On Sunday 11th September 1932 one or other of the Southsea or Whippingham was rostered to leave Portsmouth at 11am, Clarence Pier Southsea at 11.15am and South Parade Pier at 11.30 for Sandown, Shanklin and Ventnor returning to Portsmouth via the Southsea Piers for 2.10pm. Then one or the other would have set off again at 2.45pm for another circuit returning from Ventnor at 4.50pm, Shanklin at 5.15pm and Sandown at 5.30pm for a return to Portsmouth at 6.50pm.
The fares for these trips were not expensive with even the dearest return from Portsmouth to Shanklin coming in at just 2/6 (£9.70 today). Compare that with the day return from Portsmouth to Ryde with Wightlink in 2025 which is £23.40 with the period return an eye-watering £33.40 for what is billed as a twenty two minute trip each way. That’s up to £50 per passenger per hour steamed. Wow!
On Saturdays the vast capacities of these two paddle steamers made them particularly useful to augment the Portsmouth to Ryde ferry service given the tremendous numbers of passengers travelling on “change over day” starting or ending their Isle of Wight holidays. On Wednesdays and some Thursdays as we will see in a later post, these two paddle steamers usually ventured further afield.
The roster to the Isle of Wight piers offered a variety of trip options catering for different market segments.
There were those passengers just using the steamer as a ferry connection from Portsmouth to their holiday destination at Sandown, Shanklin or Ventnor.
There were those just wanting a morning or afternoon round trip of a little under 4 hours duration.
There were those wanting to make a day of it with about five hours ashore at Ventnor, at Shanklin or Sandown.
There were those boarding at Ventnor, Shanklin or Sandown for a round trip to Southsea or Portsmouth.
It was a simple but very commercial formula which worked well to pack in the revenue and provide a variety of trip options within a simple basic package.
Whippingham’s engine.
Another advantage of this route was that as Sandown and Shanklin are on the east coast of the Isle of Wight they are comparatively sheltered from the prevailing SW winds and this would have increased the window for sailing to minimise cancellations due to the weather.
At 244ft in length Southsea and Whippingham were big paddle steamers built only two years earlier in 1930 and were fitted out to a high standard for passenger comfort. The Southern Railway steamer notices describe them as “the largest and most luxurious Steamers on the South Coast” and that wasn’t hyperbole.
Southsea was mined off the Tyne on 16th February 1941 whilst serving as an Admiralty minesweeper so that was the end of her.
Whippingham was refitted after war service and returned to the Portsmouth/Southsea to Ryde railway service but by then she had lost her Class III sea-going Passenger Certificates and sailed only on Class IV certificates for categorised “Partially Smooth Waters” within the Solent in an area bounded by Bembridge in the east, the Needles in the west and Southampton in the north.
After a fairly expensive refit, which included painting her wheelhouse white, during the spring of 1962, Whippingham is believed to have been used on just 8 operational days, all peak weeks Saturdays, during the 1962 season when her vast capacity was still (just about) needed to help clear the crowds. It was though a far cry from her heavy use in her early career and in 1932 running between Portsmouth, Southsea and the Isle of Wight’s east coast piers as well as further afield sometimes to more exotic destinations like Bournemouth.
After the 1962 season she was withdrawn and was towed away to be scrapped in Belgium the following year.
Tiny Point of Detail 1: Whippingham’s last master was Capt Brian Wright who went on to become the Marine Superintendent for what was then Sealink’s Isle of Wight services.
Tiny Point of Detail 2: The first year that Capt Steve Michel sailed as master of Waverley on the South Coast in 1983, he took Brian as his chief officer for the visit to provide local expertise and knowledge.
Tiny Point of Detail 3: Brian Wright’s brother Colin was master of the dredger Sand Dart when it ran into the cliffs at St Alban’s Head in thick fog on Saturday 10th March 1962. There she lay all summer being pounded by the sea. Amazingly she was re-floated on 14th October and moved to Portland Harbour. She was eventually rebuilt and returned to service latterly sailing as the Pen Dart and then Arco Dart before being sold for further service in Greece in 1978.
Kingswear Castle returned to service in 2026 after the second part of a major rebuild which is designed to set her up for the next 25 years. The Paddle Steamer Kingswear Castle Trust is now fund raising for future rebuilds. You can read more and how you can possibly help here.
John Megoran
This article was first published on 11th September 2020.
