The Tall Ships Challenge is an annual event organized by the American Sail Training Association alternating in a three year cycle between the Great Lakes, the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts of North America.
The event draws hundreds of thousands of people to witness beautiful tall ships from the age of sail and provides a unique opportunity for the participants to interact with the crews of different vessels in friendly rivalry as they race from port to port.
The series began in 2001 on the Great Lakes and saw vessels from six countries and visited seven US and Canadian ports. It has since continued to grow and is an eagerly anticipated event in the seaside communities that host the vessels (see, for example Philadelphia's Summer Sail 2007).
Since its launch in 2001, the Tall Ships Challenge series has visited 32 North American cities, bringing over 8,000,000 spectators down to the waterfront to experience the tall ships and creating a cumulative estimated economic impact of over $400,000,000 for host communities.
In 2009 the Tall ships which left from Halifax in Canada raced to Belfast on the first leg of their Atlantic challenge.
Each year, the Tall Ships Challenge series is designated a Marine Event of National Significance by the US Coast Guard.
ASTA summer interns maintain a blog about their experiences called the Official Blog of the Tall Ships Challenge series
The 2010 race will take place on the great lakes. It starts in Toronto,Ontario and ends in Chicago.
Famous quotes containing the words tall ships, tall, ships and/or challenge:
“There is regret. Always, there is regret.
But it is better that our lives unloose,
As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light,
Break from an estuary with their courses set,
And waving part, and waving drop from sight.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“The small sleek one wants to stop,
docile to the imploring soul of the trashbasket,
but the young tall curly one
wants to walk on; the glistening sidewalk
entices him to arcane happenings.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.
The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction,
The heav’d challenge from the east that moment over my head,
The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)