The Tall Ships Races 2024 in Helsinki, part 2

Here is the second installment of my reportage of The Tall Ships Races 2024 in Helsinki. More specifically the Parade of Sails on the Sunday, July 7th. As the route for this departure from the harbours was announced to go via Kustaanmiekka strait between Vallisaari and Suomenlinna, I decided that the sea fortress of Suomenlinna was good option to observe this. Of course, the other side on Vallisaari might be about as good, but 1) it required more expensive ferry ticket 2) there would been less suitable shelter in case of rain that was forecasted.

1. The tall ships were still in their previous positions in South Harbour, albeit Guayas had turned around since Thursday


2. Two Polish ships on the Katajanokka side


3. Midway of the ferry ride to Suomenlinna the expected rain came


But luckily I did bring rain gear, so that little rain wouldn't stop me from taking photos.

4. I would have loved to place myself on top of the sea fortress walls, but this year those were off limits for the public


Although the open wall tops might been less pleasant observation points in the somewhat rainy and windy weather, so perhaps it was better that I placed myself around the King's Gate area just next to the Kustaanmiekka strait.

5. After some waiting, the first tall ship was approaching


It was the biggest of the participating ships:
6. Dar Młodzieży


7. Next came Helena


8. I was not the only one watching the ships
(in this picture: Johann Smidt)


9. Pogoria


10. Ships forming some sort of line on the route


11. Albanus


12. Fryderyk Chopin


13. Svanhild


14. Some people were observing the parade also from their boats


15. Equadorians certainly had sufficiently large flag


16. Astrid


17. Kapitan Glowacki


18. Constantia


19. Bonaventura


20. Kathrina did not participate in the Tall Ships Races, but offered a cruise to see the other ships


21. Brabander ended up being the last ship to leave


After the Parade of Sails had fineshed, I went to Suomenlinna dockyard to check if I could find the resident eagle owl, but no sight of that bird. However, I noticed something interesting in the adjacent marina:

22. Some ships like Astrid hadn't got that far away...


Although this was not that surprising: this Helsinki-Tallinn leg was a cruise-in-company rather than serious race, thus most ships took some sort of detour there, for example quite a few of the ships, including Dar Młodzieży, headed to Kotka, where on Tuesday there was even more ships present as Finnish Navy had their anniversary there.

And yes, despite it was named Parade of Sails, no ship opened sails due to unfavourable wind. Also ironically after the parade ended, weather got much better and my ride back to the mainland sun was already shining...

I suppose this selection sufficies, although I did take more photos than shown here. The chosen weapons were α1 + Sony FE 5.6-6.3/200-600 G OSS and α7R V + Sony FE 4/24-105 G OSS.

Thanks for looking, as usual, any questions and comments welcome.