Tall Ships Belfast 2015: Facts and figures about the race

1 July 2015

The Tall Ships Races were founded by sailing fanatic and retired solicitor Bernard Morgan from London.

He came up with the idea of bringing trainee cadets and seamen together to race in a friendly competition.

The first race took place in 1956, when 20 of the world's last remaining tall ships raced from Torquay in England to Lisbon in Portugal.

The event proved so popular that races have taken place every year since.

Did you know?

More than 50% of the crew of each ship must consist of young people between the age of 16 and 25.
Tall Ships Races are planned four years in advance with routes selected to enable visits to different sea areas around Europe.
The first race in the 2015 event takes place from Belfast to Aalsund in Norway.
The ships will start to depart from Belfast at noon on Sunday.
The actual race begins five miles off the coast of Portrush, County Antrim, at 10.00 BST on Monday.

Almost 90 people from Northern Ireland will be on board the ships when they leave Belfast.
Each race consists of two racing legs of several hundred nautical miles and a cruise.
The largest tall ship visiting Belfast is the Statsraad Lehmkuhl from Norway. The huge four-masted vessel is 100m long and has a crew of more than 500.
The oldest ship is Leader, a Brixham sailing trawler that was built in 1892.
If all of the ships berthed end-to-end, their total length would equal 18 football pitches.
After leaving Belfast on Sunday, the ships will visit Aalesund and Kristiansand in Norway and then Aalborg in Denmark.

The Tall Ships and Lidl Belfast Titanic Maritime Festival takes place from Thursday 2 July to Sunday 5 July.