Software

To make the water flow into the frame I first used masking, but it was hard to make it smooth, I kept getting corners between the keyframes. After playing around with effects like 'write on' and liquify I found the glue gun effect. With it's settings on default it makes shiny lines that look like they are made of glue like this:

I do quite like this look, but it doesn't fit with the flat landmarks and boat, so I turned off the lighting and made it flat. This way I get the smooth animation of a blob of glue, without the fancy 3D effect.

Clippers

Because my Clipper has to turn round to meander down the Thames, I had to make a series of frames from different angles. I used photos of the boats that I found on the internet to trace in illustrator:

I made it orange, navy blue and white to contrast with the more subtle colours of the buildings and river. The blue and orange are taken from the Thames Clippers logo and their website. 

It's turning is still not that smooth, I'd like to try and make a 3D model of the boat before the competition deadline to get it just right, but it is a lot better than it was when there were only 3 different frames.

A side elevation drawing of Tower Bridge and a 3D model of St Paul's in Google Earth were perfect for tracing in illustrator to get a straight on, flat angle for my landmarks in the animation.

St Paul's is a bit more detailed that the others, but I felt it just didn't look like St Paul's without the pillars and darker dome.