The River Thames was the centre of a daft spectacle recently as a giant 50 foot rubber duck swam down it to celebrate the launch of Jackpotjoy’s new Facebook FUNdation - a bursary granting funds and rewards for daft ideas to encourage Brits to have more fun.
The 50 foot high, 60 foot wide giant duck set sail from London’s West India Dock, reaching London’s iconic Tower Bridge where the balustrades were lifted to allow the huge bird to pass through.
Patron of the Jackpotjoy FUNdation, Barbara Windsor, christened the duck’s maiden voyage in a traditional marine fashion with a bottle of champagne. After taking to the water, the giant half ton duck travelled upstream from West India Dock to London Bridge passing some of the capital’s most famous skyline landmarks en route including Canary Wharf, the O2 Dome, the Tower of London, the Gherkin and the Shard.
The Jackpotjoy FUNdation has been created following independent research commissioned by the leading bingo website that revealed the UK to be suffering from a ‘happiness recession’. According to the findings, the amount Brits laugh on an average day is 7.2 times which is less than half the amount psychologists have benchmarked we should at 15 times a day.
Barbara Windsor comments: “We created the Jackpotjoy FUNdation to get everyone having more daft fun in their lives and we thought a giant rubber duck floating down the River Thames was a great way to kick it all off and was certain to bring a smile and a chuckle to everyone who saw it! 2012 really has been the year of the River Thames with the Jubilee Pageant, the floating Olympic rings and David Beckham jetting into the ceremony via speedboat! We decided to round off the year with the giant duck and it certainly cheered everyone up… no one could suppress a smile as they saw it sailing past!
The giant duck was created by an 8 person team and over 800 man hours were spent in creating patterns, cutting and welding the sections together to produce the air tight finished structure. The ducks weighs half a ton, is 50 foot high and 60 foot wide.
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