Red Bull Flutag Comes to Auckland

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The famous Red Bull Flutag comes to Auckland. Our friend Tyler from “Yana” drives us 2.5 hours into the city for the first time.  It is a beautiful drive on a 2-lane highway through green, lush mountains.  It was a wonderful way to arrive into the big “city.”

Crowds start to gather along the rail early at the center of Wynyard Quarter (where the America’s Cup was held in 2020).

It was a rainy and ugly day, but we managed to squeeze a marvelous time out of it.  We bellied up to a tall table in a restaurant called The Good George.  We could see the launching platform, the large TV screens, and enjoy the comfort of rain cover. Plus, we had tasty food and craft beers!

So, what are the particulars of Flutag?

  • The platform is 6 meters high
  • The longest flight was 78 meters (258’) in Long Beach in 2013
  • 30 teams registered for the Auckland event, but only 21 showed and 1 had to drop out
  • Judging is based on creativity and distance
    • Creativity includes showmanship, pre-flight show and dance, costumes, music
    • Flight is distance flown

Rules:

  • The craft has to be homemade
  • Craft must be human powered
  • 1 pilot and 3 crew
  • Maximum length is 6 meters
  • maximum weight is 180kg

Prizes:  1st Prize $15,000, 2nd Prize $10,000, 3rd Prize $5,000 plus lots of sponsor prizes.

I headed to the Red Bull Flutag center during one of the rain lulls to check out the activities and crafts.

The Crafts:

Since this was my first Flutag I was determined to go “back stage” to see the crafts up close and personal! 

They certainly were very creative

This large, red, well designed craft gave everyone high hopes.  We all were convinced it would do well, but in the end it just went splash like the others.

Another air craft with high hopes managed to fly less than 10 meters.

It was the same story for most of the air crafts – flying between 8-10 meters and not making the podium.

Until the Red Barren and Snoopy came to take their turn.  They managed to fly a whopping 47 meters taking first place!  They are no stranger to Flutag.  The same team won first place during the event held in Auckland. Check out the Red Barren and Snoopy at 2hrs54 minutes.

Super fun day with good friends and awesome entertainment!  I highly recommend checking out a Red Bull Flutag if they come to your neck of the woods!

The events from this blog occurred in early December.  In our last blog post we celebrate my 55th birthday.

Birthday: You Can’t Drive 55!

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Where did all the years go?  Somehow I manage to turn 55 and honestly I have a hard time believing it!  But yet, here we are enjoying another birthday celebration with fabulous cruiser friends!

My birthday fell on a Monday and for some reason, most eateries are closed on Mondays.  So, we decided to celebrate on Sunday at The Butter Factory.  It is one of our favorite places to go in Whangarei and it did not disappoint with steak night!

We had about 12 people at our rowdy table including Chris (SeaGlub), Tyler and Shayna (Yana), Minke and Jaap (Eastern Stream), Rokas and Simona (Starlight), Adda and John (Rhapsody), Jacque (Kaloha).

These are certainly my people!  We’ve known some of them for years across several countries and they keep popping up 🙂

I feel so blessed to have been able to celebrate my birthday with these friends.

2 Days of Celebration

We were installing our new lithium batteries on the 16th so Matt took me out to dinner with our friend Chris to a new place called No.8.  It is an Asian fusion restaurant.  Pretty nice, but very expensive.  I was finally able to use my $100 coupon that I got from the marina for winning Best holiday decorated boat!

It was a great day(s) as we started the install of our new batteries, unloaded 500lbs of old batteries and had two amazing dinners.  I am feeling like a very blessed girl!  And a huge thank you to all of those who called, texted and sent Facebook messages.  I felt so much love!

Events from this blog occurred in mid-January 2023.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  We repair a cracked neck and rusty elbow in our last blog.

Cracked Neck & Rusty Elbow: Engine Repairs

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Sugar Shack has been an incredibly trustworthy yacht and home.  Since we bought her in 2010, she has never failed us, she has delivered us across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans putting well over 40,000nm under her keel.  Besides general maintenance, we have not had to do a major overhaul.  Until now….the boat repairs and projects have been piling up, but we could not get to most of them because we either did not have the resources or the expertise. 

Arriving in New Zealand has been a blessing in that we now have access to both the resources and expertise to get many of these repairs done.  Most we will do ourselves (or shall I say, Matt will do himself), but some we are hiring contractors to help us out.

Busy Work:

The starboard engine needed some serious love.  The coolant neck is cracked.  Matt had been gluing the coolant neck onto the coolant manifold but it really needed to be re-braised (type of welding).  The problem is the entire manifold had to come off in order to get the part to the welder (Absolute Stainless).  And this piece has not been removed in the boat’s life (22 years and counting).  So, Matt had to finagle the bolts using a new ¾” impact hammer.

He finally removed the piece after using much elbow grease.  One of the owners offered to come pick it up, but Matt had to carry the beast a few hundred yards to the parking lot.

They were able to fit us in right away, despite the shop being incredibly busy and way backlogged.  He contacted us the next day and said that he was able to braise the coolant neck with no problem.  Top left is the glued coolant neck and the other three show it re-braised properly.

1 Problem Solved: 1 Problem Discovered:

Slight problem – when Simon at Absolute Stainless was cleaning up the rusty exhaust elbow on the manifold, it started to crumble.  Well $hit!

We contacted the Volvo dealer (as this is a Volvo part) and they informed us that the part is not available in NZ and it would take several months to get it.  Considering we can’t use the engine without this part, we opted to ship this part in at a whopping $250USD shipping.  But we got it within 2 weeks!

Engine Cleanup

In the meantime, Matt replaced several raw water hoses that were looking ratty and difficult to see through.

Once we got the exhaust elbow back on the manifold, he installed it back on the engine. 

Next, the alternator bracket.  He had to take this off because it had a crack in it and needed to be welded back together.  You can see that we have welded this piece several times.  The alternator is very, very heavy and when under load while under passage it tends to put a lot of pressure on this huge piece of stainless steel.  The blue arrows indicate new weld.

Matt took advantage of the situation since the engine was really accessible and torn apart.  he cleaned up all around the engine, painted special rust repellent then volvo green paint on the engine.

The starboard engine after a very long spa treatment.

A Few Other Odd Jobs

  • Replaced fuel tank caps, gasket and lid (port/starboard)
  • Sewed new fender covers for our large A4 fenders (old blue cover, lower left corner, new black covers)

  • Received new Highfield 360 PVC Dinghy. Our sailmaker took us to collect our new dinghy from All Marine. He will graciously store it for us at his barn until the canvas lady can make her dinghy chaps.  Talk about great service!

The events from this blog occurred in early December.  We find fabulous hiking trails in Whangarei in our last blog post.