Around 9,000 people logged on to participate in a marathon live blog run by the Liverpool Daily Post and Liverpool Echo for the Tall Ships Race 2008.

The start of the race, one of the highlights of the city's year as European Capital of Culture, saw the morning and evening Trinity Mirror titles pooling resources to operate the live blog for the duration of the race.

CoverItLive software was embedded on the Daily Post and Echo's companion websites and a five-strong team of volunteers staffed it for the duration of the event, answering reader queries, running polls and uploading content.

Reporting staff assigned to cover the event last weekend submitted running news items and updates on crowd and traffic situations, as well as text messages and Twitter updates.

A text message line, opened for the public to send in news and photos, was well used over the weekend with a number of festival-goers sending updates on queue lengths to board the ships or catch buses between the docks where they were berthed.

Steve Harrison, acting assistant editor (digital) for the Post and Echo, said: "By the end of the event we had around a dozen videos uploaded, from our own reporters and from sourcing posts on YouTube, scores of photos, taken by our own photographers and by members of the Daily Post's Flickr group, and lots of comments, debate and even a poem.

"We were very pleased with its success."

By the end of the race the blog had attracted more than 17,000 page impressions.

It will remain on the site as a permanent archive of the ships' visit to the Mersey.

In May, the Daily Post ran a live blog covering the production of an entire edition from start to finish.

Previous joint live blogs run by both papers include the Queen's visit to Liverpool in May and the Liverpool Sound concert headlined by Paul McCartney in June.

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