Traditional sailboats with years and years of history gave a parade in Manx waters.

Boats built entirely of wood provided a delightful display with their colourful sails and hulls as part of the annual Peel Traditional Boat Weekend.

Peel Bay welcomed a number of vessels, which arrived on Friday (August 2) and sailed around on the Saturday.

One particular boat was reunited with its home port 103 years after it was built. The Aigh Vie ex RY40 that was created in Peel by ’Neakle and Watterson’ arrived from Connemara in western Ireland.

Its helmsman, Paddy Murphy, sailed her single-handed to the event. He received the trophy for the ’most meritorious passage to the event’ in advance.

The La Malouine, formerly French-owned, was brought over by Ray Kerr - a Scotsman who has been sailing around the Irish Sea this summer.

The weather was more accommodating compared to last year’s event, which was described as ’dreadful’ by chairman of the organising committee Mike Clark.

He has been involved in the event since 1990.

He said: ’Myself and a chap had wooden boats and at that time not many people had traditional boats.

’We were regarded by the rest of the boating community as "nutters" because taking on these old boats requires additional effort to look after them than fibre glass boats.’

Following a trip to Ireland to take part in a traditional boat event, both thought it would be a great idea to start one here.

Today a lot of the materials that are needed to maintain wooden boats no longer exist, such as certain types of paint, Mr Clark said.

However, this community believes it’s important to preserve the heritage of these vessels and show the public what boats looked like in the past.

His personal boat is 115-years-old and was built in Peel. It was used for the herring industry, which was once a booming and important industry in the Isle of Man.

’The event helps keep these boats going on into the future,’ Mr Clark added.

Part of the organisers’ aim is to make the show the ’friendliest traditional boat gathering in the Irish Sea’, with all participants being invited to various suppers and a BBQ.

For more information, search @PeelTraditionalBoatWeekend on Facebook.

lLast weekend also saw the annual boat building competition and race, which you can read about on page six in the Manx Independent.