History

We have been a Part of Island Life for over 160 years. 

From as early as 1796, ferries have been operating across the Solent, linking the Isle of Wight to the mainland. In the early nineteenth century, the poor road systems encouraged people to travel by sea between Lymington, a beautiful port in the New Forest area, and Portsmouth. Originally, steam ferries operated a circular route around Lymington, Yarmouth, Cowes, Ryde and Portsmouth. Then the rail companies themselves became involved in the operation of the ferries, with individual routes appearing between Lymington and Yarmouth and Portsmouth and Ryde.

Ownership of the ferries eventually passed from the British Railways Board to Sealink UK Limited. In 1984, when Sealink UK Limited was de-nationalised, the operating name became Sealink British Ferries. This company was subsequently bought by the Bermudan based Sea Containers Limited. In 1990 Stena Line bought Sealink British Ferries, but the Isle of Wight Ferries remained with Sea Containers, who renamed the company Wightlink.  

In June 1995, Wightlink was the subject of a management buy-in and became a private company until 2005, when it was acquired by the Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund.  The company has gone a long way from its early pioneering days of steam travel. Now we operate a fleet of eight car and passenger ferries from Lymington to Yarmouth and Portsmouth to Fishbourne, along with three high-speed FastCat catamarans between Portsmouth Harbour and Ryde Pier.

Every year, we carry over 5 million passengers, over 1.2 million cars and almost 200,000  coaches and freight vehicles on our three routes to the Island. With eleven ships in the fleet and a revenue of some £51 million a year, we are one of the biggest domestic ferry operators in the UK.