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Ships gather to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar

Ships from across the world gathered off the southern English coast yesterday as Britain prepared to host spectacular celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar.

Excitement was growing in Portsmouth as thousands of ships expected from over 30 countries began to appear on the horizon to commemorate the day when Admiral Horatio Nelson's British fleet smashed the French and Spanish navies.

A six-day festival is planned for the port city, home of the British Royal Navy, starting Tuesday with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II reviewing a huge flotilla offshore before a state-of-the-art Nelson-era battle recreation using some 30 tall ships.

"There's a real buzz about Portsmouth with the ships starting to form up," Captain Steve Bramley, Royal Navy director of marketing and publicity, told reporters.

"There's still quite a few ships to arrive, but most of them will be in place by [this] morning for rehearsals of times, positioning and signals," Bramley said. "It's incredibly lively. There's a great sense of enjoyment, it's a real coming-together in international friendship."

The epic Battle of Trafalgar, off the southern coast of Spain, finished the threat of invasion by emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's France and established British naval supremacy for the next century.

The celebrations take place amid a summer of showdowns between Britain and France.

Bitter spats between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac soured a recent EU summit with both sides blasting each other for the collapse of the talks.

A further Anglo-French fight will come to a head on July 6 when frontrunners London or Paris will find out which city will be awarded the 2012 Olympic Games.

There were fears that Britain's Trafalgar celebrations would further stir up the acrimony.

Newspaper reports have said that the re-enactment of "vignettes" from the battle using teams dubbed "blue" and "red" was a deliberate sidestep to avoid rubbing salt into French wounds.

There has been plenty of entente cordiale between the British and French navies, Bramley revealed, but there was one faux pas as France's largest ship, the Charles de Gaulle, sailed into The Solent on Saturday.

The tow that was sent out to greet the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was called Trafalgar.

"That's something we can laugh about," Bramley insisted.

In the sea battle of Oct. 21, 1805, Bonaparte's fleet was thoroughly routed and Nelson's legend forged.

Killed in action, Nelson did not lose a single ship, while 18 opposing vessels were destroyed. Some 14,000 French and Spanish sailors died, 10 times the British casualties.

The huge fleet to assemble for review Tuesday will cover an area of 10km by 2km.

Some 110 multi-national warships, 30 tall ships, 20 merchant ships plus up to 10,000 private craft will take part in the largest gathering of boats in British waters since the queen last reviewed the fleet in 1977.

The battle recreation will finish with a blaze of lights, smoke, cannon and fireworks to represent the hostilities and the great storm both sides had to contend with after the battle.

Double the amount of pyrotechnics used at last year's Athens Olympics will be set off, too costly even to rehearse.

Some 200,000 people are then expected at the tie-in International Festival of the Sea, beginning June 30 at Portsmouth harbor, home to Nelson's flagship HMS Victory.

Around 2,000 entertainers -- from pirates to ladies of ill-repute -- were to perform amid military displays with visitors welcome aboard the moored boats.
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