WATCH: Portsmouth International Festival of the Sea. Video by Malcolm Dent

The News, Portsmouth

Transcript

00:00Welcome to Gosport, home of the Solent Enterprise.

00:29The Gosport Ferry has, for over 100 years, been carrying people across the harbour.

00:35Although only 200 yards across at the entrance, it opens up to a third of a mile between the

00:40ferry terminals, and almost 2 million people annually make the crossing.

00:46At the entrance to the naval base, the crowds are queuing to buy their tickets to tour round

00:50the dockyard.

00:51But we will have none of that bother, as, for a fraction of the cost, we will be seeing

00:56everything from the comfort of our seats.

00:59Well, welcome aboard the Solent Enterprise, as we begin our voyage of discovery.

01:10Our cruise today is the Round Harbour Trip, and we are very fortunate that it coincides

01:15with the first Festival of the Sea to be held here.

01:18For years, Navy Days were an annual part of local life, with thousands of visitors flocking

01:23to the area to view the majesty of the English fleet.

01:27But with a reduction in the armed services, the event was put on hold, until now.

01:32And by the look of the thousands of people who have arrived to be ferried between the

01:36two bases, there is no lack of interest.

01:41The naval dockyard, which dates back to Henry VIII, together with the naval base, occupy

01:46a vast area, with many jetties, basins, dry docks, workshops and storehouses to accommodate

01:53the Navy's needs.

01:56The first of the foreign ships in port is the Libertad.

02:00Built in Argentina at Rio Santiago in 1963, she holds the record for the fastest crossing

02:05of the North Atlantic by a square rigger, set in the 1970s, and is currently used as

02:11a sail training ship.

02:16This is a three-masted Barquentine Iskra, built in 1962, belonging to the Polish Navy.

02:22A stern of her is the Malcolm Miller, one of our own sail training ships, who, along

02:26with her sister ship the Sir Winston Churchill, take young children and adults to sea.

02:32Just arriving for the festival is the Matthew, an exact replica of the original, which sailed

02:37across the North Atlantic 300 years ago.

02:41We are now passing the King's Stairs jetty.

02:44The steps leading to the water would have been used by Nelson and his officers on their

02:47way to the Battle of Trafalgar, and you can see the officers' sleeping quarters as we

02:51pass by the rear of HMS Victory.

02:54Standing squat at the rear of No. 1 Basin, behind these small craft which were involved

02:59in the evacuation from Dunkirk, lies the dome-shaped building which houses the Mary Rose.

03:05She sank at Spithead in 1545, with the loss of 700 souls.

03:10Moving along the jetty, there are a number of smaller vessels here for the festival.

03:15The blue-striped hull belongs to the Mir, a Polish full-rigged square rigger, which

03:20means that all her masts carry sails which are of square-rigged designs.

03:26She was built in 1988, and is here to commemorate Sir Peter the Great's visit some 500 years

03:31ago.

03:37As we move past the Mir, there is a smaller collection of Russian naval sail training

03:42ships, varying in size, but all are used to teach young people the art of seamanship and

03:47navigation.

03:56As we round the corner into the tidal basin, we see the Russian ship Krusenstern.

04:02Built of steel in Germany in 1926, she saw service with the German Navy in the Second

04:07World War, but was taken by the Russians as a war prize, underwent a major refit, and

04:12has remained a training ship ever since.

04:18I see the Matthew has docked, and in front of her is Sir Peter de Savoy's yacht Ocean

04:23Leopard.

04:30This is the Grand Turk.

04:32Already famous on TV, she is about to star in a new production of Captain Hornblower.

04:39Leaving the tidal basin, we approach the rear of HMS Invincible, and the first thing we

04:44see is one of her three goalkeeper guns, which have a firing rate of 4,000 rounds per minute.

04:51At 20,000 tonnes in weight, you can see how we are dwarfed by her as we motor past her

04:56stern.

05:03She is capable of carrying up to eight Harrier jump jets and ten Sea King helicopters, and

05:08one of each is on display to the public.

05:12One of three aircraft carriers in port today, in dry dock behind is HMS Illustrious, and

05:17further around the dockyard is HMS Ark Royal.

05:21As we move along her flight deck and come towards her bow, you will notice that it slopes

05:25upward at an angle of 12 degrees.

05:28Known as the ski jump, it was designed to enable the Harriers to take off like conventional

05:32aircraft, thus increasing the payload and increasing the flying range of the aircraft

05:37by some 250 miles.

05:41An unusual visitor to Portsmouth is the guided missile frigate HMS London.

05:46Armed with Exocet and Seawolf systems, she carries a crew of 250 and a Lynx helicopter.

05:54These two vessels are paying a courtesy visit.

05:57On the outside is a Belgian frigate, and inside, an Oliver Hardy Perry-class frigate belonging

06:02to the Turkish Navy.

06:11In the foreground is HMS Liverpool, a Sheffield-class Type 42 destroyer.

06:17She is armed with a formidable Sea Dart, a medium-range surface-to-surface and surface-to-air

06:22missile system.

06:24Carrying a crew of over 300, she is powered by two Rolls-Royce Olympus engines, as used

06:29on Concorde, giving her a top speed of some 30 knots.

06:34In the distance we can see the walls of Portister Castle.

06:38Built by the Romans in the 4th century, it was originally called Portus Magnus.

06:43Later added to by the Anglo-Saxons, you can see a fine example of their work in St Mary's

06:48Church within the walls.

06:50The Normans added the keep, and it was from here that Henry VIII left with his troops

06:55to fight at Agincourt.

06:58This is HMS Bristol, the only one of her class ever built, now permanently used for training

07:04she saw action in the Falklands.

07:12The next two we come to are both sister ships, the new Type 23 Tute-class frigates, the Marlborough,

07:19and on the inside of her is the Iron Duke.

07:22Weighing some 3,500 tonnes, they have a crew of only 157.

07:27They are very heavily armed for their size, and carry a 4.5-inch gun.

07:32The bow is fitted with the Sea Wolf and Sea Harpoon missile systems, Sea Harpoon being

07:37a medium-range surface-to-surface missile system formerly used to destroy enemy submarines.

07:44Also fitted with two to four conventional 21-inch torpedo tubes, and from the stern

07:49operating a Lynx helicopter.

07:56The Arctic Survey Vessel Endurance, which spends six months every year surveying and

08:00patrolling the vast polar regions, has its home base here in Portsmouth.

08:06This is the training schooner Lillian of Stockholm, built of steel by C. G. Peterson in 1916.

08:21The world's largest sail training ship is the Sedov, a four-masted, full-rigged ship

08:26built in Kiel in Germany by the Krupp Company in 1921.

08:31Originally designed to carry grain and cotton from Australia to Europe, she still holds

08:35the record for the fastest crossing for a four-rigged ship from Sydney to the Isle of

09:10On the Gosport side, we are now looking at Hard Way.

09:17It was from here that thousands of Allied troops left for the D-Day invasion on June

09:216, 1944.

09:24Barrow Island was once the site of Fort James, a stronghold for the Royalists during the

09:29Civil War.

09:30In later years, the island was used as a burial ground for convicts and prisoners of war that

09:35died on the many hulks moored nearby.

09:38Back on the Portsmouth side, the Semaphore Tower houses the main offices of the Queen's

09:43Harbour Master, rebuilt in 1933 after the original wooded tower was destroyed by fire.

09:51On the Gosport side, we are passing the yacht marina of Kemper & Nicholson's, the world's

09:55oldest yacht builders.

09:57Responsible for the famous J-class yachts which competed for the America's Cup in the

10:0120s, 30s and 40s, they also built Gypsy Moth 4, in which Sir Francis Chichester sailed

10:07solo round the world.

10:12Just passing Hessler Marina on its way into the harbour, is the cable and wireless trimarine

10:17which holds the record for the fastest round-the-world passage.

10:25This brings us to the end of our cruise around the harbour and we are returning to the Gosport

10:28Ferry pontoon, where you will see the Ferry Gardens, which were renamed the Falkland

10:33Island Gardens, dedicated to the service personnel who lost their lives during the

10:38Falklands conflict of 1982.

10:50The warm summer evening heralds our night cruise around the harbour, as we make our

10:55way to the Portsmouth jetty to pick up the rest of our guests for our Ghana tour.

11:00The bustle of the day has turned into the sophisticated sounds of the evening, and the

11:05boats take on a new form as the slowly gathering dusk gives soft silhouettes to the ship's

11:10outlines.

11:11So sit back for a while, and just enjoy taking in the sights as they unfold.

12:41As we start to make our turn here, next on the right-hand side of the vessel, you will

12:53see the commercial side of Portsmouth, the Albert Johnson and Flathouse Quays, and also

12:58the Continental Ferry Port.

13:01Portsmouth itself has now become the second busiest Surrey port, second only to Dover.

13:06Also commencing service at Portsmouth this year is the Superstar Express, the fast catamaran

13:12service which now operates to Cherbourg.

13:15The ferry service to the continent operates to Le Havre, Caen, Cherbourg and St Marlow.

13:21If you wish to travel further afield, you can now also travel to northern Spain, actually

13:26to Bilbao.

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