New North Sea Tall Ships Regatta in 2010

by Sail Training International on 10 Jun 2009 A new race for sail training Tall Ships will be organised by Sail Training International next year. The North Sea Tall Ships Regatta 2010 will start in Hartlepool on the north west coast of England on 10 August and conclude in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on 19 August where the fleet and trainee crews will join in the Sail Amsterdam festivities.

(Sail Amsterdam has been held every five years since 1975 and attracts about 2.5 million visitors over five days).

'Welcoming the Tall Ships fleet and its trainee crew members to Sail Amsterdam will be a great bonus for our event,' says Daan Meijer, Director of Sail Amsterdam. 'The ships will add to the spectacle in the harbour for the visiting crowds, and the young crews will add to the colour and atmosphere of the event as well as having the opportunity to enjoy what the festival has to offer,'

'Organising a race for sail training Tall Ships to a major festival like Sail Amsterdam is a new departure for us. We will seek out other opportunities for similar arrangements with festivals that are organised at times that do not conflict with our regular schedule of races and regattas,' says Nigel Rowe, President and Chairman of Sail Training International.

The North Sea Tall Ships Regatta will be fourth event in 2010 organised by Sail Training International. The Garibaldi Tall Ships Regatta in April, from Genoa in northern Italy to Trapani in Sicily, celebrates the 200th anniversary of the unification of Italy. The Historical Seas Tall Ships Regatta, in May and early June, will be the first of what Sail Training International plans to be an annual series in the Mediterranean and adjacent seas. The regatta will start in Volos, Greece, and call at Varna, Bulgaria, and Istanbul, Turkey (European Capital of Culture 2010) before finishing in Lavrion, Greece. The Tall Ships Races, the traditional summer series event that began in 1956, starts in July in Antwerp, Belgium before calling at Aalborg, Denmark and Kristiansand, Norway and finishing in early August in Hartlepool prior to the start of the North Sea Tall Ships Regatta.