Competition Time: Name my Clipper Race mascot!

When I was attending the razzmatazz that is Crew Allocation in Portsmouth earlier this month I bumped into an unrelentingly positive and energetic roofer from the Wirral who I trained with during my Level 1 training week back in March 2018. His name is Les Perry. He has boundless energy and enthusiasm. I would have loved him to be on my team, Punta del Este, because he’ll be fantastic for crew morale during tough times I’m sure.

Les’s sister, Viv, who I have never met, knitted me my very own mascot for £20, in order to support her brother’s fundraising campaign in which 25% of the money he’s raising will be donated to UNICEF, the official Clipper Race charity. I had quite forgotten that I’d put in my order last year via our L1 WhatsApp group, so I was delighted when Les presented me with my mascot in Portsmouth.

So I am asking you, dear WordPress readers, Facebook friends and Twitter followers, to suggest a name for my mascot who’ll accompany me through the race. I would like to set a deadline for name nominations and that date is 6th July 2019, marking my team-building weekend with my race team. It seems an auspicious moment in the pre-race countdown to name my mascot too – all significant steps towards the start line if you ask me.

All nominations can be left as comments on this blog post below or you can email me your suggestion at drhannahrumble@gmail.com or Tweet your suggested name to @NoviceSailor using #RaceMascot.

I shall select a name after team building weekend and the lucky person who provides the winning name will get a hand-crafted, lino-cut print made by the very talented, Charlotte Chapman. I intend to send the print through the post, so that a little souvenir of my journey gets posted through your letter box. Now, what’s not to like about that?