The Gloucester Tall Ships Festival is held once a year. A number of tall ships, of which I know little, gather in Gloucester docks for a long weekend, which is spectacular and entertaining, if a little over-commercialised. Worth a visit, though, not only for the ships but also for some good “street food” and drink.

All the ships, and most of the smaller craft, arrive via the Gloucester-Sharpness canal, and it’s worth seeing them negotiate through the countryside along the canal during the days before and after the event.

Anyway, we did visit Gloucester on the Saturday of the event, which was good fun. There were, of course, many photo opportunities of imposing ships, but none different to all the others taken that day. So the following are here for different reasons:

First Big Saba, a boat often moored in the marina down the road from us and the boat S. would buy if we had the money;

Second, S.V. Ruth, a gaff-rigged Baltic Trader which I spent a few days on in 2006, with some drinking friends. We were going from Penzance to The Scillies, but the weather took a turn for the worse and we just pottered up the south Cornwall and Devon coast;

Third, a pre-war army ambulance, no particular reason other than that it’s not a boat, sorry, ship.

Big Saba.

S.V. Ruth.

Army ambulance.