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Displaying items by tag: Marine Leisure Guide

As summer is underway along with leisure activities, ABP’s Port of Southampton has published its Marine Leisure Guide to help recreational users stay safe in and around The Solent and Southampton Water.

As one of the UK’s busiest ports located in Hampshire, Portsmouth is visited by cruise ships, container ships, automotive carriers, tankers and ferries, as well as countless leisure vessels and craft as people enjoy time on one of the country’s most popular stretches of water. It is for this reason that ABP issues this downloadable guidance to help those using the water know how to prepare well.

“The Solent and Southampton Water are fantastic places to be, and we want people to stay safe when they venture out,” says ABP Southampton Harbour Master, Steve Masters. “The guide can be easily downloaded to a mobile device, and we strongly advise people take time to familiarise themselves with it to make sure they get the basics right.”

The Marine Leisure Guide contains helpful information on everything from pre-departure preparation such and what equipment to carry, understanding tides and weather, lights and signals used by vessels, and navigational safety. It also contains information on Local Notices to Mariners and being aware of the various VHF channels used by HM Coastguard, Southampton Pilots and ABP’s Southampton’s Vessel Traffic Service, which controls shipping movements in and around The Solent and Southampton Water.

A handy chartlet provides a map of the area, with information on channel approaches, different speed restrictions and much more.

The Marine Leisure Guide is available to download from the Southampton VTS website which links to download full copy of the guide (also available in a printed version).

Published in News Update

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).