1. Up to 500,000 visitors are expected in Waterford and along the Suir Estuary between Thursday, June 30 and Sunday, July 3 when the international fleet of up to 50 Tall Ships are in Ireland’s oldest city.
2. The Tall Ships Races are organised annually in European waters by Sail Training International, a registered charity established to develop and educate young people – regardless of nationality, culture, religion, gender or social background – through the sail training experience.
3. Presented by the Polish port of Szczecin, The Tall Ships Races are open to any monohull vessel of more than 9.14m water line length, provided that at least 50 per cent of the crew is aged between 15 and 25 years old and that the vessel meets Sail Training International’s safety equipment requirements.
4. An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD, will officially launch Waterford’s hosting of The Tall Ships Races 2011 at the city’s quays at 3.15pm on June 30.
5. Waterford City Council and Port of Waterford are the lead delivery agencies for The Tall Ships Races 2011 in Waterford having successfully bid to host the race series which previously started from Waterford in 2005. 3; Bulmers and Waterford Crystal are the host port partners for The Tall Ships Races 2011 in Waterford while RTÉ are media partners and Waterford Institute of Technology are education partners. Waterford’s hosting of the race series is also supported by Fáilte Ireland.
6. 500 volunteers from Waterford and the southeast will work to ensure the safe and successful hosting of The Tall Ships Races in a city with a maritime tradition dating back almost 11 centuries to 914AD when a fleet of Viking warships sailed up the Suir.
7. Waterford was once home to some of the most sophisticated shipbuilding operations of the 19th Century and was Ireland’s leading location for iron shipbuilding from the mid-1840s to the early 1860s when it was overtaken by Belfast. Several transatlantic passenger liners of this period were steamships built in Waterford – including Cella; Iowa; William Penn and Indiana.
8. Hellas, a 92ft schooner built at White’s shipyard in Waterford in 1832 for Bewley’s of Dublin was the first ship to bring tea directly from China to Ireland when 2,099 chests of tea were shipped from Canton to Kingstown.
9. In 2011, the international fleet of Tall Ships from 12 countries will sail with more than 1,400 professional crew and trainees from Waterford to Greenock, Scotland – birthplace of engineer and innovator James Watt. Later host ports for The Tall Ships Races 2011 are Lerwick, Shetland Isles; Stavanger, Norway and Halmstad, Sweden.
10. 6,662 trainees participated on board 120 vessels during The Tall Ships Races 2010. To coincide with Waterford’s hosting of The Tall Ships Races 2011, an attempt is to be made to break the Guinness World Record for the largest number of costumed pirates at a single location. The current record of 6,166 was set in Sussex, England in 2010.
11. The Sail Training International Friendship Trophy is awarded each year to the vessel which, in the opinion of the captains and crews of all the vessels taking part in The Tall Ships Races, has done most to promote international friendship and understanding. In 2010, the trophy went to Shabab Oman (Oman).
12. One of the trainees participating in The Tall Ships Races each year receives the Torbay Cup for outstanding achievement and personal effort during the race series. Stephanie Chung, a trainee on Pelican of London, received the award in 2010 when she was part of the crew from Antwerp, Belgium to Aalborg, Denmark.
13. Waterford-man Capt Liam Keating has been at the helm of several Tall Ships, including periods as Master on Stavros S Niarchos and Prince William, the sail training vessel he brought to Waterford for The Tall Ships Races 2005.
14. The Irish Naval Service’s LE Aoife will be in Waterford for The Tall Ships Races 2011 as will Credine, the sail training yacht of the Irish Naval Service Reserve.
15. While the fleet is in Waterford, the visiting Tall Ships will generally be open to the public from approximately 10am-4pm daily, though this will vary to some degree from ship to ship, depending on their other commitments.
16. The largest Tall Ships are categorised as ‘Class As’. This applies to all square–rigged vessels (barque, barquentine, brig, brigantine or ship rigged) and all other vessels more than 40 metres Length Overall (LOA), regardless of rig. Smaller vessels are designated as Class B, Class C or Class D.
17. Ireland will be represented in The Tall Ships Races from Waterford to Greenock by Celtic Mist – the yacht donated by the family of former Taoiseach, the late CJ Haughey, to the Irish Whale & Dolphin Group.
18. The Class A Tall Ships due in Waterford are Astrid (Netherlands); Christian Radich (Norway); Eendracht (Netherlands); Europa (Netherlands); Gloria (Colombia); Lord Nelson (UK); Mir (Russia); Pelican of London (UK); Pogoria (Poland); Royalist (UK); Sorlandet (Norway) and Wylde Swan (Netherlands).
19. Astrid was built in 1918 and served as a motor ship on the Baltic Sea. It was extensively rebuilt in 1999-2000 and has cabin space for 24 people on longer voyages.
20. Christian Radich functioned as a sail training vessel from 1937 to 1998 and is now used for winter training by the Norwegian Navy. The ship has 1,360-sq metres of sail a main mast of 37.7 metres in height and almost nine kilometres of rope.
21. Eendracht is a regular participant in The Tall Ships Races and was commissioned by HM Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in August 1989.
22. Celebrating 100 years afloat in 2011, Europa is a 55-metres barque.
23. Europa’s global journeys have earned it the nickname ‘Ocean Wanderer’ and it spends each winter in Antarctica.
24. Gloria is 67 metres long and has a Colombian Naval crew of 10 officers; 37 non-commissioned officers; 70 students; three Marines and 10 civilians. The Colombian national flag that flies aboard Gloria is so large that it takes six people to hoist and lower.
25. Lord Nelson is named after the famous British admiral and owned by the Jubilee Sailing Trust. It is one of just two Tall Ships specially designed and built to enable people with physical disabilities to share the adventure and experience of sail training. Those with physical disabilities usually represent half the crew.
26. Between Lord Nelson and their other Tall Ship Tenacious, the Jubilee Sailing Trust has taken more than 30,000 people to sea over the last three decades – including 12,000 people with physical disabilities and 5,000 wheelchair users.
27. Returning from its home port of St Petersburg, Russia to Waterford having previously been in the city for The Tall Ships Races 2005, Mir is the second largest sail training vessel afloat at almost 110 metres in length.
28. With capacity for a crew of 199, including 144 cadets, Mir has 2,771-sq metres of sail and its main mast is 50 metres in height.
29. Mir is owned and operated by the Admiral Makarov State Maritime Academy.
30. Pelican of London was originally built in 1946 as a long-distance fishing vessel but only its hull remains after a major reconstruction to make it fit for sail training and other uses from its home port of Weymouth, England.
31. The barque Pogoria is almost 50 metres in length and is owned and operated by the Sail Training Association of Poland. The ship can accommodate up to 50 crew and trainees.
32. Royalist is a brig that is just over 28 metres in length. 40 years afloat this year, its home port is Portsmouth, England and it is owned and operated by the Sea Cadets, the UK’s largest maritime youth charity who use it with some 800 cadets each year.
33. Sorlandet is the oldest full-rigged shop in operation having been built in 1927 at Kristiansand, Norway, a host port for The Tall Ships Races 2010.
34. Thirty years ago, Sorlandet became the first Tall Ship to offer sail training opportunities to females and has a permanent crew of 15 with capacity for 70 trainees. It was also the first Norwegian training to cross the Atlantic and participated in the very first international race for tall ships in 1956.
35. Wylde Swan is a schooner of almost 57 metres in length. It was built in Kiel in 1920 and originally named The Jemo and worked in the herring fisheries off the Shetland Islands.
36. In recognition of their contribution to sail training and their ship’s presence in Waterford, each visiting captain will be presented with a specially commissioned piece of Waterford Crystal from the House of Waterford Crystal on The Mall in Waterford.
37. Waterford is also home to Spraoi, one of Europe’s premier street theatre companies having been founded in Ireland’s oldest city in 1993. For The Tall Ships Races 2011 in Waterford, Spraoi has commissioned almost 20 national and international street performance acts to enliven the city streets and entertain all comers.
38. As well as rolling performances by street acts, there will also be four stages for the main music acts. More than 40 bands are scheduled to perform across the four stages at Bolton Street (main stage); John Roberts Square; William Vincent Wallace Plaza and the North Wharf.
39. Keith Barry, the award-winning illusionist who will perform a specially-commissioned piece at the launch of The Tall Ships Races 2011 in his native city, sold out more than 50 performances of his show The Asylum, including a record 20,000 tickets at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre.
40. Bryan Ferry who headlines the main stage in Waterford on Thursday, June 30 marked four decades of Roxy Music with a tour of the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Europe earlier this year.
41. Durham-born Ferry launched his first solo album These Foolish Things in 1973. Almost a decade later, Roxy Music released Avalon, a multimedia production before the term had surfaced with the single and album accompanied by visual artwork.
42. One of the few international performers to have enjoyed huge success as a solo artist and with his band, Roxy Music, Ferry’s hits include ‘Love is the Drug’; ‘Slave to Love’; ‘Avalon’; ‘More Than This’; ‘Jealous Guy’; ‘I Put A Spell On You’; ‘Let’s Stick Together’ and ‘Don’t Stop the Dance’.
43. The Crew Parade on the afternoon of Friday, July 1 will bring huge life and vibrancy to the streets of Waterford as Irish and visiting trainees march behind their banners accompanied by some of the city’s brass and pipe bands in a noisy celebration of international friendship.
44. The Waterboys are the headline act for the festival programme in Waterford on Friday, July 1. Their first UK single was A Girl Called Johnny in March 1983. The band began their first European tour as a support act to The Pretenders in May 1984. Later that year, they supported U2 in the UK and North America.
45. In Waterford, The Waterboys will be supported by O Emperor, the Waterford band whose debut album Hither Thither won rapid critical acclaim for O Emperor on its release. “As Irish debuts go, it’s in a league of its own” – Irish Times; “A sumptuous and wondrous debut from a band with a frighteningly bright future.” - Sunday Business Post and “They’re lyrically excellent, sonically daring and in-your-face energetic.” Hot Press.
46. The Sharon Shannon Show with special guests Damien Dempsey and Dessie O’Halloran will liven up the main stage in Waterford on Saturday, July 2. Other locations where Sharon is playing in 2011 include Glasgow; Barcelona; Paris; Lanzarote; Riyadh; Dublin and Agadir.
47. Sharon Shannon has recorded and toured with artists including Bono; Adam Clayton; Sinead O’Connor; Jackson Browne; John Prine; Steve Earle; Mark Knopfler; The Chieftains; The Waterboys; Willie Nelson; Alison Krauss and Shane McGowan. She has entertained Presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese as well as President Bill Clinton and the Sultan of Brunei.
48. For many visitors, the Parade of Sail on Sunday, July 3 will be the highlight of The Tall Ships Races in Waterford. Traditionally seen as a chance for the departing fleet to say ‘thank you’ to the host port, this visual spectacle sees the Tall Ships parade under sail or partial sail down the Suir Estuary past Dunmore East to the race start five miles offshore.
49. ‘Bow’ is the nautical term for the forward part of a Tall Ship while ‘port’ refers to the left side of a vessel as you face forward and ‘starboard’ is used to describe the right-hand-side. In a nautical context, a ‘knot’ is a measure of speed equal to one nautical mile (1.852 kilometres) per hour while the ‘bitter end’ refers to the last part of a rope or chain.
50. Dublin is among the host ports for The Tall Ships Races 2012 along with St Malo, France; Lisbon, Portugal; Cadiz, Spain and La Coruna, Spain.
