Following on from the Regatta - with celebrations including live music , street theatre and a Parade of Sail - the ships will depart on a five hundred mile race from Blyth to Gothenburg in Sweden .
Few sights can be more atmospheric : and never more so than when your correspondent witnessed such an event some years ago .
A touch of spice permeated the air and in the docks sleek sailing ships awaited . There in a place with a history as colourful as the swashbuckling sailors who once made it their home was a time out of mind like no other .
A fleet of over sixty of the most beautiful Tall Ships had gathered in Liverpool - a city steeped in maritime history and tradition and once the gateway to the New World . The festival culminated in the spectacular Parade of Sail as the ships departed for the start of a five week race : the first leg of which took them around the north of Scotland and then on to Norway .
Splendid ships with graceful lines and sky-piercing masts were led down the Mersey by Royal Navy Frigate , HMS Argyle . With full-rigged ships , barques , brigs and schooners it could have been a scene from a Canaletto painting as they evoked memories of the great days of sail . Days when noble ships , like Gothic cathedrals , flashed their splendour around the world , their names written on the wind - Sea Witch , Flying Cloud and Cutty Sark - as they flew across oceans with clouds of canvas billowing against the sky . There in Liverpool was a dream weavers vision lost in time . With national pride at stake , the crew of one of the most beautiful Class A ships - the Brazilian Navy training ship , Cisne Branco - lined the decks in their immaculate white uniforms while dark figures like ants scaled rigging .
Sails flashed white in afternoon sunlight . Prows cleaved the waves and steel-nerved mountaineers of canvas and rope manned the yards , dizzyingly high above rolling decks , as the magnificent craft were urged on , only by the supple shifting sinews of the wind .
It was not hard to feel the elation of those mariners of over a century ago as they embarked on the great clipper ships for Cape Horn and China . Like them I was soon enchanted by echoes of the past , the rhythm of nature , the snap of the canvas and the beauty of days at sea .
On a cruise that money couldn ’ t buy , courtesy of The Royal Navy , the worlds press - invigorated by salt , spume and sail , gathered beneath the Press Ensign as the crew of HMS Blazer , an Archers class P2000 patrol vessel , ensured we kept station with the fleet .
Passing churning windmill blades of a coastal wind farm , I couldn ’ t help but reflect that it is these beguiling craft that are the REAL wind machines - a soul-lifting epitome of power and grace , offering true symbiotic harmony with natural elements
From across the world there were all manner of vessels with romantic and inspiring names : Royalist , Lord Nelson , Westward Ho - but perhaps the most inspiring ship was Christian Radich from Norway - possibly the most famous Tall Ship today , due to the beautiful lines and constant globe trotting since World War Two . She has been a winner of the races several times and with nine thousand metres of rope and a thirty-eight metre tall main mast , Christian Radich is hard to beat . As she sailed towards us I wondered ‘ Was it her size bearing down on us or was it her gracious dignity ?’ That men can fashion such a thing out of metal , wood and canvas is indeed miraculous . There are ships by the thousand but this is a ship in a million - magnificent as she passed by . In that moment I realised I had witnessed a triumph of achievement and that it would be hard to tell the tale in all its magnitude , for the Tall Ships Race is a masterly evocation of the ships and the sailor-men , the peril and the toil of the great days of sail which brought credit and renown to these islands .
How lovely are these models of the sailing art , the last of a glorious era - gestures of defiance to the power age . Whatever the future of sea travel , however incalculable the prospects of advancement in the size and speed of ships , it remains beyond doubt that the Tall Ships represent the most significant moments in the long history of our island race . They sail the world , crossing the Pacific , rounding The Horn , surviving storms . Yet throughout , the only motive power is the ocean wind . Their passage and very hope of survival lies in the skill of their masters and the strong able arms of their crews . Their ‘ engines ’ are a gentle tracery of masts with a maze of rigging developed by seafarers over centuries . They speed in splendour through the great oceans and their strength is the pride of the craftsmen who built them . Grace and beauty flows with them forever . They are the noblest ships of all .
“ They speak of customs long retained , Of simple , plain , primeval life . They mask the little we have gained , With all our study , toil and strife .”
John Hookham Frere . ( 1769 - 1846 ).
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