A history of looking to the future Wightlink is always investing for the future.


In the last few years we have introduced five new ships: in 2009, Wight Light, Wight Sky and Wight Sun began operating between Yarmouth and Lymington* , replacing the C-class ships which had served the route since the early 1970s. Later the same year, two new passenger catamarans, Wight Ryders I & II were introduced on the Ryde Pier Head - Portsmouth Harbour route, providing two sailings an hour at peak, and an hourly service throughout the rest of the day. The arrival of these five new ships helped us to increase our overall reliability to an all-time high of 99.5% in 2013 and 2014.


We now need to make a similar investment in our flagship Fishbourne - Portsmouth Gunwharf route. It is currently served by four ships: alongside St Clare (2005) and Wight Sun (2009) are St Cecilia, which came into service in 1986, and her sister ship St Faith (1989). Being considerably older, St Faith and St Cecilia are more prone to mechanical problems than the rest of our fleet.


At each end of this important and popular route is just one boarding ramp (known as a ‘linkspan’) for loading and unloading vehicles. With tight turnaround times for sailings, these restrictions affect punctuality more often than our customers or we would like. And once there is a delay, it is difficult to get sailings back on schedule.


The importance of supporting future growth in the market for travel to and from the Isle of Wight is vital and the greatest demand for our service is still around weekends and holidays. If we are to increase capacity, particularly at these key times, we must be able to load more cars, more quickly.


We are also mindful of the need to minimise our environmental impact. We are proud to serve one of the most beautiful places in the UK and we want to help keep it that way. Of course we must also comply with all relevant legislation and regulation which protects the natural environment.


Planning for the future means planning for improvement and so we have risen to these challenges by designing a project which can be divided into three main elements:


A new, larger environmentally friendly ship which uses double deck loading Alterations and improvements to St Clare to increase capacity and allow double deck loading


Improvements to our terminals: At Fishbourne – installing a new ramp for vehicles to access the upper deck (enabling double deck loading) and works to the slipway (including limited dredging) to allow it to be used as a back-up boarding ramp.


At Portsmouth Gunwharf – installing a second tier of boarding lanes from which vehicles will access the upper deck (enabling double deck loading), berth improvements and enhanced customer facilities


Together, these three elements form our response to the need to modernise and improve our Fishbourne - Portsmouth Gunwharf service. A new ship on the route will help us keep reliability high. And we are proud that it will be the most environmentally friendly ferry ever to serve the Isle of Wight. Probably the single most important improvement is the planned introduction of double deck loading. With loading and unloading times the single biggest factor in maintaining punctuality, the benefits are obvious. As we have outlined above, it will mean some changes at our terminals and in the following pages, we explain this, and the other elements of our project in more detail.


*One of these ‘W-class’ ships now operates on the Fishbourne~Portsmouth Gunwharf route, replacing St Helen which retired earlier this year.


WWW.WIGHTLINK.CO.UK/IFTF


IFTF@WIGHTLINK.CO.UK


WRITE TO US 5


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