The Sails of the South

Q. What are they

A. Officially named the Trisail, the Sails of the South - a nick-name which has stuck - are a huge sculpture shaped, as the name might suggest, like three sails.

�

Q. Where are they

A. On the M27/M275 road into the City of Portsmouth in Hampshire.

�

Q. Why Sails of the South

A. As an�answer to Turner Prize-wimmer Antony Gormley's Angel of the North at Gateshead on Tyneside.

�

Q. Angel of the North

A. The Angel of the North is a huge sculpture of an angel at the entrance to Tyneside. The largest sculpture in Britain, its 54-metre open arms - broader than the wing-span of a Boeing 757 - greet visitors as they reach Gateshead. Its panoramic hilltop site was chosen so that it can clearly seen by the more than 90,000 drivers a day on the A1 and by passengers on the East Coast main line from London to Edinburgh.

�

Q. What are the Sails all about, then

A. Portsmouth dubs itself the 'flagship of maritime England' and, although the Royal Navy's presence in the city is now much scaled down, the city's raison d'�tre has always been the sea. Consequently local architect Hedley Greentree designed the sculpture to reflect this heritage.

�

The Sails, which were unveiled in 2001, have a surface area of 410m2, the same as that of the Cutty Sark. It's 43 metres tall and 820 metres of stainless steel cable were used in its construction. The structure can withstand winds of up to 125mph.

�

The Sails are part of the Gateway Project, which was set up to improve the poor visual entrance to the city. The Gateway Project is a Millennium Project, funded primarily by Portsmouth City Council and the Onyx Environmental Trust, aimed at completely transforming the harbour and city centre.

�

Q. Onyx Environmental Trust

A. The Onyx Environmental Trust - part of the Onyx waste-disposal company - was founded in 1997 and is an approved Environmental Body formed under the Landfill Tax Regulations. The Landfill Tax Regulations allow landfill site operators to contribute up to 20% of the Landfill Tax they collect to enrolled environmental bodies, enabling them to undertake or fund environmental projects.

�

Q. Are the Sails a success

A. They certainly improve the road into the city. When the dual carriageway was built a couple of decades ago it cut access to Portsmouth Harbour from the inlet at Tipner on the north-west corner of Portsea Island, where there was a ship and submarine breaker's yard. In protest at the building of the road the owners of the yard left a couple of rotting submarines beached in full view of passing motorists. While this tableau holds a certain charm, it isn't the kind of image that Portsmouth Council wishes to present to the world.

�

With the Gateway Project - and the Sails in particular - the council's intention is to create a landmark unrivalled by any other on the south coast of England.

�

Q. And have they

A. It would be hard to top such old faves as the piers at Brighton, the white cliffs of Dover or Dungeness power station, but it is quite impressive.

�

See also the article on the Turner Prize

�

For more on Arts & Literature click here

�

By Simon Smith