This year’s Bristol Harbour Festival is on the hunt for families, schools and businesses to take part in this year’s iconic cardboard boat races!
A flotilla of bobbing cardboard boats is an iconic and spectacular sight and a much-loved element of the Bristol Harbour Festival. Cardboard boat racing is back with a splash for 2023 – and it needs you!
Numerous mass launches will set sail from the Pontoon area near Prince Street Bridge throughout the festival weekend of Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 July, and Bristol Harbour Festival organisers are now on the hunt for participants.
Families, schools and businesses are invited to take part in cardboard boat making workshops – ahead of launching their sea-faring cardboard crafted constructions into Bristol’s iconic Bristol Harbour as part of the July festival.
Last year’s festival saw over 100 cardboard boats take to the water, built by 700 school children in Bristol, with the first boat over the finish line built by Ashton Gate Primary School who claimed a £100 prize for the four successful young boat-makers. Families can join in the fun by buying a ticket for a public workshop here.
This year will see primary school children in groups of four build a cardboard Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter. Any schools wishing to participate should contact My Future My Choice at email hidden; JavaScript is required or 0117 329 0387.
Sponsored by GWR, this year’s school races will offer free rail travel to Bristol Temple Meads, where participating students can catch the Packet Boat to boat building workshops taking place throughout the year. These will take place on the MV Balmoral, known as the ‘people’s liner’ and once best known for coastal day trips. Having been lovingly restored by volunteers, it has a new lease of life and is now moored in Bristol outside M Shed.
Sunday’s racing boats will this year be piloted by teams or families, who will bring to life models of the Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter or The Matthew. Taking place on MV Balmoral on both Saturday 1 and 8 July, tickets are now on sale here for the public to take part.
The workshops will shed light on the history of iconic Bristol vessels. Making the model follows the principles of shipbuilding – with all parts, equipment and guidance provided to make a strong watertight yacht in two hours. Tours of the MV Balmoral are also included in the ticket price to provide context to the importance of shipping today.
Infamous and long-serving street theatre group, Desperate Men Theatre Company, will also be entertaining visitors with music and comedy showcasing the heritage behind the Festival’s cardboard boat races, as well as the harbourside and MV Balmoral. Richard Headon at Desperate Men Theatre said, “This is an experiment with the ghosts of things that used to be, an inquiry into the principles of hauntology, more Scooby-don’t than Scooby-doo!”
My Future My Choice www.myfuturemychoice.co.uk provides unique and innovative education services working with the charity The Bristol Initiative Charitable Trust. The Bristol Harbour Festival www.bristolharbourfestival.co.uk will run Friday 14, Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 July 2023.
Bristol Harbour Festival is part of Bristol 650, a year-long celebration of all things Bristol: who we are, where we come from, what we’ve done – and where we’re going.