Sea Britain 2005

Britain will be celebrating its relationship with the sea with an exciting, year-long programme of events under the banner of SeaBritain 2005.

At the heart of the celebrations is the Trafalgar Festival, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Admiral Lord Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. He was on board his flagship HMS Victory, losing his life at the moment of victory. The news arrived in the UK at Falmouth in Cornwall, brought by Lieutenant Lapenotière aboard HMS Pickle. His epic voyage and 270-mile post-chaise journey to London, bringing news of the battle and Nelson's death to London, will be recreated.

Pickle has been reconstructed, and will tour British ports in summer 2005, while 'Lapenotière' will ride his post-chaise again via Truro (6 August), through Devon, at Lyme Regis (20 August), then to Dorchester and onwards, arriving in London to deliver the New Trafalgar Dispatch at the Admiralty, in time for one of London's own water festivals. With the Trafalgar Great River Race on the Thames, the Mayor's Thames Festival and the Thames Nelson Flotilla, a re-creation of Nelson's water-borne funeral cortège taking place on 16 September, with hundreds of craft expected to take part, the capital will have a maritime flavour, too.

The Flotilla, led by Victory's cutter, will sail into the heart of London from Greenwich - home of the Old Royal Naval College and the National Maritime Museum, itself staging a major exhibition Nelson & Napoléon (7 July - 13 November) to illuminate the impact of these two great leaders on Europe.

But so closely does the sea, and major waterways too, impact on Britain that wherever you go in 2005 you'll find events, exhibitions, festivals of music and the arts, seafood, sea fun and sport, all with a salty, nautical flavour.

In the great naval centre of Portsmouth, for example, on 28 June there will be the greatest Fleet Review seen in the country for almost a century, with ships from 40 navies taking part. The city's week of festivities will conclude with a Trafalgar-themed International Festival of the Sea, with the world's finest tall ships arriving from visits to Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, (12-13 June) and Falmouth, Cornwall, (19 June) - an event entitled Falmouth for Orders! and including a sea shanty festival. Newcastle-Gateshead, in the North-East, hosts the Tall Ships Race, and its spectacular Parade of Sail (25-28 July).

Among the 300 maritime events, many inland locations contribute, too. On 21 March a year-long exhibition at the Wedgwood Visitor Centre at Stoke-on-Trent in 'The Potteries' opens. Called SeaWedgwood, it shows the renowned porcelain manufacturer's historical contributions to maritime, and particularly Nelsonian, commemorative busts and other ware. 1 April has the Nelson Room at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich re-opening after restoration to its former glory as at Nelson's lying-in-state in the College's Painted Hall - the hero's body being returned to his homeland preserved for the long voyage in a keg of spirits.

Liverpool in North-West England has, from 10-13 June, the country's biggest free maritime festival - the Mersey River Festival; enthusiasts will gather (24-26 June) in Portsoy, a harbour in Northern Scotland for the Traditional Boat Show; throughout July Cardiff's Festival and Carnival in Wales takes on a special flavour with its Food and Drink Festival and a Regatta on 28-29 July; 1-31 August 2005 sees an exhibition, Costumes of the Sea Throughout the Ages at Berkeley Castle, in Gloucestershire. This is just a taste of what's in SeaBritain 2005's diary.

September 2005 to spring 2006 brings the Trafalgar Tree-planting, a programme for school-children to plant stands of oaks - the wood of Nelson's ships - across the country and each wood named after one of Nelson's ships. Nelson's captains are also being recognised by The 1805 Club in a research project to locate and restore their graves, across the UK and overseas. Genealogists and family historians everywhere can help; on the SeaBritain website you can check to see whether an ancestor - male or female - served in Nelson's Navy.

There's something for everyone, from special movie screenings beside the sea, fish-fries and beach bonfires and a recreation of the Fish-Slappers' Dance that made the world howl with laughter in television's Monty Python show, presented beside Teddington Lock, London, on 17 July, to guided walks and costumed re-enactments galore. There are son-et-lumières at venues such as Chatham Historic Dockyard, in Kent, and Portsmouth; conferences and lectures; even a Fishermen's Garden at London's Chelsea Flower Show in May.

There'll be a 'world first' too - an Underwater Cycle Race off St. Peter Port, Guernsey in the Channel Islands, as part of its Regatta Week (2-11 September).

And there will be moving and solemn moments, especially in the Trafalgar Festival's culmination - the Trafalgar Weekend of 21-23 October: special interdenominational church services nationwide, street parties, peals of bells and parades. The Royal Albert Hall's Trafalgar Night is a fanfare of music and ceremonial on 22 October, and from stem to stern of the nation the sea will be celebrated in a host of traditional Trafalgar Night Dinners of whitebait and roast beef and toasts to 'The Immortal Memory' of Nelson.

Details of these and many more events are listed on a frequently-updated website, www.seabritain2005.com. 'Set sail' for the UK in 2005 and you'll enjoy plenty of maritime fun.