A digital media team has taken to the water with the launch of a brand new section on This is Southampton devoted to the city’s maritime past and present.

Taking content from the pages of the Daily Echo and Hampshire Chronicle, Newsquest Southern’s multi-page ‘add-on’ site offers visitors a wealth of local and international shipping news and information as well as pages on the port’s historic past.

In the Historic Ships section, Daily Echo shipping editor Keith Hamilton takes a voyage back in time and recalls liners from Southampton’s past.

The online content is growing weekly to create a vast fund of knowledge about the famous ships that once graced Southampton Water.

One area set to create interest is the sub-section devoted to Southampton’s famous ill-fated liner, Titanic.

The Daily Echo’s photographic files were lost in the war but the newspapers printed files were saved. And material relating to the liner has been recovered from them, which has been photographed and transcribed to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the sinking on April 15th 1912.

Visitors to the site can also keep up to-date with current Titanic news, submit messages, check out a Titanic fact-file and download a special wallpaper for their desktop.

In the main Shipping section the future is also represented with a QM2 page devoted to stories and pictures of the construction of a successor to the famous Queen Mary as well as a page carrying stories about the controversial Dibden Bay port expansion.

You can visit the site at www.thisissouthampton.co.uk/shipping.

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