Selkirk’s Maddie Arlett celebrated with boat naming

FORGET Boaty McBoatface, this year it is all about Maddie Arlett.

The former Selkirk High School student is being honoured with a boat being named after her.

The lightweight sculler made her debut with the GB rowing team at the 2017 World Cup regatta in Belgrade.

And Edinburgh University boat club has now decided to name their new boat ‘Maddie’ to honour her amazing talent.

During her stint at Selkirk High School she showed athletic prowess and went on to study sport science at the University of Edinburgh. Arlett joined the university rowing club in 2013 and wasted no time in showing her potential.

The university boats are all named after famous or influential people attached to the club.

This includes Dame Katherine Grainger, a five-time Olympic medal winner who is Great Britain's most decorated female Olympian, Polly Swann who was an Olympic silver medallist at Rio and is currently studying medicine at Edinburgh university, and John Higson, the senior women’s coach, who coached Maddie from a beginner to the success she is now.

Maddie told the Border Telegraph: “It is such a huge honour to receive such a prestigious award.

"I never thought it would happen.

“At Edinburgh, we were always told which boat we were rowing that day like the Grainger or Swann. One of my goals was to get my name on one of the university boats and hear people say, ‘you’re rowing in Maddie today’."

Since she began her rowing journey six years ago, Maddie has gone on to row for Scotland and Great Britain.

She is now training with the GB squad full time and is currently on a two-week training camp in Portugal.

The special boat is making its way across the waves from Canada.

Hudson boats, the Canadian based company, provide all the rowing boats for Edinburgh University.

The Maddie will be for a four-person team and can be changed into a quad for sculling, which is Maddie’s speciality.

The presentation will take place later this year at Strathclyde Park where the university rowing team train.