Milford Harbor Duck Race

This is another 'review' post for those of you who watch my flickr stream, but it's also my Pinkys' most recent adventure PLUS the event itself is toy-oriented, so how could I not post about it?

I had planned last weekend to go to Sakura Matsuri at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, but I was feeling poor and lazy, so I didn't. I did end up in CT tho and lucky for the girls - who were dressed in their festival clothes - I discovered that there was a fun little event I could go to that was much closer to where I already was. Apparently there's a rubber duckie race that they've been holding annually every spring to raise money for charity. I would link you to the website, but it seems to be down? It's been up and down a few times this week, I think. If it's working, it was at www.milfordduckrace.com. I vaguely recall hearing about this in recent years, but I don't remember it going on when I lived in CT. I am not sure how many years they have been running it? But it's another in a series of cute outdoor events that go on in Milford Center. They seem to have something going on nearly every weekend in the warm months, which is nice! This was my first time going to the Rubber Duck Race tho - but let's get to the pictures!


Happy Duckies in their natural habitat! ^^

Here's how it works. As you can see above, all the ducks are numbered. You 'buy' a duck (you don't get the duck, really you are just putting your money on a number, like a lottery) and the duck goes into the race. The ducks are loaded into a frontloader, which is driven to a bridge. The ducks are dumped into the water and they 'race' (there's a strong current there) to a finish line. The first ones to cross win a prize for the people holding those numbers. All the ducks are collected in a 'trap' so they don't go floating off to see. Here's a look at the race map:


My favorite pictures! The ducks being dumped into the water:




Here they all go!



"Go ducks go!!"


"Oh, I wonder who will win?!"

She may have cause to worry - it seems some of the ducks were too lazy to proceed to the finish line. They prefered to clump up around the edges of the river and gossip... XD




Here's an overview of the race near the end. I think there was a problem with the ducks escaping the raceway (that's why so many of them were over at the bank, I think. See, they really were lazy! They just wanted to hang out, not swim!) and so they were out there with a kayak trying to herd them back into the trap for collecting. I didn't stick around long enough to see how they caught them all, but I'm sure they did. Can't have a bunch of ducks floating around in the harbor after all!

If you need more pictures of the ducks, you can check out the rest of my flickr set.