The Beer Can Regatta has been running since 1974, attracting thousands of tourists to Darwin every year. The competitors build their boats out of empty beer and Coca-Cola cans, plastic bottles and milk cartons. The boats are not tested for seaworthiness before the regatta, and and when one of the boats starts to fall to pieces, it's part of the general amusement. There are many other events in Darwin on regatta days - concerts, bikini swimming costume throwing and the "Henley-on-Mindil" competition, where contestants portray characters from the Flintstones cartoon (the cartoon characters got into cars that had no bottom and moved with the help of their own legs).
More or less afloat designs, that ever took part in the regatta are now part of the collection of the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney.
The first Beer Can regatta took place June 1974, it was the brainchild of Lutz Frankenfeld and Paul Rice-Chapman, members of the Darwin Regional Tourism Development Association. At the time, Paul, who was working for a local newspaper, had the idea of organising a water festival and was developing the idea of of building boats out of empty beer cans. Lutz went further and suggested adding an attached motor to the boat. This is how the regatta was born. In recent years, the regatta has been held at Mindil Beach in the summer - the date changes each year and depends on the right time of the of the tide.
