Thousands enjoy canal festival

5:07pm Wednesday 7th May 2008

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Thousands of people poured into Skipton at the weekend for one of the town's best-ever waterway festivals.

A record 85 boats attended the three-day event, which was centred around the canal basin and had an Olympic Games theme.

Winner of the best dressed boat and the best illuminated boat was Ian Chatburn, from Skipton, whose jazz band Dales Jam also played at the event. Five teams entered the festival's first ever raft race. It was watched by hundreds of people and victory went to The Outcasts, who won a day out at the Coniston Hotel, Coniston Cold.

Diane Davis, who travelled from Durham on Sunday, said: "The festival is going fantastically well and the rain hasn't stopped the crowds. We have a traditional working boat ourselves. This is one of the biggest boat festivals in the North."

Zoe Clarke, one of the organisers of the festival, said: "It was a huge success. The weather on Sunday was a bit of a damper, but even though it was wet, we still had people out and the charity stalls were still busy. I don't think we could have asked for a better weekend."

She said an unexpected success had been Sunday's raft race. "We were absolutely amazed by the number of people who watched the raft race. We had to get marshals out to keep everyone back."

An additional competition was held to find which boat had travelled the longest distance to the event.

"It was an off-the-cuff contest and was won by the Joanar Jayne, which had come from Hull and had taken a few weeks," said Zoe.

* See Friday's Craven Herald for more pictures of the festival.