TALL SHIPS RACES POSTPONED
HOMENEWSCOVID-19TALL SHIPS RACES POSTPONED
27 Apr 2020
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The Tall Ships Races will not take place during 2020. Photo credit Sail Training International – Valery Vasilevskiy
Sail Training International has postponed the Tall Ships Races 2020 until next year due to the coronavirus epidemic – the first time this has happened since the event was first held in 1956.
The race attracted more than 4,000 young people from 59 nations in 2019 and attracted nearly six million visitors in the six different race stopover ports.
This year’s event had been scheduled to start in Lisbon on July 2 and finish in Dunkerque on August 9, visiting Cadiz and A Coruna en route.
“It’s a great sadness to us and this year’s host ports to have to postpone the event until next year, but we all agree that a public gathering of this size is out of the question in the midst of a pandemic,” said Jonathan Cheshire, chair of Sail Training International, the UK-based charity that coordinates worldwide sail training. We feel for all the young people who will be disappointed by the decision, but public health and safety must take priority. The financial impact on the charity will be serious, but survivable.”
Prior to the outbreak, Sail Training International had begun a search for new sponsorship to put the event on a more secure long-term footing.
The event received a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for its work in bringing together large numbers of young people from both sides of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War years.