Rafts on Sandvlei during the Kon-Tiki Scout Adventure at Lakeside in Cape Town

Kon-Tiki refers to Scout and Guide raft building competitions held by

Scouts South Africa Scouts South Africa is the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) recognised Scouting, Scout association in South Africa. Scouting began in the United Kingdom in 1907 through the efforts of Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, ...

and

Scouts Australia Scouts Australia is a trading name of The Scout Association of Australia, which is the largest scouting organisation in Australia, with over 50,000 Youth Program Participants, and is a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. It ...

. Named after

Thor Heyerdahl Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and Ethnography, ethnographer with a background in biology with specialization in zoology, botany and geography. Heyerdahl is notable for his Kon-Tiki expediti ...

Kon-Tiki The ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named ''Kon-Tiki'' after the Inca god Viracocha, f ...

expedition of 1947, teams of Scouts and Guides age 11 to 17 compete to build and live on a raft for a weekend. Support crews compete in other events while the raft is afloat.

South African events

The Cape Town competition is held at the Sea Scout Base on the banks of Zandvlei, and was first held in the early 1980s. The event starts on the Friday afternoon with teams arriving and starting construction of the raft. The building criteria are very strict and judging takes place continuously until the raft launch on the Saturday at 2 pm. Much of the judging is related to safety. The Gauteng competition is held at

Arrowe Park Arrowe Park, sometimes Compound (linguistics), composited as Arrowepark, is an area to the west of Birkenhead, within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. It is situated on the Wirral Peninsula, adjacent to the Woodchurch, ...

Benoni, Gauteng Benoni is a town on the East Rand, Gauteng, South Africa, some east of Johannesburg, within the City of Ekurhuleni municipality. Benoni was also the setting for the MTV-inspired movie ''Crazy Monkey: Straight Outta Benoni'', released internat ...

(previous events held at Murray Park, Springs). The first event was held in 1985 at Murray Park. The competition is run in a very similar fashion to the Cape Town one, with the exception that the rafts launch at 11h00 on the Saturday morning. There are also numerous other activities and competitions for the support crew to partake in, such as the ''Beaver Challenge'', ''Spare Time Activities'', ''Dress-up competition'' and others. The 2015 theme was "Here be Dragons". Kon-Tiki events have also been held in

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha ( , ), formerly named Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipal ...

in the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...

Australian event

In 2012,

(SA Branch) ran the first Kon-tiki Raft Challenge outside South Africa. The competition was based on that of the South Africans.

References

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External links

Cape Western Kon-Tiki

Gauteng Kon-Tiki
Scouting events

South African events

Australian event

See also

References

External links