Crowds gather despite the rain to welcome Tall Ships Races to Aberdeen

After months of planning, Aberdeen has officially opened the Tall Ships Races for a four-day festival set to bring in hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city.

Kicking off in early July in Le Havre, France, the race saw dozens of stunning ships sail around the coast to Dunkirk before travelling on to the Granite City.

A festival of fun awaits, billed as Europe’s largest free family event, which will see concerts, Red Arrow displays, markets, a funfair and street food stalls bring the city to life.

Despite a yellow weather warning for rain, visitors have already gathered to enjoy the celebrations on Saturday.

The stunning ships will stay in Scotland until Tuesday, before the competition vessels race towards Kristiansand in Norway, then on to Esbjerg in Denmark in early August.

It is thought 400,000 visitors will descend on Aberdeen for the celebrations, which will see around 50 ships from around the world berthed at the quayside.

Events will also take place elsewhere in the city, including an international crew parade on Sunday with more than 1,500 sailors expected to take part, exhibitions, free activities and art installations.

A ‘parade of sail’ along the quayside and beach esplanade will take place on Tuesday as the ships depart for Norway.

What’s it like to sail on a Tall Ship?

While many of the people descending on the quayside over the weekend will be enjoying the sights, there are plenty of people hard at work to keep the event running ship-shape.

Chief mate Magne Opdal says the atmosphere in Aberdeen is great, and while the space at the harbour may be a little tight, its great for getting to know your neighbour.

He told STV News; “It’s really cool harbour with a bit tight space. But that makes it more of a sight. I think it’s cool that we’re at least visually close together. I think it’s real nice here.

“And we can almost throw a beer over to the other side and have a party together!”

For trainee crew member Archie, the “insane opportunity” to get involved with the Tall Ships Race has family ties.

“My dad is big into sailing, and I never really had a chance to fully get into it. And the scale of everything here is crazy. What we’ve been doing, we’ve been doing pretty much everything,” he said.

“The crew have really trusted us to do a lot, be on the rigging, helping get the mast up and down, pulling lots of ropes. Doing watches in general on the helm. It’s been great. They really trust us. So it’s good.”

For Jakub, spending time on the vessels has been awe-inspiring.

“It’s the first time I’ve actually ever been on the sea. And it was so incredible, looking around and there’s just nothing in every direction. It was such a surreal experience to someone that’s never been on the sea.

“The views are beautiful, the sunsets are amazing. The night sky is beautiful, there’s like so little light that you can see all the stars. It’s just so picturesque and beautiful. It’s really, really amazing.”

Insight Haley Bouma STV News

The gates have opened and despite the pouring rain we had this morning, so many people were queueing up right up onto the main streets in Aberdeen and ready to get in.

The boats are just getting ready to welcome people on board. We have some extremely large vessels here, one next to me here is about 90m in length, which is incredible.

There’s also quite a few smaller vessels here as well. There’s more than 1,000 trainees that have been taking part who have been racing up from Dunkirk.

They’re here in Aberdeen for a couple of days before they do the next leg of their race, which is to Norway.

Now, over the course of the weekend, Aberdeen is expecting around 400,000 visitors, which businesses say will be an incredibly welcome boost.

And if the crowds here are anything to go by, it should be a good weekend.