​Nominate your team for Stormhoek Social Spirit Award

The Australian Coast to Coast Leg is underway and what an exciting contest the Elliot Brown Timekeeper Cup is turning out to be. Shaping up to be the most close-matched race between the twelve teams it’s about to get even more competitive as the time has come to open the nomination window for the Race 4 Stormhoek Social Spirit Award.

So far IchorCoal, Garmin and Visit Seattle have all won the award, celebrating in style at the prize-giving ceremonies in Rio, Cape Town and Albany, leaving with a Stormhoek pennant for their yachts and neck buffs for the crew members.

Lise Ewins, Marketing Manager for Stormhoek Wine co-ordinates all the events hosted by our Official Wine Partner in Host Ports, and the all-important deliveries of wine and prizes for all the celebrations. She says: “We introduced the Stormhoek Social Spirit Award to the Clipper Race this year in an effort to engage supporters and make them interact with one another and the crew on a different platform.

“It is wonderful to see how the number of nominations increases with each race, and to learn of all the amazing behind-the-scenes efforts made the teams that we would otherwise never have heard of. The teams that have won so far have truly inspired us and we cannot wait to see who will be nominated in the next round, as there is never just one obvious winner,” Lise added.

“It’s fantastic to see the social spirit in action on Visit Seattle who won the award for Race 3. Since Albany, Skipper Huw and his team have led the race for the first time and we wish them well in the remainder of the race to Sydney.”

For the first time in the Clipper 2015-16 Race, we have a leg of multiple races which means that there are three opportunities for the teams to win the Stormhoek Social Spirit Award. Usually, the nomination window opens one week before the arrival window into port and closes when the first boat crosses the finish line, however given that the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race only lasts a few days, the nomination window is much shorter for Race 5.

Here are the dates that you can nominate the boat you think has shown a real strength of team spirit during each of the races:

Race 4: The Elliot Brown Timekeeper Cup - Nominations open on 12 December
Race 5: The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race - Nominations open on 27 December
Race 6: The Henri Lloyd Hobart to Whitsundays Race - Nominations open on 6 January

The nomination window for each race will close when the first team crosses the finish line.

To nominate your team, log on to Facebook, ‘like’ the Stormhoek Wines page and write a comment on the post to tell us who you think should win and why. You can share the post with friends and family so they can get behind the race and your team.