World’s Largest Rubber Duck Coming to Roost in Rye
It weighs eight tons, travels by pickup truck and does not fly. The world’s largest rubber duck is coming to roost in Rye next weekend. The sixty-one foot high Mama duck and her duckling Timmy will roll into Playland Beach next Thursday, July 27th so it can set-up its roost on the beach in time for preening in front of guests on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“I’m just continuously surprised at how many people are into rubber ducks,” Mama and Timmy’s owner Craig Samborski told MyRye.com. “I get emails with pictures of people’s rubber duck collections. There’s people that have five, six thousand rubber ducks. The consistent thing I hear is that it just brings a lot of joy to people. The duck is something that people desperately want to have a selfie with.”
Mama duck and her duckling Timmy came into the world in 2014 and have criss-crossed the country and migrated as far as Canada, appearing at events and venues across the nation.
Duck Safety & Security
High winds are a concern for the portly Mama duck. At 61 feet high, 64 feet wide and 74 feet long she clocks in at eight tons (Little Timmy is only 10 feet high). Four high intensity blowers inflate Mama in under an hour, but Mama’s caretakers watch for sustained winds of 20 m.p.h. or higher.
“(If the wind is) sustained at 20 or 25, then we take it down. It just gets kind of dangerous,” said Samborski. “It’s a lot of area to catch wind. If it were a sailboat, it has the sail area of probably 20 sailboats so it can catch a lot of breeze.”
Mama duck and Timmy travel with an overnight security team. Back in 2014 someone made a small slit with a knife in the duck, but she was unharmed and did not deflate.
“We’re thrilled to welcome The World’s Largest Rubber Duck and her duckling to Playland this summer,” said Jeff Davis, general manager of Playland. “We want to continue to create memorable and unique experiences for our visitors that last for generations, and it’s special that this is The World’s Largest Rubber Duck’s first visit to Westchester County.”
Mama duck has never been rented for a private birthday party (we asked). It was rented by Elon Musk for the grand opening of his Tesla Gigafactory in Austin, Texas last year. “There was like 10,000 like social media influencers that came to the event,” said Samborski.
See video of Mama duck:
