Organ transplant race is on as professor takes to seas

The 12-strong group from across the UK will take part in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, which covers around 40,000 miles and starts in August.

The team - which includes two kidney transplant patients, a liver transplant patient and a recipient of a double lung transplant - will be led by Steve Wigmore, professor of transplantation surgery and the clinical lead for transplantation at the University of Edinburgh.

There is a national shortage of organs for the people who need them and the team is hoping to highlight the benefits of transplantation, as well as promoting organ donation on a global stage.

Prof Wigmore said: "It's quite daunting, but it's very exciting at the same time. The whole purpose of doing this is to demonstrate the amazing potential that transplants have.

"A lot of media coverage around organ donation, including what the government puts out, is quite consequence-based. It's all about what would happen if you didn't donate your kidneys to this person.

"We wanted to send out a really positive message so that people could see that if a patient who was really sick gets a transplant, they don't just get a little bit better, it completely transforms their life and they're able to do amazing things like sail around the world."

He added: "This race is the toughest challenge in team sailing and we hope people will find what we're doing to be inspirational. We're looking to try and get people to sign up to the organ donor register."

The race - which last year featured the Edinburgh Inspiring Capital entry - will take the fleet of ten 68-feet racing yachts on a breathtaking, 11-month journey around the globe, ending in July next year.

The 15 individual races will visit 13 countries, with the team of doctors, nurses and transplant patients - known as "transplant ambassadors" - each sailing a leg of the race, which starts and finishes in the UK.

Professor Wigmore, along with a transplant patient who was treated in Edinburgh, will sail from China to San Francisco in March 2012.

He said: "The race is actually split into eight legs and we've got different people on different legs.

"One person who's part of the team is from Cape Town and he's going to do the whole round the world trip."He's had a kidney transplant."

The doctors and nurses taking part in the world's longest yacht race will pay their own way, with the team raising money to allow the patients to participate.

Donations can be made through the University of Edinburgh development fund at https://edinburghuni.workwithus.org/Fundraising/Donate.aspx?page=5939