Tall Ships Races, Hartlepool 24-06-2010
Hartlepool Borough Council is thrilled to be hosting The Tall Ships Races 2010. It’s a huge event on the European nautical calendar, and hosting the party at the end of the final leg is usually awarded to a big port such as Liverpool or St Petersburg.

The council were told by Sail Training International, the charity which manages the annual event, that Hartlepool had submitted the best bid they’d ever received. The council is running the event in conjunction with two main partners, Hartlepool Marina (where the smaller vessels will be berthed) and PD Teesport (whose land will be used to construct the Tall Ships Village).

As you can imagine, there is a massive amount of work going on behind the scenes to make this event a success. More than two hundred volunteers have been recruited to help with visitor information and ships’ liaison among other things and working on temporary car parking areas to accommodate up to one million visitors during the four day event.

Interest has been expressed from from all over the world and the council have already hosted several media representatives from Australasia and more are on their way.

Potential benefits for Hartlepool and the wider Tees Valley area are enormous. Hopefully the Tall Ships will put Hartlepool firmly on the map as a must-see visitor destination, businesses should benefit from inward investment and of course it leaves a legacy for the town in terms of hosting a wonderful event. The Tall Ships Races is very much a family event and Hartlepool’s schools are involved in a number of ongoing Tall Ships projects, such as designing and constructing a huge mural for the shopping centre in Middleton Grange. This has recently been installed.

For further information please visit the event website www.hartlepooltallships2010.com
or log on to www.sailtraininginternational.org

This site has photographs of many of the vessels participating in this year’s event under the News Section.