BRITAIN’S WONDER PORT

Hokitika Guardian, 1 September 1923, Page 4

BRITAIN’S WONDER PORT

(By Arthur Barnsley). With the arrival ot the giant American litter Leviathan in Southampton Docks, the seal of supremacy is set up, a our greatest passenger port.. All the world's super-liners now have their home in Southampton. To rise in little over a quarter of a cettturv trout tut almost unknown coast low'll to the vast passenger junction connecting Britain with all the countries in liie world hits been the port s remark a hie .achievement.

Seamen still call the llamp-lnro town Mo “mushroom seaport,” hut Inr greater things are to he accomplished during the next lew years, which will make Snithamptoii the finest seaport in the world.

West of the present docks, on the Test estuary, are !• 11l acres of mudiand, inhabited only by seagulls, hut soon to he reclaimed from the sea and converted into a new port. Mere are to he built live of the largest ocean jetties in existence. each 1,000 lent long and 33d feet wide, extensively fitted to berth two super-liners, or four vessels of average tonnage.

These jetties are to he constructed on piles to prevent any interference with the tidal How of the .river, ami will face oeeanwnrds, enabling the higgest ship- to sail in and out ol the docks til anv state of the tide.

Adjoining these jetties will ho two new graving docks, otto of thorn larger than any other in ihe world and capable of accommodating the higgesiship likely to lie built for many a long Hav to come.

In the early autumn the groat new floating dock, now in construction at the port and costing nearly a million pounds, will be completed, adding considerably to the existing accommodation. This dock tan lift out of the water such monsters as the Majestic and the Leviathan with comparative ease.

Behind the projected now dockland, estimated to cost from twelve to fifteen million pounds, provision is being made for the building of another suburb of Southampton, and the plan includes business quarters, factories, and a public park surrounded by private residences.

Ten times as many passengers use the port to-day as twenty-five years ego, and new lines of steamers apply for accommodation almost every month. With the coming of the Leviathan and the United States Line it will he possible to sail from Southampton to the United States nearly any day in the week by one of the many companies’ steamers using the port.