Show organisers MIE today announced the fleet of Tall ships that will grace the Liverpool Boat Show next Spring in a glorious spectacle of maritime tradition.
OOSTERSCHELDE - Photo Credit Pieter Nijdeken
The Dutch Tall Ships Astrid, and Schooner Oosterschelde will be sailing to Liverpool from Rotterdam, with crews of Liverpool youngsters arriving on the eve of the Boat Show’s opening on April 29th and berthing in the Canning Half-Tide Dock. Astrid and Oosterschelde will be joined by Tall Ship Ruth from Penzance, as well as the resident Liverpool Tall Ships Glaciere, Zebu and GMC. They will form the centerpiece of the Historic Feature Vessel fleet and all ships will be open to visitors for the full ten days of the show.
The magnificent youth training Tall Ship Stavros Niarchos will also be in attendance, stationed on the Cruise Passenger Terminal where she will be offering day cruises for just £99, allowing intrepid visitors to experience a taste of life before the mast – hauling ropes and setting sail for a ten-hour round trip in the Irish Sea. The America’s Cup veteran Sceptre, built in 1958, will be one of the nation’s much loved yachts attending. Believed to be the only UK America’s Cup Challenger still within British waters, she will occupy a prime position in the Albert Dock. Spirit of Fairbridge, yet another Tall Ship youth training vessel, normally based on the Clyde, will be sailing in to the Boat Show on the 4th of May and making a grand entrance into the Canning Half-Tide in front of thousands of Boat Show visitors and spectators, after which she will remain until the show closes on May 8th.
Eighteen historic narrow boats will raft up in the Salthouse Dock alongside the many restaurants and bars that line the docks and will form one of the locations for the annual Liverpool shanty festival that will run in conjunction with the show next year.
Also dotted around the docks will be six historic steam launches, the Sea Cadet’s John Jurewood, and Tenacity of Bolton, as well as SS Kerne, the 1913-built steam tug already based in the North West and due to a dedicated band of enthusiasts can be seen steaming around the Mersey waters.
