In this year's sailing fleet racing from Cowes to Denmark, a new British square-rigger, the Royalist, signals the striking revival of adventure under sail. With her, raced for the first time by a crew of girls, the Sir Winston Churchill. And towering over scores of rivals, the giant barque Eagle, training ship of the United States Coastguard Service.

BBC camera teams on board all three vessels record the contest as 300 young sailors battle from the Solent to the Skaw for the Tall Ships biggest prize.

Forty of the world's most beautiful ships - the most spectacular sight in the Solent this century - give hundreds of young people their first taste of life before the mast.

A BBC TV/Universal TV co-production
From Southampton