• Wed. Feb 19th, 2025

Winners of Banbury summer boat design contest announced

Byoxfordnewspaper

Sep 5, 2022

A boatyard has announced the winners of its children’s summer design competition.

This summer, Tooley’s Boatyard launched its first-ever children’s design competition – ‘what floats your narrowboat’ – receiving almost 60 entries from primary school children across Banbury and Oxfordshire.

To support the competition, Tooley’s teamed up with a fellow local charity, Orinoco Scrapstore, to run three free scrap modelling workshops within the Castle Quay shopping centre to help children create their dream narrowboat design through scrap modelling.

The judges were so impressed with the number and quality of entries that they decided to pick not one but three winners and a runner-up when they met at the boatyard on Friday, August 26.

Tyler Hupalo from Bloxham, Harvey Mills from Hanwell Fields and AJ and Billie Jean from Dashwood, were all hailed joint winners – each receiving a family trip on board Tooley’s narrowboat, The Dancing Duck.

Emily Macey, also from Hanwell Fields, took the runners-up prize of a signed copy of the Muddy Waters storybook – a collection of children’s stories inspired by the Banbury waterways.

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Tasked with assessing the entries for creativity, engineering and attention to detail, the four judges included John Madden and Matthew Armitage, Chair and Director of Tooley’s Boatyard Trust, Sarah Jackson of Tooley’s Boatyard and Trustee of Orinoco Banbury Scrapstore, and Councillor Doctor Chukwudi Okeke.

Chair of Tooley’s Boatyard Trust John Madden said: “We have been overwhelmed by the support for the competition – the time and effort the children have dedicated to creating their unique designs has been a delight to see.

“Part of our role at Tooley’s is to encourage a love of the waterways within the next generation, and it was great to see so many children discovering narrowboats and the canal during the summer holidays.”

Dr Okeke said: “It was great to be invited to see the creativity these kids possess.

“Many thanks to Tooley’s Boatyard and Orinoco for allowing the imagination and creativity of these children to flourish.”

The judges were particularly impressed with Tyler’s entry due to the traditional streamlined boat shape, complete with cabin, and made entirely out of card, paper and masking tape.

Dr Okeke added: “It is traditional engineering at its best.”

Mr Madden said: “We just had to give an additional runner-up prize to Emily.

“Her rainbow colours and additional extras, including sweets, an ice cream parlour and even a bowling alley, were wonderfully creative.”

The entries will be on display and available to collect from Tooley’s Boatyard until September 10.

Tooley’s runs regular boat tours onboard its purpose-built narrowboat, The Dancing Duck, departing alongside the dry dock every Saturday at 11am, 12.30pm, 2pm and 3.30pm until October.

Read more from this author

This story was written by Matthew Norman, he joined the team in 2022 as a Facebook community reporter.

Matthew covers Bicester and focuses on finding stories from diverse communities.

Get in touch with him by emailing: Matthew.norman@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @OxMailMattN1

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