Tall Ships' Races

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Multiple winner and already sailed in 1956: The Christian Radich
Big ship as a crowd puller: Hundreds of thousands of visitors a year

The Tall Ships 'Races - in English officially mostly The Tall Ships' Races, German about "(The) tall ship races"; from 1973 to 2003 Cutty Sark Tall Ships' Races  - are a long-distance regatta first held in 1956 for tall ships and other sailing ships with mostly young crews (16 to 25 years). At the regatta, on the one hand, racing competition is in the foreground, on the other hand, the goal of international understanding and the exchange between young people as well as the promotion of "Sail Training" (sailing training aimed at personal - physical and psychological - development and character building).

The regatta usually consists of two stages ( races: "races") over several hundred nautical miles , whereby the participants can take part in just one of the stages; Of course, they cannot then be counted towards overall victory over both stages. Between the two stages, there is a cruise in company (for example: "journey in community"), in which the participating ships sail to the starting port of the next regatta stage and crew members can sail on foreign ships (crew change); this allows the crew members to get to know other ships and crews, and it is also intended to promote mutual encounters.

The regatta is held annually on changing routes on European waters with approx. 40 to 90 (rarely up to 120) ships per stage. The Belgian city of Antwerp sponsored the regatta from 2003 to 2009, and the Polish city of Szczecin took over from 2010 to 2013 .

In the participating ports, the regatta, including ship tours and accompanying programs, is traditionally a crowd puller. Hundreds of thousands have flocked to the Tall Ships' Races every year in recent years. In 2006 alone, 750,000 visitors came to Antwerp - the destination port of the regatta for the 50th anniversary, but only one of six ports that took part in that year.

The name of the regatta

International tall ships in Waterford (Ireland): The Tall Ships' Races 2005

The English name "Tall Ships 'Races" can roughly be translated as "Tall Ships' Races". Similar to the German word "tall ships" means "tall ship" (literally: high / large ship; Germanized "Tallship") any particular type of sailing ships (eg. Bark or full-rigged ship ), but generally refers to larger sailing ships in traditional style . The meaning of the term was coined by the Tall Ships' Races. The well-known, large vessels participating in the regatta are now regarded as typical “tall ships”.

From 1973 to 2003 Berry Brothers & Rudd, who market the Cutty Sark Scotch Whiskey , were sponsors of the regatta, which at that time was called the Cutty Sark Tall Ships' Races . The whiskey, in turn, was named after the ship Cutty Sark lying in London , whose name comes from the dialect of the Scottish Lowlands - also called Lallans - and means "short (under) shirt". After the sponsors withdrew in 2003, the regatta bears its original name again.

Participant: The ships

The term "Tall Ships" is interpreted very generously by the organizers: Ships with a waterline of 30 feet (9.14 meters) or more are allowed to participate in the Tall Ships' Races .

The field of participants today is divided into four size classes: Class A is the largest participating ship, namely ships over 150 feet (45.72 meters) in length; these include B. Mir , Christian Radich or Gorch Fock . Class B includes the smaller traditional sailors, i.e. ships the size of z. B. Johann Smidt or Astrid . The modern ships that are smaller than 100 feet (30.48 meters) i.e. H. Especially the yachts , sail in classes C and D: In class C, the smaller ships take part which sail without a spinnaker (an often colored sail for light winds that increases speed). The smaller ships with spinnaker start in class D.

Usually around 40 to 90 ships take part in each stage. The smallest field of participants in recent years with ten ships sailed in 2005 on a special stage (in addition to the usual two stages) from Torbay to Santander (Spain). The largest field of participants in recent years was en route in 1993: 122 ships sailed from Newcastle upon Tyne / Gateshead (Great Britain) to Bergen (Norway).

Participant: The crews

The condition for participation is that half of the crew is between 16 and 25 years old. The age of the rest of the crew is not subject to any regulations, so that the regular crew of the tall ships are often experienced, significantly older participants. This means that previous sailing skills are often not a prerequisite for participating in the regatta, especially on larger ships. For example, several German clubs offer trips in which the fellow sailors can first be introduced to the sailing maneuvers for one or more days before the start of the regatta and then - under experienced guidance - are fully used in the regatta (e.g. Clipper DJS and LebenLernen on sailing ships e.V. ).

One of the aims of the regatta since the very first time has been communication and exchange between young people, especially young people in their sailing training on traditional ships. Since a large number of tall ships are still used today as training ships or for sailing training by clubs, many training sailing ships - including ships from various war and merchant navies  - have always taken part in the regatta .

Anniversary year 2006: Tall Ships' Races in the port of Cádiz
Tall Ships' Races 2005 in Cherbourg : The Mir , behind it the Dar Młodzieży

Regatta prices

Prizes are awarded at the Tall Ships' Races, among other things, for the speed of the sailing ships. Winners will be determined per regatta stage and as the overall winner of both stages as well as per size class and as the overall winner of all participants. Since the ships still differ significantly within the size classes, the Tall Ships' Races are carried out as a " measurement formula regatta": On the basis of its design (hull, rigging ), each ship is assigned a yardstick value that takes into account the ship's speed potential. The sailing time actually required for the regatta route is corrected with this value, and the results of the ships are then determined using these calculated times. Therefore, the first ship to arrive at the finish is often not the winner, as a slower ship may have performed better after the calculated time (see regatta sailing ). For example, in 1956, in the first edition of the Tall Ships' Races, the Argentine yacht Juana was the first ship to cross the finish line, but victory went to the British Moyana ahead of the Norwegian full ship Christian Radich.

In 1973, the sponsor Berry Brothers & Rudd, in addition to renaming the regatta the Cutty Sark Tall Ships' Race, also introduced a new prize: the Cutty Sark Trophy. The two- masted esprit of the JugendKutterWerk Bremen e. V. was the only German boat to win the trophy in 1997. Since the sponsor's withdrawal in 2003, the prize has been given under the name Sail Training International Friendship Trophy ( Friendship Trophy for short ). The coveted prize goes to the team that - according to a secret vote by the captains of all participating ships - contributed most to international understanding and friendship during the regatta. In 2003 and 2004 the crew of the Mir won the Friendship Trophy, in 2005 the prize went to the crew of the Shabab Oman from Oman , in 2006 to the Spanish Juan de Langara and in 2007 to the British Lord Nelson .

In addition, various other prizes, some only once, are awarded. In the anniversary year 2006, for example, a special prize was announced for those ships that had already participated in the regatta in 1956 (the fastest veteran was the French yacht Sereine ). Other special awards include an award for the youngest crew or a chef on the slowest ship - since he has been at sea for the longest time, “the most important man on board” is awarded for having the most work to be done.

History of the regatta

1958 Winner under the name Sagres: The Rickmer Rickmers
Tall Ships' Races 2005 in Cherbourg
Tall Ships' Races in the anniversary year 2006: the brig Mercedes in the port of destination Antwerp
Tall Ships' Races in Stockholm , July 28, 2007

In 1953, retired London lawyer Bernard Morgan began campaigning to organize an international regatta for the last tall ships in existence at the time. In particular, he was able to win over the British Admiral Louis Mountbatten for his idea, and the Sail Training International Race Committee (STIRC) was founded to carry out the regatta , from which the British Sail Training Association (STA) (pioneer of all other Sail Training Associations) emerged.

In 1956 the regatta organized by the STA from Torbay (Great Britain) to Lisbon (Portugal) took place. Ships from nine European countries and Argentina competed against each other in two size classes (over and under 100 tons ). The winner of the regatta, ahead of the Norwegian Christian Radich, was the British ship Moyana, which sank in a storm on the way back from the regatta on the way to Southampton ; all 23 crew members and the regatta winner's prize were saved.

The regatta was planned as a one-off event, as a swan song for the era of tall ships and an opportunity for the last cadets on sailing ships to come into contact with one another. But the race unexpectedly generated a lot of public interest, especially in the countries of the participating ships, and the media invented the name Tall Ships' Races. In view of the widespread response to the first regatta, the organizers decided to organize a new edition in 1958 and from then on a regatta every two years.

It was organized for years by the Sail Training Association (sub-division Races, Eng. "Regattas") under the presidency of the Duke of Edinburgh . Later the International Sail Training Association (ISTA) developed from it , and in 2003 the organization Sail Training International was formed, which has organized the Tall Ships' Races ever since.

The regatta itself also developed over the years: in 1964, size classes were introduced for the first time and the larger sailors (class A) were separated from the smaller ships (class B).

From 1965 on (except 1975), smaller regattas were held alternately with the Tall Ships' Races, but their size grew rapidly over the years. Since the mid-1970s, these additional races became as important as regattas in the intervening years.

From 1973 to 2003 Berry Brothers & Rudd, who market the Cutty Sark Scotch Whiskey, could be won as sponsors, and the regatta was called the Cutty Sark Tall Ships' Races during this time. The sponsors also established the Cutty Sark Trophy, a prize for the crew that contributes most to international understanding and friendship during the regatta.

Since 2003 the regatta has reverted to its name "Tall Ships' Races" and the Cutty Sark Trophy has been renamed the Sail Training International Friendship Trophy . The city of Antwerp became the new sponsor.

In 2006, the 50th anniversary of the first regatta was celebrated under the patronage of the Duke of Edinburgh. As in previous years, hundreds of thousands of visitors came to the regatta ports to see the participating ships. In the port of destination Antwerp alone, 750,000 visitors came to the anniversary of the Tall Ships' Races.

Given the unbroken popularity of the event with participants and the public, two independent regattas took place in 2007: The Tall Ships 'Races 2007 Mediterranean in the Mediterranean and The Tall Ships' Races 2007 Baltic in the Baltic Sea.

See also

Web links

Commons : Tall Ships' Races  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Qu'est-ce que le Sail Training? Amis des Grands Voiliers - Sail Training Association France (French) accessed January 12, 2007
  2. Past Events . sailtraininginternational.org (English) accessed January 11, 2011
  3. a b Tall Ships' Race locates 750,000 bezoekers in Antwerp . ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Go4Camp, August 22, 2006 (Dutch)
  4. ^ Friendship Trophy . ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Sail Training International (English) accessed January 13, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sailtraininginternational.org