Part 2: The Port in the Modern Era

The repair and rebuilding of the Eastern Docks and Western Docks at Southampton after the ‘blitz’ of German bombing got underway in 1945. The lavender hulls of the big Union Castle Line passenger liners were seen again in the port from 1st January 1947, sailing under a new passenger and freight contract to Cape Town. The Cunard White Star service to New York reopened with Queen Elizabeth in commercial service on 16th October 1946, and Queen Mary on 31st July 1947, both completing extensive overhauls after long worldwide war service. In the case of the Queen Mary, the hull was refitted at Glasgow, and her luxurious fittings, which had been in wartime storage, were reinstated at Southampton.

The nationalisation of the railways brought about changes to the administration of Southampton port. Southern Railways became part of the British Transport Commission on 1st January 1948, and the Transport Act of 1953 saw control invested in the British Transport Docks Board (BTDB). The out of date terminal on the east side of Ocean Dock was replaced in June 1950 by a new Ocean Terminal costing £750,000 with a length of 1,297 feet and a width of 111 feet. A high tower at the seaward end housed Customs & Immigration, and passengers arrived by trains carrying nameplates such as ‘The Cunarder’ in blue bearing a red Cunard funnel to board the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. Relatives of those passengers travelling to New York used the full length of the building to view proceedings from the visitor’s balcony, with two large passenger lounges on the upper floor. This was the era of paper streamers being thrown by relatives as the great ship moved off, a practice that had died out by the 1970s. The words ‘Southampton Ocean Terminal’ was emblazoned on both ends of the long building, and a Union Jack flag always flew from the tower at the seaward end of the building.

The Western Docks gained two modern passenger terminals, the Union Castle Line berth at 102 berth opened in 1956 and was 932 feet in length with a width of 102 feet, with passenger handling on the ground floor and the upper storey for storing wool and general cargo. The P. & O. and Orient Line berth at 105/106 berth was reconstructed from a pre-war berth and was opened in November 1960, later in the 1990s it became the Mayflower Cruise Terminal for the sole use of the big cruise liners of the P. & O. Group, and is still in use today.

Port Passenger Liners of the 1950s

One of my fondest memories of the late 1950s was the morning arrival of the Norddeutscher Lloyd liner Bremen of 32,236 grt. The morning sunshine lit up her huge yellow funnel as she was turned by tugs into the Ocean Terminal. She had been completed as Pasteur with an equally large funnel in August 1939 at St. Nazaire for Compagnie Sudatlantique of France for service between Bordeaux and Buenos Aires. However, her maiden voyage on this route was cancelled due to the onset of war, and her first voyage was in fact from Brest on 2nd June 1940 with the French gold reserves to New York. She became a British wartime trooper managed by Cunard White Star, and in post war years was a trooper to the Far East for the French Government. She was sold to Norddeutscher Lloyd on 18th September 1957 and sent to the Bremer Vulkan yard at Bremerhaven for a complete rebuild that included a new, huge yellow funnel surmounted by a vertical exhaust, new boilers and accommodation updating. She made her maiden voyage as Bremen on 9th July 1959 from Bremerhaven to New York calling at Southampton with a maximum of 216 First Class passengers and 906 Tourist Class passengers.

The fastest passenger ship I saw on harbour cruises around Southampton port at this time was the ‘Blue Riband’ holder United States of 53,329 grt. The harbour cruise boat would come within feet of her sharp bow, and her twin raked red, white and blue large funnels complete with fins seemed to exude the confidence of United States Lines in the future of North Atlantic passenger travel. She had been completed at Newport News and made her maiden voyage on 3rd July 1952 from New York to Southampton with a total of 1,928 passengers in three classes and a crew of 1,093. However, this confidence was short lived, for in June 1958 the first commercial passenger jet flew from Heathrow to New York, and that year of 1958 was the last in which more passengers travelled by sea to New York than by air. The maximum flat out speed of United States was 40 knots, and her sustained Blue Riband record speed was 35.39 knots eastwards, but the 1960s saw her speed reduced in order to make her a commercial proposition. She was finally laid up at Newport News on 8th November 1969, and has been laid up at various ports ever since.

Thirty great passenger lines used Southampton port in the late 1950s including Azores Line, Bergen Line, Cunard White Star, French Line, Fyffes banana boats with passengers to and from the Caribbean, Europe Canada Line, Grimaldi Line, Gydnia America Lines, Hamburg Amerika Line, Holland America Line, Hamburg Atlantic Line, Greek Line, Home Lines, Nederland Stoom Maats, Norddeutscher Lloyd, Shaw, Savill & Albion Co. Ltd., Ministry of Transport, Compania Trasatlantica Espanola, P. & O. Steam Navigation Co. Ltd., Orient Line, Royal Mail Line, New Zealand Shipping Co. Ltd., Sitmar Line, Union Castle Line, United States Lines, and others.

The Military Sea Transportation Services (MSTS) of Washington (DC) used U.S. Navy manned troop ships to transport troops from New York to Bremerhaven, the entry port to the U. S. Zone of Germany. These twin grey funnelled, grey hulled with grey upperworks war built ‘P4’ troopers named after ‘Generals’ also called into berths on the outside of Ocean Dock to disembark troops destined for American bases in England. As with commercial passengers, these American troops were soon to come to Europe by air, but grey hulled Military Sealift vessels continued to sail into Southampton with tanks and equipment until the 1990s.

Conversion to a Cruise Port

I was a regular visitor to Southampton at weekends between 1970 and 1975 as I lived and worked at Bracknell in Berkshire. One of my nicest memories from the Hamble foreshore was a weekend arrival of the lovely France, smoke billowing horizontally from her smoke deflector fins of her funnels as she made the tight turns from the Solent past Calshot Spit into Southampton Water. She had been built in 1961 at St. Nazaire and was of 66,348 grt with accommodation for 2,044 passengers in two classes. During a French docker’s strike in May 1968, France and the smaller Antilles terminated their Transatlantic sailings at Southampton. She made an occasional cruise e.g. a visit to Quebec for Expo 67 on 4th May 1967, but continued her Transatlantic sailings until October 1974 when she became uneconomic to operate due to the huge price hike in bunker fuel costs and was laid up at Le Havre.

The twin ‘pepperpot’ funnels of Oriana of 1960 and the more stylish twin aft exhausts of Canberra of 1961 went cruising in the 1960s for the P. & O. Group. They usually made four long cruises per year from 1963 onwards in addition to their line voyages to Australia. They were converted into full time cruise ships in 1974 with the closure of the Australian line service, cruising out of both Southampton and Sydney (NSW). Oriana was sold off in 1986 after being a permanent cruising ship for the previous five years from Sydney, while Canberra continued in service until her last cruise terminated at Southampton in September 1997. I was sad to see some of her lovely furnishings and effects being taken ashore, and her sheets and blankets from her cabins being unceremoniously dumped into a barge alongside before she sailed for the scrapyard at Gadani Beach in India on 10th October 1997. P&O have used Southampton for their many services since 1840, and in the 1960s ran short haul cruises to European destinations as well as long world cruises to Australia and the Pacific. This cruising pattern continues today from Southampton, with in addition fifteen day fly cruises around the Caribbean from Barbados.

A new passenger and cargo terminal, the Queen Elizabeth II Terminal, was opened by Her Majesty the Queen on 15th July 1966 at 38/39 berth next to the Dock Head. It is 928 feet in length and 165 feet wide with passenger handling on the first floor. It is currently one of four cruise ship berths in Southampton port, having been modernised in 1995. I saw the colourful cruise ship Aida Sol alongside the terminal in September 2014. Her Majesty also launched the classic liner and cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2 at Clydebank on 20th September 1967. This much loved Southampton based liner and cruise ship made her maiden voyage from the port to New York on 2nd May 1969. She was converted to diesel power from steam turbine propulsion at Bremerhaven in 1986/87, and continued with her programme of Transatlantic line voyages, world cruises and shorter cruises. She was withdrawn from Transatlantic service in 2004 and became a full time cruise ship. She was retired by Cunard on 27th November 2008 from active service, and given a good send off by the people of Southampton after being sold to Istithmar, the private equity arm of Dubai World, a ports group, and she shortly afterwards arrived at Palm Jumeirah in Dubai for conversion into a hotel.

The flagship of Union Castle Line, Windsor Castle, built in 1960 by the Cammell Laird yard at Birkenhead, made her final passenger sailing when she sailed from Southampton on 12th August 1977. However, it was S. A. Vaal, the former Transvaal Castle built in 1961 at Clydebank that closed out the passenger and mail service on 2nd September 1977. The cargo only Southampton Castle, built on the Tyne in 1965, took the final mail sailing on 11th October 1977, and this historic Southampton based service had operated continuously for 120 years.

A new Ocean Cruise Terminal opened in May 2009 at Ocean Dock with a twenty year contract with Carnival (U.K.) Ltd., the American owners of Cunard Line and P. & O. Cunard Line in 2015 are celebrating their 175th anniversary of operations since 1840, and have offered a huge range of cruises from Southampton. The Cunard brand is the world leader in world cruises, with more circumnavigations since 1922 than any other cruise line. Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria have each spent the first four months of 2015 exploring the world with 112 destinations on six continents and travelling 110,000 nautical miles.

Port Ferry Services

The Southampton to Channel Islands service of Southern Railways ended in May 1961 with the last sailing of Isle of Guernsey built in 1930. The Le Havre and St. Malo services continued for another three years, ending railway passenger sailings, although a cargo only service to the Channel Islands continued until 1972. The huge increase of passengers wishing to take their cars with them on holiday to the Continent resulted in new services from the Outer Dock. Thoresen (later Townsend Thoresen) Ferries began in May 1964, the Swedish Lloyd service to Bilbao began in April 1967, and Normandy Ferries to Le Havre began in June 1967 with the good looking ferries Dragon and Leopard of 6,141 grt and built at Nantes, although the latter ship was owned by their French partner Societe Anonyme de Gerance et d’Armement (SAGA).

The larger ferry Eagle of 11,609 grt, also built at Nantes, began sailings to Lisbon, Seville and Casablanca in 1971 for Southern Ferries, but was withdrawn four years later. The last of all of the above ferry services was moved to Portsmouth in 1984, and no ferries operated from Southampton until 1991. The ferry Stena Normandy began a new service to Cherbourg for Stena Sealink from a new passenger terminal at 30 berth in 1991, but she was withdrawn five years later. The Inner Dock had been filled in to make the access roads to the ferry ro-ro berths in 1963 of the Outer Dock, but the withdrawal of the last ferry services from the Outer Dock in 1984 was the end of commercial shipping for the dock. It is currently used as a busy marina surrounded by high rise housing.

Red Funnel Services to Cowes

Steam passenger ferries had operated from 1820 on the Southampton to Cowes passage. The decision by Queen Victoria to build the Italianate style Osborne House on the Isle of Wight between 1845 and 1851 as a summer residence for herself and Prince Albert greatly increased the profile of the Isle of Wight. The proximity of the house to the ferry terminal at Cowes combined with great views over the Solent make the former royal residence a treasure house, in the care of English Heritage since 1971 and fully open to the public. The Red Funnel fleet of the Southampton, Isle of Wight and South of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. Ltd. was formed in 1861. A fleet of small passenger paddle steamers was operated e.g. Solent Queen of 1889, Bournemouth Queen of 1908, Princess Beatrice of 1880, Princess Helena of 1883, Lorna Doone of 1891, Princess Elizabeth of 1927 and Gracie Fields of 1936. A fleet of 22 paddle steamers and one motor vessel was operated in 1932, and two motor ferries were in operation by 1939, Medina of 1931 and Vecta of 1939, with the last steam paddler Bournemouth Queen scrapped in 1957.

Small numbers of cars began to be carried to Cowes from 1948 when a war built vessel was purchased and renamed Norris Castle. She was replaced by new car ferries in 1962 e.g. Carisbrooke Castle of 1959, Osborne Castle of 1962, Cowes Castle of 1965, Norris Castle of 1968, and the Tyne built Netley Castle of 1974. Fast Italian built passenger hydrofoils made their noisy debut in 1969 as the red painted ‘Shearwaters’, later replaced by British built ‘Red Jet’ fast craft, and given a number after their ‘Shearwater’ or ‘Red Jet’ name. The Red Funnel Group was acquired by ABP (Holdings) Ltd., owners of the port in 1989 but sold again in Millennium year for £71 million. The present much larger ‘Raptor’ passenger and car ferries Red Eagle, Red Osprey and Red Falcon were built at Port Glasgow during 1994/96 and lengthened during 2003/05 in Poland and fitted with a high level car deck to increase capacity to 220 cars at a cost of £11 million.

The Red Funnel Group in 1996 owned five local harbour tugs, five Isle of Wight ferries and two fast hydrofoils, Red Jet 1 and Red Jet 2. The latter pair were completed by the FBM Marine Ltd. yard in Cowes with service speeds of 32.5 knots from two powerful Vee 12 cylinder diesels of 3,700 bhp. Red Funnel have recently upgraded the accommodation of all three of the ‘Raptor’ ferries, each upgrade costing £2.2 million. The ‘Raptors’ continue to run today together with fast craft Red Jet 3 built at Cowes, Red Jet 4 built in Tasmania, and Red Jet 5 built at New London (Connecticut) in 1999 and purchased ten years later. They use the same 9.9 nautical mile route to Cowes as has been used for almost two hundred years.

Hythe ‘Hotspur’ Ferry Services

The Marine Air Terminal of British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) opened at number 50 berth at Southampton on 14th April 1948 next to the Harland & Wolff Ltd. repair yard. However, the predecessor of BOAC, Imperial Airways, had used Hythe as its base for flying boats from 1934 to embark passengers to all parts of Africa and the Empire. At around the same time, Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888-1935) of Lawrence of Arabia fame and author of ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ lived in Hythe village while testing powerboats for the R.A.F. The inventor of the hovercraft, Sir Christopher Cockerell, later lived in the village until his death in 1999. During 1937/39, the Imperial Airways flying boats moved to a pontoon off 101 berth at Southampton and later further along the Western Docks to 108 berth and the Imperial House building.

The Hythe ‘Hotspur’ ferry service was thus essential for all passengers travelling to and from Southampton and the New Forest. There has been a Hythe ferry service since mediaeval times and steam ferry services were introduced in 1830. The Percy family, the Dukes of Northumberland, had operated the ferry since 1889 via their General Estates Company. As a consequence of this, many of the ferries have carried the name ‘Hotspur’, named after Henry Percy of Hotspur, who was immortalised by Shakespeare in the play Henry IV. Hotspur II of 1936 later saw service on the Clyde as Kenilworth for Clyde Marine Motoring Ltd. of Greenock. Hotspur IV of 1946, the last of the line, operated the ferry service continuously for 68 years until she failed a survey in 2014 and repair costs were deemed too high. She was withdrawn from service in August 2014 and taken to the Saxon Wharf on the Itchen for lay up. The Hythe ferry is today operated by White Horse Ferries using the former Thames ferry Great Expectations.

Hythe Pier has been damaged on three occasions by ships colliding with it, the first being the schooner Anne on 30th July 1885, which damaged five piles of the pier. The second occasion was in 1945 when a landing craft from the nearby wartime base collided with it, and the third assailant was the dredger Donald Redford on 1st November 2003. The dredger had sailed in ballast from the Itchen river and crossed the navigational channels to collide with the pier, tearing a 150 feet long hole in the pier and causing very serious damage. Repairs to the pier cost $308,000 and it reopened on 7th January 2004. The Master of the dredger was found guilty of being drunk in charge of his vessel and sentenced to eight months in prison.

Associated British Ports (ABP)

The Port of Southampton has been operated since 31st December 1982 by Associated British Ports (ABP) under the Transport Act of 1981, reconstituted from the British Transport Docks Board (BTDB). Control was given to ABP of nineteen British ports, later increased to 23 ports, including Southampton, Cardiff, Swansea, Grimsby, Hull, Barry, Ayr, Barrow, Immingham, Newport, Plymouth, Colchester, Port Talbot, Ipswich, Teignmouth, Colchester and Whitby. A national dock worker’s strike in 1967 had led to the National Dock Labour Scheme (NDLS), bringing an end to casual employment in the docks. Registered dock workers were then the only workers allowed to be employed, and were also paid at full rates when no ships were being worked. The NDLS was abolished in 1989, with ABP then withdrawing from stevedoring, giving way to private companies such as Solent Stevedores Ltd.

ABP was floated on the London Stock Exchange in February 1983 as ABP Holdings Plc. A £150 million upgrade of facilities of the Port of Southampton was begun in 1992 and completed five years later. ABP turnover in Millennium year was £391 million, and Southampton has forged ahead since then with a third cruise terminal opened in 2003 as the City Cruise Terminal at 101/102 Berth, and a fourth opened in May 2009 as the Ocean Cruise Terminal at Ocean Dock. In addition, a sum of £4 million was invested in 2005 in a second multi-deck car park for cars and vehicles awaiting shipment by ro-ro vessels at the Eastern Docks. ABP today operates 23 ports in Britain handling just over 25% of British seaborne trade.

 Cargo Terminals

Timber, coal, cotton, wool, grain, wine, cars and fruit are just some of the many cargoes that have been imported through Southampton in post-war years. Fyffes bananas had been imported at Southampton since 1931 at the Empress Dock, and a new mechanised unloading operation was begun there at 24/25 Berth in January 1960. Four overhead gantries were brought into use fed by an endless vertical and horizontal system of canvas pockets to waiting rail wagons. Dockers were employed to place the stems of bananas into the canvas pockets in the holds of the ships, and then remove and place them into the rail wagons at the rear of the quay. A small passenger hall was added in 1961 for the passenger carrying banana boats Camito and Golfito in Empress Dock.

Submarine telephone cable was manufactured and shipped from Southampton by Standard Telephone & Cables Ltd. from a new factory at the Western Docks opened in 1954. An overhead gantry carried the long lengths of cable direct to 109 berth for coiling into the cable holds. I remember seeing the cable layers Mercury and Cable Venture at this berth, and also later other cable layers at 101 berth when a new Pirelli submarine cable factory was built at West Quay Road, the cable being carried via gantries to a position at one end of the new Windward Banana Terminal, opened in 1993 for the import of bananas from St. Lucia and other Windward Islands. Vessels on charter to Geest e.g. Nauru of 10,520 dwt, Geest St. Lucia and Geest Dominica of 13,985 dwt called at the Windward Banana Terminal. The Pirelli cable factory was later demolished and replaced by the present large offices of Carnival (U.K.) Ltd. for the administration and crew changes of P. & O. and Cunard Line cruise ships.

Tall new grain silos and a grain export terminal were opened at 36 Berth on the Itchen river next to the Port Control Tower by the Princess Royal in 1983. Grain continued to be imported at the Western Docks at 103 Berth for the Solent Mills of Rank Hovis Ltd., and exported at a new grain terminal in the Ocean Dock for Continental (U.K.) Ltd. at 47 Berth and opened in 1982. Wine from Italy and Spain was imported in small wine tankers at 106/107 berth from 1976 via a pipeline to a bulk wine bottling and packing plant for Martini Rossi. Imports of stone chips, minerals, animal feeds, soya beans, grain, scrap metal, fertilisers, sunflower seeds and aggregates are made at the Bulk Terminal with rail access from 107 Berth to 110 Berth at the western end of the Western Docks.

The Canarian Fruit Terminal was opened in 1992 at 103/104 Berth in the Western Docks for import of winter fruit and vegetables, with an extension in 1995 to handle all types of fruit from other producing areas between May and October outside the Canarian fruit season. It has 14,500 square metres of cool and cold storage with a temperature range of minus 2 Centigrade to plus 15 Centigrade, with deep water berths capable of accommodating two ships alongside simultaneously.

Renault cars were imported from 1960 in small batches of 500 cars, and a floating link span was later installed at 104/105 berth in the Western Docks to increase car imports, together with more link spans at 30 Berth on the Itchen and at 25 Berth in Empress Dock. The entire land area bounded by the Empress Dock and the Ocean Dock has now been turned into ground level and multi level car parking for the export of cars and all types of commercial vehicles. It is not uncommon to see large car carriers at the three dedicated car terminals of the Wallenius Wilhelmsen, Eukor, Hoegh Autoliners, and Japanese car carrier fleets on the outside berths of the Eastern Docks on both the Test and Itchen sides today loading export vehicles. I have even seen the port heavy lift crane used to lift large yachts from the outboard side of these car carriers onto their top decks.

Southampton Container Terminals

The dredging work, land reclamation, and laying of the concrete apron to form 201 container berth at right angles to the Western Docks was begun in February 1967, and two container handling cranes were erected in 1968 on this berth. The first vessel alongside was Teniers of 12,525 dwt built in 1964 and owned by Compagnie Maritime Belge (CMB) on 27th October 1968. The container/ro-ro vessel Atlantic Causeway and her sister vessels of the Atlantic Container Line (ACL) on Transatlantic sailings to the U. S. and Canada used the quay from the end of 1969. The container terminal was served by a Freightliner rail terminal and had direct motorway access. 202 Berth was formed from an extension of 900 feet of 201 Berth, and a cable repair depot for the Post Office Central Marine Depot was opened on a five acre site at 203 Berth in late 1974. This corner berth was used by cable layers and cable repair ships for 23 years until the depot was moved to Portland harbour in Dorset.

The Far East container trades of the Trio consortium of Ben Line, Hapag Lloyd, NYK and Mitsui-OSK were next catered for by a long quay of 3,900 feet in length built at right angles to 201 and 202 berths and facing the Eling foreshore. The service was inaugurated by Hakone Maru when she sailed on 30th December 1971 from Japanese ports to Europe. Ben Line of Leith and Ellerman Line used Benalder, Benavon and City of Edinburgh of 2,952 TEU capacity between 1971 and 1992, when the Trio consortium was disbanded. Hapag Lloyd used Bremen Express, Hamburg Express, Hongkong Express and Tokyo Express at first, and the Japanese companies used Hakone Maru, Hakozaki Maru, Kamakura Maru, Kiso Maru, Kitano Maru, Elbe Maru and Rhine Maru.

Southampton Container Terminals (SCT) was formed in 1988 as a joint venture with P. & O. Containers Ltd., with ABP holding a 49% stake, and was the beginning of turning Southampton into one of the largest container ports in Britain. Five large container terminals SCT1, SCT2, SCT3, SCT4 and SCT5 are now in operation facing the Eling foreshore and handling container ships of up to 13,500 TEU capacity. The container vessel P&O Nedlloyd Southampton was completed in 1998 by the Kobe yard of IHI in May 1998 as the first of a class of eight sister container vessels with seven cellular holds and fourteen hatches. The service used the ports of Singapore, Nagoya, Tokyo, Shimizu, and Kobe in the Far East, and Southampton, Le Havre, Rotterdam and Hamburg in Europe. On a Southampton harbour cruise on 4th June 1999, I was impressed by the 300 metre length of the hull of P&O Nedlloyd Southampton when she arrived in the port, and by the number of cruise ships in port that day.

It is almost fifty years since the first container ships called, and I have seen vessels of many lines at the berths over this long period e.g. Atlantic Container Line (ACL), Overseas Container Line (OCL), ACT, Ben Line, Ellerman Line, Dart Container Line, CMB, Sea-Land, P&O Nedlloyd, Hapag-Lloyd, Norasia Line, Hyundai, OOCL, Neptune Orient Line (NOL), American President Lines (APL), NYK, Mitsui-OSK, Kawasaki, Zim Line, Malaysian International Shipping Corporation (MISC), Maersk Line, Safmarine, CMA CGM, China Shipping Line (CSL), Hanjin, COSCO and many other international lines.

The former berths 201 and 202 in the Western Docks were used for the import of cars and vehicles from 1986 using smaller car carriers e.g. Cobelfret and Lineas Suardiz vessels. They have now been reconstructed and deepened for use by very large container ships. Berth SCT5 was opened by Sir Ben Ainslie on 31st March 2014 at a cost of £100 million, with Hyundai Tenacity of 13,082 TEU capacity as the first vessel on the berth. The five berth terminal now handles over 1.6 million TEU per year and is operated by DP World Southampton.

Fawley Oil Refinery

Fawley oil refinery was first established in 1921 by the American ‘Agwi’ company of the Atlantic, Gulf and West Indies Oil Company on 270 hectares of land on Southampton Water. The refinery was purchased by Esso five years later, and construction of a new refinery was begun in 1949 on a further 1,200 hectares of land. This much bigger site came onstream two years later producing one third of total U.K. demand. Today, the refinery has a refined capacity of 270,000 barrels of oil per day, approximately one fifth of U.K. demand. The marine terminal is one mile in length with eight berths on the outside and inside of the long jetty, and handles over two thousand ship movements and 22 million tonnes of crude oil and refined products per year. Crude oil arrives in shuttle tankers from the North Sea or in Suezmax tankers from the Middle East at the seaward end of the jetty. Refined products are distributed using Handysize, Aframax and coastal tankers from the other berths. There are two powerful fire fighting tugs stationed permanently at the seaward end of the refinery, which has an enviably good safety record. The refinery is opposite the Hamble jetty of BP, which exports crude oil from the Wytch Farm field in Dorset, the crude oil arriving by pipeline under Southampton Water.

Postscript

The Port of Southampton currently handles 39 million tonnes of cargo per year at the various docks of the 726 acres of the port. Cruise passengers number 1.7 million per year at the premier cruise port of the U.K., vehicles and ro-ro traffic number 650,000 units per year, and containers handled are in excess of 1.6 million TEU per year. The people of Southampton are very proud of their port, and a concert was held at the QEII Cruise Terminal on the evening of 12th October 2013 to celebrate the 175th Anniversary of the founding of the Port of Southampton.

Southampton welcomed the biggest ever cruise ship built for the U. K. market in March 2015. This is the P. & O. flagship Britannia of 143,730 gt built by the Monfalcone yard of Fincantieri at Trieste at a cost of 600 million euros ($800 million). She has a giant red, white and blue Union flag emblazoned across her bow, and is 330 metres in length with accommodation for 3,647 passengers, the total complement including crew is 5,600. Capt. Paul Brown is her first captain and some of her features include a three tier atrium, an art collection worth over £1 million, four swimming pools and an outdoor splash pool, sports arena, a large gym, a library and a shopping mall. The keel was laid at Monfalcone on 15th May 2013 and she was floated out on 14th February 2014. The top British interior designers, Richmond International, completed her luxurious interiors spread over fourteen passenger decks.

There have been some great highlights of my recent visits to the port, including the ‘Parade of Seven P&O Cruise Ships’ sailing from the port in torrential rain on 5th July 2012. This was the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the founding of P&O, and Adonia, Arcadia, Aurora, Azura, Oceana, Oriana and Ventura sailed slowly in line astern watched by hundreds of thousands of people at many vantage points around the port, Southampton Water and the Solent.

On my visit starting on 8th September 2014, I was able to see four cruise ships at the four cruise terminals on that day, Queen Mary 2, Ruby Princess, Costa Mediterranea and Aida Sol, as well as the giant container ships CMA CGM Aquila and APL Qingdao of 13,500 TEU capacity. The latter vessel arrived and the former vessel sailed on the same tide, passing each other at Calshot Spit.

Associated British Ports (ABP) has invested well over £100 million over the last five years to secure the jobs of port workers at Southampton. ABP plans to invest over £800 million of capital and operational investment in its portfolio of 23 ports up to the year 2020. The Port of Southampton will not disappoint you and is well worth a visit.

The lengths and advertised depths of all berths in Southampton Docks are as follow :-