The Story Behind Festival of Sail: The Tall Ships Races
This summer Festival of Sail by Aberdeen artist Clive Ramage was unveiled by Port of Aberdeen and Aberdeen City Council as the official commemorative painting of the 2025 Tall Ships Races. He created the impressionist style painting using acrylic, graphite and ink on canvas.
This week, Clive got in touch with POST to tell us about his experience of the Tall Ships last summer, and how the painting was commissioned and created. We’re always on the look-out for people to share their creative story. If you have an idea for an article, get in touch.
Over to Clive.
When the Tall Ships came to Aberdeen in July 2025, I had no idea that the experience would eventually become the biggest and most significant painting of my career.
As an artist living and working in Aberdeen, my work has long been inspired by Scotland’s landscapes, lighthouses and the sea that surrounds us. So, like hundreds of thousands of others, I was absolutely captivated by the sight of nearly fifty magnificent sailing ships filling the city’s harbour – the oldest continuously operating port in the UK – for 4 days last July.
I kept returning to the quaysides throughout the event, taking photographs, sketching and soaking up the fantastic atmosphere. The ships were extraordinary, but so was the effect they had on the city – and on me. Aberdeen seemed to put normal life on hold for a few days and throw itself into a huge celebration. I hadn’t intended spending all four days at the harbour, but after that first visit I just couldn’t stay away. Everywhere I looked there were wonderful scenes, fascinating details and fleeting moments that demanded to be painted.
Then came the Parade of Sail – the spectacular finale to the event, as the entire fleet left Aberdeen harbour and headed out into the North Sea under full sail. It was watched by thousands of people gathered along the beach, at Fittie and over the River Dee at Torry Battery.
Standing there, watching the ships gradually disappear from sight, I was surprised by how emotional I felt. There was an enormous sense of pride in what Aberdeen had achieved as host city, huge admiration for the ships and their crews, and a tangible feeling across the entire city that something very special had just come to an end.
That Tuesday evening, as I walked home feeling quite dejected that it was all over, I assumed that was the end of my Tall Ships adventure. It had been the best few days I’d spent in Aberdeen in the 5 years since moving here!
Then, a few weeks later, while scrolling through Instagram, I spotted an invitation from Port of Aberdeen asking artists to submit proposals for an official commemorative painting of the Tall Ships Races.
The Port had played a central role in bringing the Tall Ships back to Aberdeen, so the decision to commission a permanent artistic legacy of such a hugely successful event immediately struck me as a fantastic opportunity – that might just have my name written all over it! This wasn’t simply about painting some beautiful ships. It was a chance to create something that would become part of the story of Aberdeen – and, naturally, I felt I was the perfect person for the job! I was a local artist, I had lived the full Tall Ships experience and I had hundreds of photos I could use as reference material. Of course, I had to apply and win it first!
I thought long and hard about my proposal before submitting it, explaining why I wanted to create a painting that captured not just the spectacle of the ships, but the excitement, warmth and civic pride that had taken over the whole city. I put a lot into that application, including details about previous commissions, several images of my best work and my own ideas for what might make the perfect picture. It was written with passion and overflowing with the enthusiasm which was still flowing through my veins for everything Tall Ships-related.
Then came the waiting.
The Port had said the successful artist would be informed on a particular Friday. By five o’clock that afternoon, with no word, I had more or less accepted defeat. Oh well, back to the drawing board. Then a couple of hours later I opened my email junk folder – just in case …
And there, hidden amongst a week’s worth of spam, was a message from Port of Aberdeen with “Congratulations!” in the subject line.
The email had actually arrived five days earlier than I’d been expecting and had promptly disappeared into my Junk. My heart skipped a beat. For a few seconds I was absolutely overjoyed – followed almost immediately by the horrible realisation that I’d left the Port waiting nearly a week for my reply!
Fortunately, they were extremely understanding.
Only then did the scale of what I’d taken on really sink in.
The challenge wasn’t to simply paint a view of the Tall Ships accurately. I needed to capture the whole occasion: the ships, the joy and the extraordinary celebratory atmosphere that had taken over the city. Those four days had been about much more than the vessels themselves; they had been about the people, the crowds, the harbour and a city enjoying an extraordinary shared experience.
As well as the ships, I wanted Aberdeen to have equal billing in the painting.
After exploring various possibilities, I settled on Regent Quay as seen from Blaikie Quay as the setting. That was where some of the more attractive ships were and they could be brought together with the city’s familiar skyline as a backdrop. The finished composition draws on hundreds of observations and photographs taken during and after the festival. It wasn’t easy recreating the scene after the event, with the ships already departed, never mind trying to capture the essence of “Tall Ships Races, Aberdeen 2025”. However, after several false starts, the painting slowly began to emerge over the months and I have hopefully managed to recreate the view, the spectacle and the wonderful atmosphere that I remember so fondly.
Festival of Sail: The Tall Ships Races, Aberdeen 2025 is painted in acrylic, graphite and ink on canvas and is the largest work I have ever produced. I was absolutely thrilled to unveil the finished painting at Aberdeen Maritime Museum in July 2026, alongside representatives from Port of Aberdeen, Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeen Inspired.
Standing beside the finished painting in the Museum, with the harbour visible through the great arched windows nearby, I found myself thinking back to that first walk towards Regent Quay exactly a year earlier, when those majestic masts first appeared above the rooftops. Those same museum windows feature prominently in the middle of the painting, as does the Port of Aberdeen building. Together, they create a lovely connection between the artwork and the place it depicts – and the museum is a fitting setting in which to finally see the painting hanging.
And the story doesn’t quite end there.
Festival of Sail is currently on public display at Aberdeen Maritime Museum until the end of 2026, before moving to its permanent home at Port of Aberdeen – a particularly fitting destination for a work commissioned by the organisation that helped bring the Tall Ships back to the city.
The ships may have long sailed, but I hope the work preserves something of the excitement, pride and sense of occasion they brought to Aberdeen for a few days last summer.
If you would like to have your own momento of that special weekend, Clive has signed limited-edition prints of Festival of Sail: The Tall Ships Races available for sale on his Nig Cartel store.
Comments ()