This summer Portsmouth International Port will be celebrating its 40th anniversary, a time to look back at huge changes witnessed since 1976. Each month leading up to June, ‘Stay Connected’ will cast an eye over the history books and focus on a particular decade. This month it’s the 1990’s.
The decade began with a record-breaking arrival at the Port in 1990. Hoverspeed’s catamaran Great Britain had crossed the Atlantic in just 3 days and 7 hours on the way to its new base at Portsmouth, winning the Blue Ribbon Hales trophy for the fastest crossing between America and Britain. Sadly, whilst the new ferry was fast it turned out not to be reliable and was later withdrawn from the service.
A firm favourite to this very day, Brittany Ferries’ ‘Normandie’ entered service in 1992. The first of a new breed of “super ferries”, it was the largest ever ferry to operate out of Portsmouth International Port since it opened in 1976. With 220 luxury cabins, capacity for 2,120 passengers and space for 630 cars on its two decks, Normandie increased capacity on the route to Caen by a massive 40%.
1993 saw the start of a much needed year round service from Portsmouth to Spain. P&O chartered the world’s tenth largest ferry to operate on the route to Bilbao. Even bigger than Brittany Ferries’ ‘Normandie’, the ‘Pride of Bilbao’ would spend the next 17 years travelling from the south coast of England through the Bay of Biscay to northern Spain.
The City Council invested £11.1 million in the Port in 1993. The injection of funds allowed for an upgrade to Berth Four, allowing it to handle longer vessels. A year later Berth Two was also lengthened and improved. By 1996 the seventh phase of development was completed, increasing the size of the Port from 30 to 40 acres. The extra space came from reclaimed mudflats, and provided an essential new parking area for trailer parking.
The decade also saw improvements to the road system in and around the Port. A new exit road from the M275 carried more than half a million cars in the twelve months since it opened in 1998. New immigration booths were also constructed. In 1999 work started on Berth Five, designed to be ready for the new millennium
Source: Portsmouth Int Port, 5 May 2016
