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