Sail on Ships of State

The ‘painted ladies' of the sea show that a race is about more than just speed and reward.

It appears to have had it all. Cutters, Brigs, Schooners, Ketchs, Sloops and full rigged ships. We oohed at their jibs, gasped at their staysails and ducked heads as their spanker booms swooshed across the deck. It was all long wooden masts and fluttering material. Painted ladies of the ocean drawing in great breaths of wind on the Dublin Bay catwalk.

Even commemorative stamps were turned out for the spectacle. The world's largest sailing ship still at sea, the four masted Sedov from Russia, caught the eye as over 70 boats lined the mouth of the Liffey during the Cutty Sark Tall Ships Races, turning the quays into something resembling a 19th Century stage set.

The port of Dublin assumed an anachronistic feel for the four days the boats were in town, the city's reward for fighting off the 30 other ports which clamoured for the event to be held in their country. The tender is estimated to have contributed as much as £60 million to the economy.

A further £1 million was raised towards the cost of hosting the event by public sector grants and corporate sponsorship, with a break down of 40 per cent public sector and 60 per cent private. It cost £5,000 for example for a company to chink glasses at the Captain's Dinner.

However, the word ‘races' may be a misnomer, as the vessels rolled up the Irish coast somewhat battle-fatigued, arriving from the port of Vigo, Spain. But once in port, the show was as much as beauty contest for boats with the public as judges, than a speed competition. The race element is included in the event to give the younger crewmembers a competitive edge.

By the time most of the boats had arrived in Dublin the race element had long been sorted out. A three leg venture beginning in Falmouth, Cornwall, which took the fleet 740 miles to the Portuguese port of Lisbon, then turned north again to reach the Spanish port of Vigo before the final 690 mile leg to Dublin, was but a mission in international friendship and goodwill.

The winner of the trophy as not the vessel which completed the 1,830 miles in the fastest time, but the crew which contributed most to international peace and understanding throughout the duration of the race. The boats actually mixed crews after each leg. Clearly not only were the vessels of another age, but also their lofty ideals which were framed by an altruistic retired London solicitor Bernard Morgan in 1956.
Not that anyone along the Dublin dockside cared a hoot about how fast the ships could go. The Tall Ships Race was never meant to be an ocean going Olympic Games between out-dated cargo ships, many of which limped away from the final leg of the voyage to Ireland.

There were many breakages and two vessels never made it to Dublin from Cork. Two others were towed into Dublin and one never made it out of Vigo. Another boat had to pull into Coruargo ships, many of which limped away from the final leg of the voyage to Irked about the high point of her trip to Ireland replied, “When I stopped getting sick…”

The International Sail Training Association organises the race and at least half of the competing crews are aged between 15 and 25. Subjecting national treasures to such conditions may come across as a bit akin to taking the Louvre's Mona Lisa on an annual road show, but the boats are up to it. Some of the class-A vessels, which are the biggest in the fleet, are used as naval training ships. Libertad the Argentinian training ship and Mexico's Cuauthemoc which won this year's Cutty Sark Trophy, are still working ships and are clearly priceless.

All of the class-A boats are owned by national institutions such as the navy, maritime institutes or colleges. The German entry Alexander von Humboldt is the oldest, having been built 92 years ago.

“The last ships were built in Polish shipping yards by the Russians,” says Peter Smales, the Race Media Officer. “They built them because many of the yards had nothing else to do. The cost range really goes from nothing to millions of pounds for a square rigger, but the price doesn't seem to come across in the same way as if you went into Monte Carlo and looked at the yachts. The first thing you would think is: ‘Whoa, I wonder how much that's worth'.”

The Whitbread round the World Race and the Americas Cup aside, sailing is traditionally about the taking part rather than the winning. Eroding values perhaps compared to dollar driven World cups and Olympic Games, but the Tall Ships Race is founded on co-operation rather than competition. And it seems they got it right.

Much like vintage car rallies and the double winged aeroplanes of the First World War looping the loop at air shows, what the organisers are selling is nostalgia. And that never goes out of fashion.