Gannet, aka Peter Foulkes has broken the 24hour solo world buggy distance record at the 15th annual Moose Meet 2009. A phone call earlier this week confirmed Peter was committing to an attempt at something he has been thinking about for a year or two. We packed some glow sticks to use as navigation points for the night session and peter had quite a few snacks and a camel back. The session kicked off about 130pm on Saturday 17th October with a NW wind of about 20 knots and peter was off to find a spot at the moose to get a square wind to do circuits and to take advantage of the low tide opportunity during daylight. Hours later near dusk and just after we had set out a search party Pete turned up with 250km on the gps looking hungry, glow sticks were packed and off peter went again. Dark arrived soon after and peter had prepared a helmet mounted spot light to make the most of the night wind still at 20 knots gusting 30 , problem was he knew there was only 2-3 hours of battery for the light and it was a dark moon , almost no light at all from nature. Craig Hansen and Steve Gurney kindly stepped in when they realized the issue and offered their helmet lights used for the recent 2000 km mission on the Sahara and Peter was now capable of buggying through the night in the soft sand and later on, hard packed. About 10 pm i looked out of the camp site and noticed a line of glow sticks and some mental dude buggying past south camp at about 45kmph down the side of the camp site, this lasted and hour or two despite some guy shooting roman candles up in front of the kite to light peters path for a short time. Rain squalls came and went elevating the risk a little as well as the lack of sleep retarding judgement of speed and distance for peter, i promised myself while tucking in for the night id get up in an hour or two at about 1am to see if Peter was still alive, but i only woke for a second when some kind of fire ball lit up the camp site, not to worry just the usual.... I saw my watch and realized it was 4am already !! I looked out of my car/tent and saw the wind had now gone SW and the tide was now at low , the only light was now from the Peter Lynn and Gurney supplied head lamps lighting up the low cloud/salt spray moving at about 50 kmph , up and down, up and down. well , either that was a search light or Peter was still alive, im an optimist so i believed he was ok . As it turns out Charlie Watson was out there every night hour checking on peter and between the two of them they had appropriated our camp hung glow sticks for a greater mission. Glow sticks were now forming a runway on the hard sand beach with two glow sticks to signify the end of a run / turning point top speed 74kmph and no seals to hit or crocks so good speeds and distance could be covered.

Morning came and most of petes energy was spent, the tide was high at about 10 am so it was just soft dune to traverse now for a few hours still over 500km done but 24 hours wernt up so pete did his best to keep up the average, entertaining himself by moving the racing marks so us lot had a job to navigate the dune marks in the right order. A bit of Breakfast and the longest rest of the 24hours, very red eyes from sand sun and lack of sleep. The wind was still pumping in and once more pete was off, putting in another hour of dune riding and then out to a thin strip of hard sand for the last hour or two eventually clocking up 623 km in one 24 hour period.

Well done to everyone involved , the moose meet never dissapoints

Well done Peter

NB: all materials and glow sticks were collected and disposed of in a thoughtful manner, all items taken were removed plus a lot of other peoples crap from the weeks prior


More on this shortly from the man himself once he wakes up....

That is bluddy awesome. Good on ya ol'fella!

Sounds like there's a few good stories still to be told.

whoot. not only did gannet beat the record he pulverized it....

i'm doubly guttered i couldn't come. i would have been there with the mighty gannet posting the first unofficial long distance landboard 24hr record. tho it would have been nothing like 600km.

Good work! I am looking forward to more stories to compliment the excellent one above. Had I had known you were attempting this you could have borrowed my lights. Just got a new set today that on paper do 2000 lumens on full for 5 -6 hours. Troutie has updated them with the latest brightest most efficient LED out there.

Thanks wayne and every one at the moose that help me

I'll tell some of the finer stories tomorrow night as my body is in full pain mode
from head ache to toes

interested in pics and specs of the power source and led's Yakers

As the GPS states... LEGEND!

Details are here for the light.

www.sessionlogs.com/yakernz-slog-3120-15...-Kiting-at-Lyall-Bay

did the mighty manta come out? or was 20knots too much in the buggy?

A big Well Done from the Kite Forum Team. That's a true kiwi style effort, gutsy, just do it attitude.

Congratulations on making the World Record. Lets keep it in NZ!

thanks yakers

No, no manta Plummet, it was pretty puffy, and at night with out seeing a rain squall coming it could have been pretty nasty an access 6m or 4m was more like it, however Peter Lynn sponsored part of petes journey with a PL reactor2 for a while which was very kind, there were quite a few quiet supporters contributing in their own way. One thing i didnt mention was the carbon fibre buggy was flawless both on the hard sand and soft, it was unstoppable which is great news. Glad the carbon fork didnt cost pete the chance to make 600km + ad all the bugs were weeded out before such an adventure.

yes your 30 knot sqaulls at midnight would have been tad silly side on the 10. i could have supplied the aforemention 6 access and lights aswell had i put 2 and 2 together.


I'm still waiting for the write up by the might gannet. Purhaps we should call him supergannetman or Gannetor from now on. I want to know about the mental and physical anguish with 24 hours of buggying. i've done the odd 12hr night mountain bike race and i can tell you at 3-5am the mental gremlens are indeed difficult.

Hi all,
thanks for all the kind words,it's starting to get a little creepy

yes I have written a little book on the 24 hrs moose mission

and will most likly send it to the NZ kiting mag

still adding to it


yes the 6m access would have been awesome

as for "mental and physical anguish"

it was a walk in the park.......you should try it

i intent to try such a stupidity. tho don't think the body could hold the power of the kite for a full 24 hours.... infact i know i couldn't. aslo i'd be unable to fang the high tide dunes to any real effect apart from maybe that hard bit over the back you talked about. so it would probably end up being 2 6 hour sessions in a 24hrs.

If i can manage half your effort i'd consider i'd be very pleased.
oh well maybe next moosing.

we still need to bust the 90 and i've gota punch some himatangi to paraparaumu with butch... role on those good times.

Also abit of an easier challenge. extented speed challenge how fast/far can you go in 1 hour.

nuking muriwai, kitesurfing the gap and bombing baileys really appeals to me also.... just need to learn how to kitesurf. need those red bull chicks in the irb for that one

plummet wrote:

If the limit is 24hrs, you don't have to do it in one go so it's totally feasible to try it in stretches.
I'd try for it for sure, would need some of the granny tires to let me ride as long as possible, OR find a bit of grass to do it on...

20 October 2009

I am writing to endorse Peter Foulkes claim to a 24 hour Kite Buggy Enduro World record.

Peter successfully completed his 24 hour run at the 2009 Muriwai Moose Meet October 17 and 18 2009.

He started at 1.30pm Sat Oct 17 and finished 1.30pm Sun Oct 18. During this time he travelled 623kms.

I witnessed the request for Al Noblet to independently zero the two GPS units Peter used to measure his time and distance. I rode alongside Peter at the north end of Muriwai beach close to the Kaipara Harbour entrance. I rode the dunes with him while he was doing laps in the camping area. I was part of the night crew assisting Peter with hourly checks and pit stops from 1.30am until 6.30am. I rode out onto the beach at 7.30 am to call him in for breakfast. I saw him riding again after breakfast and was in camp when he finished.

With the exception of rest breaks and pit stops every time I saw Peter he was doing circuits. During the night as we were heading to and from the beach to meet with him we could see his light coming and going and I rode alongside him on three occasions.

Peter’s successful run was greatly assisted by continuous strong wind. The conditions were ideal except for some rain around 4.30am.

Peter showed great determination during his enduro. He was in good spirits right through the night. An example of his commitment was highlighted after the 4.30am stop when it poured with rain. The night crew were returning to camp freezing cold and wet determined to get dry clothes and a hot cup of coffee. We turned back to the beach shortly before we reached camp and saw Peter’s Headlamp driving off into the pitch black rainy night to continue lapping his favoured stretch of beach all alone with a very wet kite.

Peter Foulkes performed a truly inspiring feat with much modesty and dignity. He was well prepared and only had one failure when a wheel came off in the dark. He had no crashes, regularly reported good health and during the run had no more discomfort than fatigue and a short period of being cold.


Peter Foulkes rode a self built kite buggy 623 kms in 24 hours at Muriwai Beach and the South Head sand dunes. He smashed the previous record by 171 Kms. This is a valid time and distance backed by GPS records and witnessed by several prominent members of the NZ kite fraternity. It is worthy of great respect and should be recognised by anyone who lists kiting records.

.


Charlie Watson

A Kiwi Kite NZ
NZ Kitefliers Assn
Waikato Kite Club
Co-organiser of the Blue Balls Buggy Bash (Est 1995)
Author of “The Guide to Western Circuit Hard Core Kite Buggy Riding”

welcome to the forum Fat Old Whimp
and thankyou once again for all your work, in this 24 mission


I just cleaned out my goose neck bag
it's all looking a little used

My GPS tracks

well that didn't work the file is in GPX
so that in can go into google earth.
but this site will not upload GPX file
let me think on this ,there has to be a way

Gannet wrote:


Congratulations to that awesome record, Gannet !

you can convert GPX files to kml (google earth/maps) with a free tool: www.gpsbabel.org , works on Windows, Mac and Linux.