The German ship Alexander von Humboldt (left) and the Danish Danmark. Photo: Sail Training International.

Sails and everything from the maritime World will dominate Aalborg in July 2010. The city has been elected to host the start of Tall Ships Race.

The ships in the Harbour will mainly be Northern European school ships. The ships will stay four days in Aarhus followed by a race around the Baltic Sea.

Tall Ships Race is a annual event for big sailing ships. It has been held since 1956. Copenhagen, Frederikshavn, Esbjerg and Aalborg are  Danish cities and towns which have been hosting this event several times, but Aarhus hosts it for the first time.

The beautiful Russian MIR from Sct. Petersburg will be present in the habour of Aalborg. Photo: Sail Training International.

The city of Aalborg has put a lot of energy in making this event to be much more than just the start of a race. A city party is planned with many concerts theatre, sport and many other events. Of course the harbour will be in the centre of the activities, but the whole city will be influenced by the event. Among the events are also viking-activities organized by the Historical Museum of North Jutland who also is in charge of the famous viking museum at Lindholm Hoeje.

The ships are coming to Aalborg from the start of Tall Ships Race in Antwerp in Belgium. After Aalborg the route is going to Kristianssand in Norway before crossing the North Sea to end up in Hartlepool in England..

The Norwegian ship Christian Radich when it visited Aarhus in 2007

In May imultaneously to the race in the Baltic Sea there is a similar race in the Mediterranean Seas starting in Alicante in South Spain..

The ships are divided in four classes: A, B, C and D. Class A is for the big ships including the Danish Danmark and Georg Stage and several even bigger ships - like the long Russian giant Mir, and Statsraad Lehmkuhl from Norway and the colorful Shtandard - also from Russia. Also the Danish ships Danmark and Georg Stage participates in the race.

See program for the event at the homepage of the organisors in Aalborg.

Next time Tall Ships' Race will show up in Denmark will be in the year of 2012 when the race is planned to start in Aarhus. In 2007 The Tall Ships' Races also visited Aarhus.

Organisor of the Tall Ships' Races is Sail Training International.