nails in it...). The barrels were welded together in the middle to stop them pushing sideways out of the frame of the raft.

The barrels were attached to the raft using tape. We didn't use gaffa/duct tape this time (against much criticism), instead we choose thin seat belt tape. The deck of the raft was attached (more nails...) to the frame, and it was ready to decorate. Decorations so far include inscriptions on each seat, CAT mud flaps (what the?), and markings for the adventurers as to which way up the raft should be facing, and which way is the front (someone found a can of spray paint).

Hopefully we'll have some better photos of the completed raft up soon.