If you just don't appreciate the combination of engineering and history that make sailing ships so appealing, you're probably going to want to be out of town the first week of July. That's when the boats return for Tall Ships Tacoma 2008.

For the other 700,000 or so of you - judging by the crowds that showed up in 2005 - get ready to have some fun. At The News Tribune, we went a little overboard three years ago with our tall ships coverage - full page posters, pull out guides, saturation festival coverage. Readers loved it and so did we. We've been waiting for them to come back ever since.

We've been plotting this year's tall ships reporting plan for the past six months or so. It's safe to say that this year's coverage will exceed 2005's excessive coverage. Here are some of the highlights:

• We've started this Tall Ships blog to follow the latest about the festival and the ships. As we get closer to the event, it will become our vehicle for live coverage.

• We're creating a Tall Ships web page with archived stories, photo and multimedia galleries and festival information.

• We're sending columnist Kathleen Merryman and a photojournalist to cover the tail end of the Victoria, B.C., Tall Ships festival next week and then sail down from Victoria to Tacoma aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Eagle. You'll recall that Kathleen made a similar voyage aboard the Lynx during the 2005 festival, giving readers a taste of life on board.

• On Sunday, June 30, our major coverage kicks off with a front page preview of the event and a four-page commemorative section introducing the ships and previewing the festival. Our SoundLife section will start its week-long Tall Ships theme, which will include a look at Puget Sound nautical history, modern day pirates and cooking on a ship galley.

• We'll be checking in on the flotilla of tall ships as they head down Puget Sound and assemble in Quartermaster Harbor July 2 in preparation for the July 3 Parade of Sail. During the festival, we'll be offering daily coverage of the event from a crew of about a dozen photographers and reporters.

• Once again, we're planning two-page posters from our award-winning photo staff every day during the festival.

If you have tall ships stories you'd like to see, let me know and I'll see what we can do.