Lihou attracts good crowd of duck racers

The popular fundraiser involved plastic ducks being sent on a thrilling ride down a white water racetrack.

Lihou Island warden Steve Sarre had built the scaffolding and put down polythene for the track. He was at the starting blocks of the fast and furious race.

‘The ducks go in the hopper and then I tip it over with all the water, and they take on this slalom track, you do get a few dropping off as they go down, a bit like the Grand National, and we’ve got a duck muddler in the middle, and then there’s a fast tunnel for them to go through.

‘It’s very different, it’s quirky, I’ve not seen it anywhere else before, so it’s a nice cheap event for kids and families to come and look around Lihou and then come and do a bit duck racing. Everyone’s glad that Covid’s over and we can get back to normal.’

All the ducks had a number on the bottom and participants paid £5 to sponsor a duck.

The overall winner was due to get 20% of the profits, with the rest going towards supporting Lihou. Mr Sarre said there were some significant projects to be done.

‘We had two rooms flooded so there’s a lot of work to do there, we need to retank the rooms and get them redecorated and basically build a room inside a room, so that’s going to be a lot of money.

‘We’ve got a whole list of things, there’s generator problems, there are structural problems, it’s like the Sixth Bridge.’

Phoebe Davis, 11, was the proud winner of the 1pm heat.

‘I feel pretty good because I normally come last in a lot of things so it makes a change, I thought mine would get stuck in the bin at the top.

‘It’s fun, and you don’t know who’s winning because you can’t see the numbers, my duck now goes through to the semi-final.’