A spectacular 300kg metal haddock has arrived in Cleethorpes to encourage people to keep the beach tidy.
The handmade stainless-steel fish sculpture is a giant recycling bin for plastic bottles and can be found on Central Promenade, near the lifeboat station.
North East Lincolnshire Council teamed up with Grimsby-based Blackrow Engineering and several other sponsors to bring the steel haddock to the resort’s Central Promenade.
More than 80 children entered a competition to name the new fish. The winner was 11-year-old Lilly-Mai Halligan, from Grimsby, with her suggestion of ‘Hammy the Haddock’.
Lilly-Mai named the fish after her uncle, Bernard ‘Buster’ Hammond, who died in January. He was a well-known figure in the resort and part of the beach safety team for more than 30 years.
She said: “My mum told me and my two sisters about the competition and we discussed what we would name the fish. We came up with Hammy as every time we think of Cleethorpes, we think of uncle Buster and it will be nice to have something to remember all the work he did. He loved the beach so it will be nice to know he will be remembered for keeping the beach safe and now Hammy will help keep it clean and carry on his memory.”
Hammy the Haddock is made entirely from high grade stainless steel. The fish is 4m long, roughly 1.2m wide and 1.7m tall.
Ben Tiffney, operations director at Blackrow Engineering, explained how it was made: “Calling on our different manufacturing departments including the sheet metal department, machine shop and our laser cutting department. More than 450 hours have gone into the making of the fish. Most of the fabrication and manufacture of the fish has been carried out by one of our skilled tradesman Logan Marklew, with aid from one of our budding apprentices Ryan Meggit.
“Because of the nature of the task, the design process was carried out in a totally different manner to how we would normally approach a job. First, our contracts engineer, Darren Jaines, hand sketched some concepts of how we were to build the ‘framework’ of the fish. This was then transposed into making a scaled model, for us to be confident of getting the ‘shape’ right. We then scaled this concept up.
“We laser cut oval shaped supports attached to a formed pipe that ran through the centre of the fish, once these supports where tied together with round bar, the central formed pipe which created it’s shape was then cut away as the body had its own strength, creating a hollow fish.
“We than added the scales to the body, formed from round bar, through trial and error we then created the fish’s face and head section, and cladded this with shaped round bar. The fins were laser cut and the eye’s where machined and added, and once we were happy with the fish’s overall height and position, we designed, laser cut and fabricated its mounting frame. The fish was then hand polished to create a smooth finish to help it survive the elements and also give the wow factor!”
Other sponsors and supporters of the project include XceCo, Engie, Ørsted, Dalkia Waste Energy, IPL, Ebb and Flo, AS Motors and Total Signs & Graphics.
Councillor Callum Procter, portfolio holder for Tourism, Heritage and Culture at North East Lincolnshire Council, added: “I’d like to thank all the project sponsors and supporters, especially Blackrow Engineering for all the hard work that’s gone into designing and making it. I’d also like to thank everyone who entered out Name That Fish competition, we had some excellent suggestions, but we thought Hammy the Haddock was most fitting. Hammy is a great new attraction for Cleethorpes and serves as a reminder to everyone that we can all play a part in looking after our environment.”
Watch a video of Councillor Procter introducing Hammy the Haddock at https://youtu.be/4J-xD6m04r0.
Watch a video of Hammy arriving in Cleethorpes at https://youtu.be/vn00Tosju-w.
Article and image from NELC.
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