Alex Chinneck’s peculiar canal boat features a 'loop-the-loop'

Alex Chinneck’s latest public sculpture takes the classic canal boat and turns it into a gravity-defying architectural marvel outside of Sheffield.

The Looping Boat is a 13-metre-long canal boat that appears like a giant, swooping Hot Wheels track on the water thanks to its six-metre high loop-the-loop, which Chinneck describes as a ‘playful distortion of the familiar’. Its surreal appearance is designed to draw attention to the canal and its traditional infrastructure by encouraging viewers to see it in a new and playful way.

‘I’ve named the boat “The Industry” after the first vessel to navigate the canal in 1819,’ explains Chinneck. Painted in traditional colours, with sign writing by Claire Norton, the aluminium sculpture also features the Tudor Rose, which is the assay mark for Sheffield.

‘This is a collaborative work involving structural engineers, specialist steel fabricators, waterway contractors, professional painters and traditional canal boat sign writers. Without question, this is my most complex and challenging artwork to date.’

Unlike its wooden, less loopy counterparts, the peculiar boat is static and is positioned away from the navigable channel of the canal, between lock gates 4 and 5 on the 205-year-old Sheffield and Tinsley Canal. Historically, the canal was used to transport coal and goods across the Midlands during the Industrial Revolution and early 20th century. Nowadays, England’s canals are used mainly for leisure and are home to a thriving subculture of boaters.

The Looping Boat is Chinneck’s third public sculpture in Tinsley in eight years. It was created by long-time collaborators Millimetre and Smith and Wallwork Engineers and co-funded by British Land and by energy company E.ON as part of the redevelopment of the Blackburn Meadows site.