Amsterdam gears up for Sail 2010

[Puffin13]

Amsterdam gears up for Sail 2010
Aug 17, 2010

THE HAGUE - REPLICAS of a Russian frigate from 1703 and a merchant vessel sunk in 1745 will lead a fleet of some 50 tall ships into Amsterdam on Thursday for what organisers say is Europe's biggest nautical event.

The tall ships - large vessels with multiple masts and rigged sails - will sail from the port of Ijmuiden on the Dutch west coast inland to Amsterdam via the North Sea Canal on Thursday morning. 'Tall ships from dozens of countries will take part' in Sail Amsterdam 2010, event spokeswoman Lucette Bruinsma told AFP.

They had left the English port of Hartlepool on August 11 to join the North Sea Tall Ships Regatta on their way to the Netherlands. The tall ships, the showstoppers of Sail 2010, will be accompanied by more than 500 other ships from the Dutch sailing heritage fleet, modern ships, a navy submarine, minehunter and frigate, and thousands of boats for Thursday's voyage to Amsterdam's Ij harbour, where they will form a floating exhibition until next Monday.

The five-yearly event is expected to draw up to two million spectators over five days. 'This is the biggest nautical event in Europe,' said Bruinsma, adding the last edition, in 2005, had attracted 1.8 million visitors.

One of the main attractions in this year's event is the frigate Shtandart, an exact copy of the Russian Navy's first-ever ship designed by Tsar Peter the Great in 1703. Also in the fleet will be the Gotheborg, one of the largest full-rigged wooden sailing ships in the world.

It is a replica of a merchant vessel that sank off Gothenburg, Sweden, in September 1745, fully laden with tea, porcelain, silk and spices after a voyage to China, according to a statement.

The Jan Schaefer bridge over the Ij harbour has been dismantled, as it was designed to do, to allow the tall ships to pass through for the event, said Bruinsma.

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