{"id":33446,"date":"2025-07-22T14:02:24","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T14:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/crews-say-fond-farewell-to-granite-city\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T14:02:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T14:02:24","slug":"crews-say-fond-farewell-to-granite-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/crews-say-fond-farewell-to-granite-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Crews say fond farewell to Granite City"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Ken Banks<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC Scotland News<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Teenage trainees Mya, Katherine, Freya and Mia with mentor Toby on their tall ship<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Crews have been saying a fond farewell to Aberdeen after the spectacular Tall Ships event in the city attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators.<\/p>\n

The event – described as Scotland’s biggest tourist event this year – began on Saturday, featuring almost 50 majestic vessels from around the world.<\/p>\n

The ships left on Tuesday with many excited new, young crew members for the onward journey to Norway.<\/p>\n

Organisers believe there may have been at least 400,000 people at the Tall Ships – and hope the event can return in the “not too distant” future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Tall<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The tall ships started leaving Aberdeen on Tuesday<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The long weekend of celebrations in Aberdeen included a display by the Red Arrows on Monday night. <\/p>\n

Thousands of people witnessed the mid-air spectacular, despite some views being clouded by fog. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"WilliamWilliam Bird<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Red Arrows performed on Monday night<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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However the sun came out for the final day, as visitors returned to wave the ships off.<\/p>\n

There were cries of “Bon Voyage” and “hip hip hooray” from the crowds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Tall<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A brighter morning greeted the final day of the Tall Ships in Aberdeen<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The races are designed to encourage international friendship and training for young people.<\/p>\n

Many new crew members joined the boats for the next leg of the Tall Ships races over to Norway.<\/p>\n

Among them were Aberdeen girls Mya , Katherine, Mia, who are all 15, and 16-year-old Freya.<\/p>\n

They are on board the Netherlands tall ship Eendracht for nine days, with mentor Toby Maddams from Peterhead.<\/p>\n

“I’m really looking forward to sailing for the first time,” Mya told BBC Scotland News on the deck, before departing.<\/p>\n

“It’s a really good new experience.”<\/p>\n

Freya said: “I am looking forward to going to Norway with my new friends, it should be fun. This is my first time sailing. Everyone has been so nice on the boat.<\/p>\n

“I’m nervous about sleeping, and sea-sickness.”<\/p>\n

They joked that mentor Toby would be their “boat mum”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘It has been awe-inspiring’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Adrian Watson from Aberdeen Inspired – a business organisation which promotes investment in the city centre – said the Tall Ships event had exceeded all expectations.<\/p>\n

“To see hundreds of thousands descend upon our wonderful city has been so impressive ,” he told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland.<\/a><\/p>\n

“We feel confident that we will be on or around 400,000-plus.<\/p>\n

“It has been awe-inspiring, and it’s meant so much to the people of Aberdeen.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"AberdeenAberdeen City Council<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The quayside has been awash with visitors<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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He said the major Union Square shopping centre had broken its footfall records at the weekend.<\/p>\n

The footfall numbers on Saturday were 78,685 and on Sunday it was 61,682.<\/p>\n

“Most large towns and cities are going through a very difficult time – this has been such a success,” Mr Watson said.<\/p>\n

“We’d be very keen to see them come back.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"AberdeenAberdeen City Council<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A street parade was held on Sunday<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Deacon Blue had kicked off the event on Friday night with a harbourside gig.<\/p>\n

The main Tall Ships event then opened to the public on Saturday morning, followed a Ministry of Sound classical concert in the evening.<\/p>\n

Sunday saw crews parade through the streets, and Monday featured a Kaiser Chiefs gig at night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tall Ships Aberdeen was billed as Europe’s largest free family event, with almost 50 ships<\/a> taking part.<\/p>\n

About 2,000 international crew members attended from as far afield as Uruguay and Oman.<\/p>\n

Aberdeen had previously hosted the prestigious event in 1991 and 1997.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Ken Banks BBC Scotland News BBC Teenage trainees Mya, Katherine, Freya and Mia with mentor Toby on their tall ship Crews have been saying a fond farewell to Aberdeen after the spectacular Tall Ships event in the city attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators. The event – described as Scotland’s biggest tourist event this year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[297,705,637,11076,11077],"class_list":["post-33446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scotland","tag-city","tag-crews","tag-farewell","tag-fond","tag-granite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33448,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33446\/revisions\/33448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}