by The only problem with dinner in the Silver Darling is the likelihood that your main course will be interrupted by horning a horn on an industrial volume. The restaurant – its name is a poetic term for the herring, which are so abundant in Scottish waters – is located in a former customs building at the entrance to the Aberdeen Harbor and looks directly at the mouth of the river Dee. You can almost touch the huge ships that chug through this narrow channel and give a loud hello or farewell after passing.
It is a bit exciting to observe a sea ship in a close quarter. This leads and leads to green-blue depths. Better, it is a spectacle that is offered in Aberdeen with an additional elegance, next weekend.
Since they were staged for the first time in 1956, the Tall Ships races have been one of the world’s leading maritime extravagance. The festival gathers an ad hoc fleet of the wind-powered ships of the planet and collects them in large ports, where they can be admired by the public. Then she unleashes in the competition, with each ship accelerating on a fully occupied journey to the next harassed port.
In the past half century, this forest of masts in places in places has so different as Gothenburg, St. Petersburg, Hamburg, La Coruña, Quebec City, Bordeaux, Hartlepool … and Aberdeen; The iteration of the breeds in 2025 – which will also call Le Havre, Dunkirk, Kristiansand (in Norway) and Esbjerg (in Denmark) – will be the third encounter with Scottish largest city after 1991 and 1997.
The city is expected to take half a million people for four days (19th to July 22nd) of the crowded streets and the carnival atmospheric to half a million people to take part in the various events and concerts of the largest free event this year. A total of 49 high ships are to be determined in the main harbor. Vessels of different sizes and age groups, but an echo of the golden sailing age, which spans a large part of the 19th century.
The BelemA French bark, is a relic of this time, its rays and boards from 1896. Others are a little younger – Dutch beautiful Gulden Leeuw (1937); Norwegian windjammer Christian Radich (1937); Thirmastic Polish training ship Dar MlodziezyStarted in 1982, which was part of the 1997 celebrations. The city will also witness the return of the Malcolm MillerThis was carved by Aberdeen Shipbuilder John Lewis & Sons in 1967.
A rich history of shipbuilding
The schooner’s arrival is reminded of what Aberdeen has lost. For two centuries it was one of the most busiest ship’s beehives in Great Britain; Around 3,000 ships were designed on and around his quay between 1790 and 1989. But the RMS St. Helena (The area of the same name of the British abroad), which was launched this last year, was the final Aberdonian ship in the new. The Hall, Russell & Company Shipyard, which is responsible for the construction of the freight liner – the last in the city – hired the active operations in 1992.
Aberdeen’s role in North Sea fishing is also reduced, with the core of the region’s Trawler fleet of the region now being 30 miles on the coast in Petershead. The covered fish market, which was on the commercial quay of the port for 118 years, was demolished in 2007.
These economic gaps were occupied by the participation of Aberdeen in offshore oil and gas. In addition, 2023 brought a new layer to the city’s maritime armor – the opening of the freshly built South Harbor, a mile of the original, on the other side of the Greyhope Headland. This new enclave is completed at a price of £ 420 million and offers four more quays and enough space to make ships with a length of up to 984 feet. In a somewhat bleak turning point is one of the current “favored” of all this room Solong -The cargo ship, whose fatal collision with the American tanker Stena flawless In the North Sea on March 10th, the topic of court proceedings is now.
The South Harbor has more positive and has massively increased the status of Aberdeen as a cruise destination. Around 70 cruise ships are scheduled to visit the city this year – the vast majority in one of the new quays. This is increased by 40 percent around 2024, and operators such as ambassador cruise line, Renaissance and Viking due to the wearer of wear.
“The South Harbor was a complete change in the city,” says Roddy James, the commercial director of the port of Aberdeen. “In contrast, the main harbor has not really changed in 150 years. If the big ships are able, you should be able to imagine how it looked all the time.”
Reasons to visit the “Granitstadt”
There is a lot about the present in the “Granitstadt”, the famous gray walls of which have a silver nobility under the summer sky: the lively bars and restaurants along the Belmont Street and correction; The murals on and around Union Plaza, a legacy of the Nuart Festival, where further creations are added to this urban screen every summer.
However, the retrospect is also widespread. Especially the slope from the harbor, where the Aberdeen Maritime Museum takes a look back to 1136; The year in which the port was effectively founded when the Bishop of Aberdeen had the right to raise the docking fees of Scottish King David I. Malcolm Miller) and confirm the Aberdeen line – the shipping company, which was founded two centuries ago this year (in 1825), which gave birth to one of the most honest British ships Thermopylae (see below).
Similar currents are searched in the Aberdeen Art Gallery – the and a rich painting from the painter are organized in the archive of Aberdeen Harbor board. The treasures here include more than 5,000 photos that recorded the port in the mid -19th and early 20th centuries: an excavator that breaks ice on the dee in winter 1910; Frachchiff that SS Woodfield Dragged into the sea in 1920; Upper Dock In 1914 the city rose behind it.
The gallery also contains the arrival register: heavy tomes that document the daily admission and the outcome of shipping as well as the excerpts of contemporary comments. A note for June 6, 1916 is a shocked explosion from the First World War, in which death is described by a German mine that stared in the waves west of Orkney, the man, who is lurking as State Secretary for War Minister. “Terrible news,” explains a demanding hand. “Hms Hampshire Down with all the hands of Orkneys, Lord Kitchener on board. “
Ships will be the meat of the conversation this weekend – but the news will be brighter.
Remain
Double rooms in the Sandman Signature Hotel (01224 945 555) start at £ 79 per night.
More information at tallshipsaberdeen.com; Aberdecity.gov.uk/aagm; visitsabdn.com.
