What happens when a tall ship comes to town?

This. A flotilla of boats escorts her in, thousands of people line the harbourside, kids jump up and down to get a look as the wooden hull cuts the water and the masts tower over everything else. People clap and cheer, there's usually a couple of blank cannons fired in salute, bridges open, thousands of pics are taken. Food, drink and souvenir stalls appear, the waterfront takes on a carnival atmosphere, and just because a square rigger's come to visit. The boat moors up, and before long it's open, hundreds of people a day are visiting, marvelling, remembering our maritime past when men (and a few women) climbed willingly or were pressed aboard ships and went to sail over horizons, usually to fight the French but often to trade, discover new lands, found new colonies, to serve sentences, hunt whales, catch fish, to see the world with an open mind and years later write a book that revolutionizes science. They slept where? Climbed all the way up there? Went to the loo how? Yak. Anyone whose waterfront has hosted the Tall Ships Races, or whose town has been visited by the replica Endeavour or Grand Turk has seen all this. When the replica Endeavour first came to Whitby, 20000 people lined the cliffs and piers to welcome her.

And none of these boats have the brand recognition of the Beagle. In 2009 (Darwin's 200th anniversary), the replica will sail up the Thames to Woolwich, the site of the original's launch in 1820. The welcome home for her should make Goteborg's (above) look modest.