It was sink or swim time for the captains and crew of the Northern Territory's tinniest tinnies today, at the 51st annual Beer Can Regatta. A much-loved Territory tradition, thousands of people flocked to Darwin's Mindil Beach to witness the battle, and to admire the designs of canny boat builders.
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00:00A battle for the ages, steeped in territory folklore. What would have been the contents
00:08of a recycling bin, instead repurposed as the sturdy, and not so sturdy, decks of makeshift
00:14battleships. It's not just about the creativity of the design, but the craft's reliability,
00:21which will see a champion crowned today. And as the crowds gather, it's time for some final
00:26touches. That's meant to look like an air traffic control tower. It's gone through, well, it
00:33raced last year. Oh, it's just fallen over. Yeah, not ideal. We'll have to look at that
00:38in a minute. Veterans of Mindal Battles past engineer their vessels to withstand an assault.
00:45Everybody else really builds light and fast. We don't really care. I was here in 2023,
00:49and we built a really cool boat, and it was lighter, and we just didn't win. So this year
00:53we built something strong, something big, and we don't care. We're just here to fight.
00:58These entrants in the junior competition fully across their boat's strengths and weaknesses.
01:04We built it with a lot of cans and a lot of seca. It's got 1,500 cans on it. It can hold
01:11400 kilos, and it's not fast. Once these tin can tinnies cast off, they'll have to race out
01:19into the water, secure a flag while fighting off the crews of the other boats. It's a territory
01:24tradition with humble beginnings. Some guys decided that there was too much beer cans lying
01:30around the NT, so they wanted to clean up the NT. So they decided, came up with this amazing
01:36decision to build boats with the cans that were lying around, and that's how it all started.
01:41A hectic end for the crews of these tin can schooners.