Port of Ramsgate | |
---|---|
Location | |
Country | England |
Location | Ramsgate, Kent |
Details | |
Opened | 1850 |
Operated by | Thanet District Council |
Owned by | Thanet District Council |
Land area | 32 acres (130,000 m2) |
No. of berths | 3 |
Berths in marina | 700 |
Statistics | |
Annual cargo tonnage | 1.59m tonnes (2009) [1] |
Passenger traffic | 2,000,000 |
Website www |
The Port of Ramsgate (also known as Port Ramsgate, Ramsgate Harbour, and Royal Harbour, Ramsgate) is a harbour situated in Ramsgate, south-east England, serving cross-Channel freight traffic and smaller working and pleasure craft. It is owned and operated by Thanet District Council.
The construction of Ramsgate Harbour began in 1749, and was completed in about 1850. The two most influential architects of the harbour were father and son John Shaw and John Shaw Jr, who designed the clockhouse, the obelisk, the lighthouse and the Jacob's Ladder steps. [2]
The harbour has the unique distinction of being the only harbour in the United Kingdom awarded the right to call itself a Royal Harbour. This was bestowed by King George IV after he was taken by the hospitality shown by the people of Ramsgate when he used the harbour to depart and return with the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1821. [3] In 2024 the harbour was designated a Heritage Harbour. [4]
Because of its proximity to mainland Europe, Ramsgate was a chief embarkation point both during the Napoleonic Wars and for the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940.
Helped by its position 35 miles (56 km) from the French coast, the port provided cross-Channel crossings for many years, [5] with Ramsgate Port having its own access tunnel avoiding town centre congestion.
Previously Sally Ferries provided a service of passenger and car ferries to Dunkirk. From 1993 to 1997, Oostende Lines moved their operation from the Port of Dover to Ramsgate, before the state-owned company was closed, selling most of its assets to TransEuropa Ferries.
Between November 1998 and April 2013 a predominantly freight service was provided to Ostend by TransEuropa Ferries. Passenger services were only available on certain crossings, and then only with vehicles. [6]
Hoverlloyd ran a crossing from Ramsgate Harbour to Calais from 6 April 1966 using small, passenger-only SR.N6 hovercraft. When the much larger SR.N4 craft, capable of carrying 30 vehicles and 254 passengers, were delivered in 1969, Hoverlloyd moved operations to the purpose-built Ramsgate Hoverport in Pegwell Bay, near Ramsgate, which closed in 1987. [7]
Since 2013, there have been no ferry services from Ramsgate. [8] Between 2012–13 and 2014–15, the port recorded a loss of £2.7 million, and it was suggested it should be closed. [9] In 2016, Gefco commenced using the port to import and store cars prior to onward distribution. [10] [11]
The port however continued to make losses, with a further loss of £2.5 million in the year 2018–19, and only limited activity in the commercial port. [12] In 2019, Seaborne Freight was awarded a £13.8m freight contract to Ostend which could be used in the event of a no deal Brexit, but this was ruled out as impractical. [13]
The Royal Harbour has a large marina, primarily based in the inner pool of the original harbour, with water levels controlled by lock gates containing 700 berths, although a number of other berths are also available in the outer harbour, and so can be accessed around the clock, rather than just either side of high tide when the gates open. [14]
The marina has a number of facilities for sailors, including refuelling, utility hook-ups and amenity blocks. [15]
The lighthouse situated on the West harbour arm was built in 1842 and is 11m high; it is a Grade II listed building. [16] The lighthouse is active and emits a continuous red light; [17] [18] (originally the light varied from red to green depending on the height of the tide at the harbour entrance). [19] It replaced an earlier lighthouse by Benjamin Dean Wyatt, which had been poorly positioned and suffered damage from passing ships. [16] Now powered by electricity, originally it was lit by an oil lamp, with a fourth-order Fresnel lens. [19] Carved in the stonework of the lighthouse are the words 'PERFUGIAM MISERIS', which are translated as 'refuge for those in need'. [20]
A lifeboat station was first established at Ramsgate Harbour in 1802 by the trustees of the harbour, [21] predating the formation of any national lifeboat organisation by more than 20 years. The original was built by lifeboat pioneer Henry Greathead, in the same year that he was recognised by parliament for the lifeboat being "deemed a fit subject for national munificence". [22]
After a lapse in service between 1824 and 1851 a station was re-established by the trustees, with the lifeboat named in honour of the lifeboat sponsor, the Duke of Northumberland. The new and prized boat had been built in accordance with the plans of a model that had been the prize-winner in the 1851 national competition for the best design for such a craft.
In 1859 Jerimiah Walker (having previously distinguished himself by his successful rescue of the master and crew of the Northern Belle), as a seaman on the lugger Petrel, assisted in the rescue of the crew of the Spanish vessel Julia, which had become stranded off Ramsgate. For this assistance he was awarded a medal struck on the authority of Queen Isabella II of Spain.
On New Year's Day 1861 an event at sea of considerable loss of life occurred with the wreck of the Guttenburg . Then, as now, the most hazardous area around the Kent coastline for any navigator was the Goodwin Sands.
In 1865, the lifeboat was taken over by the Board of Trade and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and was taken over completely by the RNLI, which runs the service to this day. [21] The current lifeboat station, on the harbour wall between the inner and outer pools of the main harbour, opened in 1998 and services both an onshore lifeboat, the 'Bob Turnbull' and offshore lifeboat, the 'RNLB Esme Anderson'. [23] [24] [25]
The Thanet Offshore Wind Project required the construction of a 280m quay for the assembly of wind turbines. [26] Turbines for the London Array are maintained from an operations and maintenance base at the port.
On 14 September 1994 there was a failure of a ship-to-shore structure for the transfer of foot passengers onto ferries. While RMT's Prins Filip was docked and loading vehicles and passengers, and getting readied for the voyage to Ostend in Belgium, the walkway collapsed, causing the deaths of six people and seriously injuring seven more. The investigation into the accident revealed that the same basic miscalculation had been made by both the designer (Swedish firm FKAB, a subsidiary of the Mattson Group) and certifying organisation Lloyd's Register. The parties involved, including the client, Port Ramsgate, were prosecuted and fined a total of £1.7m, which at the time was the largest fine in the United Kingdom for a breach of health and safety laws. [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] The Swedish firms refused to pay the £1m fine and as a result pan-European law enforcement was changed in 2005. [35] [36]
The Isle of Thanet is a peninsula forming the easternmost part of Kent, England. While in the past it was separated from the mainland by the 600-metre-wide (2,000 ft) Wantsum Channel, it is no longer an island.
Ramsgate is a seaside town and civil parish in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century. In 2021 it had a population of 42,027. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline, and its main industries are tourism and fishing. The town has one of the largest marinas on the English south coast, and the Port of Ramsgate provided cross-channel ferries for many years.
Hoverspeed was a ferry company that operated on the English Channel from 1981 until 2005. It was formed in 1981 by the merger of Seaspeed and Hoverlloyd. Its last owners were Sea Containers; the company ran a small fleet of two high-speed SeaCat catamaran ferries in its final year.
Pegwell Bay is a shallow inlet in the English Channel coast astride the estuary of the River Stour north of Sandwich Bay, between Ramsgate and Sandwich in Kent. Part of the bay is a nature reserve, with seashore habitats including mudflats and salt marsh with migrating waders and wildfowl. The public can access the nature reserve via Pegwell Bay Country Park, which is off the A256 Ramsgate to Dover road.
MS Pride of Calais was a cross-channel ferry owned and operated by P&O Ferries. She operated the Dover–Calais route between 1987 and 2012. In early 2013, under bareboat charter to Transeuropa Ferries, she served on their Ramsgate–Ostend route and was re-named MS Ostend Spirit. After further lay-up in the Port of Tilbury, she was sold for scrap and finally beached at a salvage yard in Turkey on 13 November 2013.
MS Isle of Innisfree is a passenger and car ferry to be operated by Irish Ferries between Dover and Calais. Originally built at Boelwerf as the Prins Filip originally sailing between Dover and Ostend, later between Ostend and Ramsgate, she has since 1997 operated for a wide variety of companies.
The Port of Dover is a cross-channel ferry, cruise terminal, maritime cargo and marina facility situated in Dover, Kent, south-east England. It is the nearest English port to France, at just 34 kilometres (21 mi) away, and is one of the world's busiest maritime passenger ports, with 11.7 million passengers, 2.6 million lorries, 2.2 million cars and motorcycles and 80,000 coaches passing through it in 2017, and with an annual turnover of £58.5 million a year. This contrasts with the nearby Channel Tunnel, the only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland, which now handles an estimated 20 million passengers and 1.6 million trucks per year.
TransEuropa Ferries was a freight and passenger ferry company operating between Ramsgate, Kent, UK and Ostend, West Flanders, Belgium from 1998 to 2013, with three or more ships. The company suspended operations on 18 April 2013, and on 25 April 2013 the line filed to initiate bankruptcy procedures.
Cliffsend is a village and civil parish situated almost 2 miles (3 km) west of Ramsgate, Kent, United Kingdom, in the Thanet local government district.
Seaspeed was a British hovercraft operator which ran services in the Solent and English Channel between 1965 and 1981, when it merged with a rival to form Hoverspeed.
Hoverlloyd operated a cross-Channel hovercraft service between Ramsgate, England and Calais, France.
Regie voor Maritiem Transport (RMT) was the Belgian state-owned ferry service and operated ferries on the Ostend-Dover route under the name Oostende Lines. For the last few years until its demise in February 1997, the ferries from Ostend went to Ramsgate instead of Dover in partnership with Sally Line.
Ramsgate Lifeboat Station is a Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) station located in the Port of Ramsgate in the English county of Kent. The station is one of the oldest to operate in the British Isles and has launched to many notable services. Among the awards won by its crews over the years are 42 RNLI medals, including 2 gold, 39 silver and 1 bronze, the last being awarded in 2000.
James Beeching was an English boat builder. He invented a "self-righting lifeboat", and designed a type of fishing boat which became characteristic of the port of Great Yarmouth in the 19th century. He also built ships for the smuggling trade.
MS Al Andalus Express is a freight ferry owned by Eurotunnel and operated by Naviera Armas. She was built in 1987 by Chantiers du Nord et de la Mediterranee, Dunkirk for Societe Nationale des Chemin de Fer Francais (SNCF) as a multi-purpose passenger and roll-on roll-off ferry for lorries and railway vehicles. After the introduction of Eurotunnel there was no need for a train ferry, so SNCF was losing money running her. She was acquired by SNAT and Stena Sealink in 1989, which operated the Nord Pas-de-Calais until 31 December 1995. From 1 January 1996 SNAT operated as SeaFrance. The vessel was renamed SeaFrance Nord Pas-de-Calais. SeaFrance operated until November 2011, and was liquidated on 9 January 2012. Eurotunnel won the bid for the three of the former SeaFrance vessels the original name of the vessel was restored, dropping the SeaFrance prefix. MyFerryLink started running on 20 August 2012, although Nord Pas-de-Calais joined in November 2012 following a refit. Following MyFerryLink's cessation of operations, mostly cited due to financial issues, the ferry was used directly by Eurotunnel to carry hazmat cargoes that are not allowed on regular train services.
The Port of Newhaven is a port and associated docks complex located within Newhaven, East Sussex, England, situated at the mouth of the River Ouse.
RNLB Lucy Lavers was an RNLI lifeboat which was on No. 2 station at Aldeburgh from 1940 until 1959 when she was placed in the reserve fleet until 1968 when she was retired. The Rescue Wooden Boats Charity is currently undertaking restoration of the vessel. The Lucy Lavers is entered in the National Historic Ships register and has the Certificate No 2206.
MS Pride of Free Enterprise was a RORO Passenger and Freight ferry operating services between Almeria and Nador on a time-charter basis to the Spanish ferry operator Acciona Trasmediterranea. The ship was formerly called the M/F Oleander (2001-2013), P&OSL Picardy (1999-2001), Pride of Bruges (1987-1999) and Pride of Free Enterprise (1980-1987). She was operated by FerriMaroc and Comarit between 2010 and 2011 and previously owned and operated by TransEuropa Ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend. TransEuropa Ferries owned the ferry between 2001 and 2013 and operated her between 2001 and 2010 before placing her on charter. She was scrapped at Alang in late 2015 under the name Sher.
Seaborne Freight (UK) Limited was a company that planned to run roll-on roll-off (ro-ro) ferries between the Port of Ramsgate, England and Port of Ostend, Belgium. It was formed in April 2017 and announced its plans in October 2017. It was awarded a £13.8 million contract by the UK Department for Transport in December 2018 in the case of a no-deal Brexit but there was controversy and doubts about the company's ability to provide the service and the contract was cancelled on 9 February 2019. On 8 September 2020, the company began a voluntary liquidation owing £2 million.
The Ramsgate Hoverport or Ramsgate International Hoverport was the world's first purpose-built hoverport constructed on the coast at the village of Cliffsend, around 2 miles (3.2 km) from Ramsgate, with direct access to Pegwell Bay. The hoverport was purpose built in 1969 by hovercraft operator Hoverlloyd to serve the English Channel crossing market using SR.N4 hovercraft. It operated passenger services until 1982 following a merger with rival Seaspeed to form the combined Hoverspeed, and operated exclusively from Seaspeed's Dover hoverport. The site remained in use for administration and engineering until December 1987.