Crowds gather despite the rain to welcome Tall Ships Races to Aberdeen
Kicking off in early July in Le Havre, France, the race saw dozens of stunning ships sail around the coast to Dunkirk before travelling on to the Granite City.
A festival of fun awaits, billed as Europe's largest free family event, which will see concerts, Red Arrow displays, markets, a funfair and street food stalls bring the city to life. STV News
Despite a yellow weather warning for rain, visitors have already gathered to enjoy the celebrations on Saturday.
The stunning ships will stay in Scotland until Tuesday, before the competition vessels race towards Kristiansand in Norway, then on to Esbjerg in Denmark in early August.
It is thought 400,000 visitors will descend on Aberdeen for the celebrations, which will see around 50 ships from around the world berthed at the quayside. STV News
Events will also take place elsewhere in the city, including an international crew parade on Sunday with more than 1,500 sailors expected to take part, exhibitions, free activities and art installations.
A 'parade of sail' along the quayside and beach esplanade will take place on Tuesday as the ships depart for Norway.
The gates have opened and despite the pouring rain we had this morning, so many people were queueing up right up onto the main streets in Aberdeen and ready to get in.
The boats are just getting ready to welcome people on board. We have some extremely large vessels here, one next to me here is about 90m in length, which is incredible.
There's also quite a few smaller vessels here as well. There's more than 1,000 trainees that have been taking part who have been racing up from Dunkirk.
They're here in Aberdeen for a couple of days before they do the next leg of their race, which is to Norway.
Now, over the course of the weekend, Aberdeen is expecting around 400,000 visitors, which businesses say will be an incredibly welcome boost.
And if the crowds here are anything to go by, it should be a good weekend.
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