Did you Come On Board with a Tall Ships poster?

From Pinnawela in Sri Lanka to the Pyramids of Giza - Hartlepool reached all over the world in 2010.
Michelle Daurat.Michelle Daurat.
Michelle Daurat.

It is incredible to think that, just seven years ago, our town was the centre of most of the North East headlines.

The Tall Ships Races were on the way and there was a campaign in town to raise awareness of the mega event.

Black Diamond skipper Calvin Whitehand with a Come On Board poster.Black Diamond skipper Calvin Whitehand with a Come On Board poster.
Black Diamond skipper Calvin Whitehand with a Come On Board poster.
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It was called the Come On Board campaign and we urged Mail readers to have their photograph taken with a specially designed poster, at whichever destination they were visiting around the world that year.

The poster had the message “Come On Board” on it, as well as the dates that the Tall Ships Races were coming to Hartlepool.

Little did we realise how much of an impact the project wuld have.

By March of 2010, with five months still to go to the races, Mail readers had taken the posters with them to 42 countries.

Black Diamond skipper Calvin Whitehand with a Come On Board poster.Black Diamond skipper Calvin Whitehand with a Come On Board poster.
Black Diamond skipper Calvin Whitehand with a Come On Board poster.
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You sent back photos from Mexico, the Maldives, Poland, Portugal, Turkey, Tunisia, New Zealand, Norway, Gibraltar and Germany.

Hartlepool’s Tall Ships Races project manager Michelle Daurat said at the time: “I think there are something like 200 countries in the world, so we have already reached a fifth of them.”

Mail readers also took posters to Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Lapland, Lithuania, Russia, Spain, and to all parts of the UK.

We got backing from television star Ricky Tomlinson who posed with one of the posters when he visited the Grand Hotel in Hartlepool.

Did you get involved in our Come On Board campaign and where did you take yur poster?

Email us and remind us of those great dayus.

Send an email to [email protected]