LOCAL people are being invited to get into the maritime spirit by answering the call to ‘Float Your Boat’ and design and construct a model boat ahead of the Foyle Maritime Festival.
The competition is being organised by Derry City and Strabane District Council in conjunction with DuPont and the winners will have their designs displayed at the festival, which takes place from July 9th – 17th.
The DuPont Float Your Boat competition is also open to local schools as part of a special education programme based around the Foyle Maritime Festival, and has now been opened up to allow aspiring sailors of all ages the chance to come up with a winning design.
Encouraging people to try their hand at some small scale ship building the Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District, Alderman Hilary McClintock said:
“This is a great opportunity to get actively involved with the festival and have fun along the way.
“While the festival is of course primarily a programme of entertainment, we also want people to learn more about local maritime history and why we are celebrating the River Foyle.
“I would like people to get their creative caps on and try to come up with an eye catching model that will sit well within the nautical celebrations.”
The boats must be no bigger than 2ft long and 2ft wide, and built using recyclable materials. The designs – which must of course be floatable – can be entered into one of two categories, Best Design and Fastest Model, and the best entries will be judged prior to the launch of the Foyle Maritime Festival on the 7th July.
Archivist with the Tower Museum, Kirsty Osborn, said she hoped the competition would inspire people to take an interest in local maritime history.
“We are hoping that through researching their boats people will be encouraged to take more of an interest in the practical aspects of boat building and maybe discover a bit more about the region’s maritime past,” she explained.
“Derry has such a rich heritage in terms of the port and navigation, and Lough Foyle and its surrounding rivers have been pivotal for the region in terms of driving commerce and supporting the natural environment.
“The winners will be able to find out more first-hand about the day to day conditions of life at sea by getting a special guided tour of the Clipper race yachts – and they can see how their models compare with the real thing. I hope that we see a great entry of innovative and colourful designs.”
Paul Kirkpatrick, Organisation Manager with DuPont, said: “We’re so pleased to be working with the Derry City and Strabane District Council to deliver a fun, engaging and free education programme to primary school children from across DerrY.
“As a company, we regularly reach out to schools, offering prizes for STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) related tasks as well as creating our own competitions.
“We’re delighted to now be opening the competition up to the wider public as this offers an even better opportunity to engage with young minds and hopefully inspire a few people to explore the engineering route.
“At DuPont we make Kevlar® which is extraordinarily strong, lightweight and on an equal-weight basis, five times stronger than steel.
“It is best known for its use in protective garments but it can also be found in ships’ hulls and we’ll all get a chance to see many of those when the Foyle Maritime Festival kicks off.”
While the boats must float there are no restrictions to creativity in terms of design, colour or shape. Boats in the Speed category need to be fast under wind power, and all materials for the boats must be recyclable.
Entries for both categories need to be brought to the Tower Museum Derry, by12 noon on Friday 1st July 2016. Each entry needs to be labelled with details on who built it, category entry, address and contact number or email.
The overall winner will be given the opportunity to tour one of the Clipper Yachts at this year’s festival with friend and family. 2x Runners up prizes of vouchers to the value of £25 will also be awarded.
The top 10 entries for Category 2 will be raced as part of the ‘DuPont Float Your Boat Foyle Maritime Festival Education Programme’ to determine which one is the fastest. Top 10 entries for this category will be notified of the race day, time and venue by the beginning of July.
For more information on the competition and for information on the full programme of events taking place during the Foyle Maritime Festival July 9-17 go to www.foylemaritimefestival.com
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