The Spinnaker Tower is a landmark

observation tower An observation tower is a tower used to view events from a long distance and to create a full 360 degree range of vision to conduct long distance observations. Observation towers are usually at least tall and are made from stone, iron, and woo ...

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

, England. It is the centrepiece of the redevelopment of

Portsmouth Harbour Portsmouth Harbour is a / biological Site of Special Scientific Interest between Portsmouth and Gosport in Hampshire. It is a Ramsar site and a Special Protection Area. It is a large natural harbour in Hampshire, England. Geographically it ...

, which was supported by a National Lottery grant. The tower's design was chosen by Portsmouth residents from a selection of three different designs in a 1998 public poll. It has three viewing platforms one on top of the other at heights of 100 m, 105 m and 110 m. The tower was designed by local firm HGP Architects and engineering consultants Scott Wilson and built by Mowlem with steelwork by Butterley Engineering. The Spinnaker Tower reflects Portsmouth's

maritime history Maritime history is the study of human interaction with and activity at sea. It covers a broad thematic element of history that often uses a global approach, although national and regional histories remain predominant. As an academic subject, it ...

through its design and is named after a

spinnaker A spinnaker is a sail designed specifically for sailing off the wind on courses between a Point of sail#Reaching, reach (wind at 90° to the course) to Point of sail#Running downwind, downwind (course in the same direction as the wind). Spinna ...

, a type of sail that balloons outward. The tower was opened on 18 October 2005. The tower is owned by Portsmouth City Council and is operationally managed by Continuum Leading Attractions, a cultural attractions group based in York. Continuum also runs five other visitor attractions across the country. The Spinnaker Tower was repainted and rebranded as the "Emirates Spinnaker Tower" from July 2015 following a five-year commercial sponsorship deal with Dubai-based

Emirates Emirates may refer to: * United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective ...

airline. The Emirates sponsorship deal expired in 2020 and the tower reverted to its original all-white paint scheme and name in April 2021. On 5 May 2023, it was announced that Macmillan Cancer Support would become the tower's new sponsor beginning in June.

Structure

At a height of , the tower is one of the tallest accessible structures in the United Kingdom outside London. The tower is visible around Portsmouth, changing the horizon of the area. It can be seen from the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

, the Manhood Peninsula, Highdown Gardens and

Cissbury Ring Cissbury Ring is an biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Worthing in West Sussex. It is owned by the National Trust and is designated a Scheduled monument for its Neolithic flint mine and Iron Age hillfort. Cissbury Ring is ...

in Worthing and Nine Barrow Down in the Purbeck Hills,

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

. The tower represents sails billowing in the wind, a design accomplished using two large, white, sweeping metal arcs, which give the tower its

sail design. The steelwork was fabricated by Butterley Engineering. At the top is a triple observation deck, providing a 360° view of the city of Portsmouth, the Langstone and Portsmouth harbours, and a viewing distance of . The highest of the three observation platforms, the Sky Deck, has only a wire mesh roof, so visitors are open to the elements. The windows extend above head height, so it is not possible to get a view unobstructed by glass. A glass floor is located on the first viewing deck at 100 metres above sea level. It has three viewing platforms one on top of the other at heights of 100 m, 105 m and 110 m. The tower has a design lifetime of 80 years.

History

Portsmouth's ''Millennium Tower'', as it was originally intended to be named, was a project conceived in 1995 to design a monument to commemorate the

Millennium A millennium () is a period of one thousand years, one hundred decades, or ten centuries, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting ...

celebrations in the year 2000. It received UK National Lottery funding and was intended to open in late 1999. A choice of three different Millennium Tower designs were presented to the people of Portsmouth for a public poll in early 1998. * ''Spinnaker'', three observation decks incorporated within the top of a

sail-shaped truss structure, supported by conjoined twin towers that narrowed to a pinnacle at the top. * ''Globe'', a multi-floor transparent observation globe supported by twin support columns on opposing sides of the globe. * ''Triple'', three towers in a narrow triangular formation, the towers linked together by trusses. A tallest of the three towers (with a funnel-like top) giving access to offset observation decks supported by the two shorter towers. The poll was undertaken by Portsmouth City Council in conjunction with Portsmouth's local newspaper, ''The News'' between 11 February 1998 and 23 February 1998. The total number of votes received were 9,476, with 65% of the votes selecting ''Spinnaker'', a design by local architects Hedley Greentree Associates Ltd. Because of political, financial, contractual and construction problems and extra funding requests by the builders Mowlem, construction did not begin until 2001 and was completed in mid-2005. Because of the six-year delay in opening and its not having been ready for the Millennium as planned, the tower was renamed ''Spinnaker Tower'' instead, the design name it had been called in the 1998 public poll. The overall development project was over budget, with the tower costing £35.6 million alone. Taxpayers were never intended to fund the tower, but Portsmouth City Council eventually contributed £11.1 million towards construction. In March 2004, Portsmouth Council's former leader Cllr Leo Madden resigned as leader of the Labour Group on the council after a highly critical report of the council's handling of the project and its failure to exploit revenue opportunities, such as the Millennium. Barry Smith, the project's legal advisor, also retired after being suspended on full pay, mostly because of controversy over the contract with the builders, which at one point would have cost the council more to cancel than to complete. The Spinnaker Tower has suffered from a number of issues since opening, including a malfunctioning external glass lift. During the final construction phase, a protester from the rights group

Fathers 4 Justice Fathers 4 Justice (or F4J) is a fathers' rights organisation in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2003, the group aims to gain public and parliamentary support for changes in UK legislation on fathers' rights mainly by staging stunts and protes ...

scaled the tower wearing a high-visibility jacket and unfurling a banner in the process. Another incident happened a year later when a

base jumper BASE jumping () is the recreational sport of jumping from fixed objects, using a parachute to descend to the ground. BASE is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antenna (radio), antenna ...

managed to get past site security and jumped off the Tower; he quickly ran off site after parachuting down. The tower was dedicated on 16 October 2005 and opened two days later. On opening day, the tower's

project manager A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers have the responsibility of the Project planning, planning, procurement and execution of a project, in any undertaking that has a defined scope, defined star ...

, David Greenhalgh, and representatives of Mowlem and Maspero were stranded in its malfunctioning external lift (built by Maspero) for an hour and a half.

Abseiling Abseiling ( ; ), also known as rappelling ( ; ), is the controlled descent of a steep slope, such as a rock face, by moving down a rope. When abseiling, the person descending controls their own movement down a static or fixed rope, in cont ...

engineers were called to rescue them. David Greenhalgh said "It is personally very embarrassing as project manager and is very disappointing and upsetting". Some, including the franchise's chief executive, felt it was rather fitting that these particular people had been trapped. The external lift was removed during December 2012. Once open, the tower attracted crowds in excess of expectations, despite only the internal lift working, with more than 600,000 people visiting it in the first year. It is one of a number of observation towers around the world that have become popular, including

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

Space Needle The Space Needle is an observation tower in Seattle, Washington, United States. Considered to be an icon of the city, it has been designated a List of Seattle landmarks, Seattle landmark. Located in the Lower Queen Anne, Seattle, Lower Queen An ...

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

's Harbour Centre,

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CN Tower The CN Tower () is a communications and observation tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Completed in 1976, it is located in downtown Toronto, built on the former Railway Lands. Its name "CN" referred to Canadian National, the railway co ...

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside town in Lancashire, England. It is located on the Irish Sea coast of the Fylde peninsula, approximately north of Liverpool and west of Preston, Lancashire, Preston. It is the main settlement in the Borough of Blackpool ...

Tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

One World Trade Center One World Trade Center, also known as One WTC and as the Freedom Tower, is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, One World Tr ...

(as well as the original

Twin Towers Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...

) and

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

's Oriental Pearl Tower. In June 2006, the local press raised a concern that the tower might be forced to close. All public buildings in the UK require disabled access under the

Disability Discrimination Act 1995 The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (c. 50) (informally, and hereafter, the DDA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which has now been repealed and replaced by the Equality Act 2010, except in Northern Ireland where the A ...

. With the external lift inoperative and only a single internal lift and stairs available as emergency escape routes, disabled people were not allowed to access the tower if they would be unable to use the stairs because a minimum of two escape routes are required by law. This problem was rectified by investing in an evacuation chair and training staff to use it. In the event of evacuation, should the internal lift be inoperable, those unable to navigate the 570 steps can use the evacuation chair. The Spinnaker Tower, being a landmark of southern England, features in the title sequence of the BBC South Today news programme. It also features on ITV News. In June 2009, the tower's operators succeeded in gaining permission for a freefall ride to be attached. It opened to the public in June 2018 and featured a bungee jump freefall into a crash net. In 2006, the tower won the RICS Project of the Year award and the RICS Regeneration award.

Commercial sponsorship with Emirates (2015–2020)

In May 2015, as part of a wider effort to "generate additional revenue by using the advertising potential of council-owned land and other assets", Portsmouth City Council proposed selling the tower's naming rights to a commercial sponsor. The proposed sponsorship deal would include the naming rights for the tower for at least five years, repainting and rebranding the tower in the sponsor's choice of colours and logos and new signage to be installed "no later than July 17" ahead of the 2015 America's Cup World Series. Dubai-based airline

was reported to be the favoured sponsor, with the tower to be renamed as the Emirates Spinnaker Tower. On 5 June 2015, the city council confirmed that Emirates had been secured as the sponsor. Councillor Luke Stubbs said: "It's clearly a very good deal for the city and shows the benefit that Portsmouth is deriving from the America’s Cup... This also associates Portsmouth with a global brand and that can only be a good thing." The tower was to be repainted in a red and white colour scheme—similar to that of local football rivals Southampton F.C.—as part of the rebranding but following a petition with over 10,000 signatures, Portsmouth City Council decided to rethink the change. Portsmouth City Council leader Donna Jones said: "We are working up a new design for the tower

hich Ij () is a village in Golabar Rural District of the Central District in Ijrud County, Zanjan province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq ...

will reflect the city’s heritage... I don’t want a tower in the city

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

no one likes the look of." The new design, unveiled on 19 June 2015, featured a blue, gold and white colour scheme. Tim Clark, President and CEO of Emirates said: "We listened to the feedback and worked with the council to adapt the designs in order to create something that Portsmouth residents will be proud of." In April 2021 the tower was repainted its original all-white colour, as the five year sponsorship deal with Emirates had ended on 30 June 2020. On 5 May 2023, Portsmouth City Council announced a new partnership with the Macmillan Cancer Support, with the charity becoming the tower's new sponsor beginning in June. Unlike the previous Emirates sponsorship, the tower will not be repainted or renamed, it will just see the charity's logo on one of the tower's legs and the main sign to the entrance. The deal will allow the charity to hold fundraising events at the tower.

Gallery

File:Copy_of_pano3.jpg, Panoramic view of the first deck, showing the glass walkway. File:Spinnaker Tower and harbour.JPG, The Tower overlooking the harbour. File:SpinnakerStaircase.JPG, The triangular staircase that must be navigated should an evacuation be needed. File:Spinnaker Tower mascot.jpg, 'Spinny', Spinnaker Tower's former mascot. File:Spinnaker_Tower_Looking_Down.jpg, The view through the glass floor of the tower. File:Rear view of the Spinnaker Tower.jpg, Rear view from ground level of the tower. File:070627 GFC Pmth hbr.JPG, Spinnaker Tower and harbour from the air, 2007. File:Spinnaker Tower (8103253059).jpg, Spinnaker Tower from the water, 2012. File:Front Of the spinnaker tower in 2019.jpg, Spinnaker Tower in 2019 File:Souvenir Coin you can take home.jpg, Visitors can buy a coin of their choice for £2 at the machine at the exit to the lift File:Back of the coin.jpg, This is the back of the coin

Events

* The Magic Numbers played a live acoustic set at the Spinnaker Tower on 20 February 2007. * The tower hosted the third of

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and Contemporary hit radio, current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including ...

DJ Annie Nightingale's live annual 'tower broadcasts' on 21 September 2006, featuring Santos and The Plump DJs, following similar shows from the

BT Tower The BT Communications Tower, also known simply as the BT Tower, is a Listed building, grade II listed Radio masts and towers, communications tower in Fitzrovia, London, England, owned by BT Group. It has also been known as the GPO Tower, the P ...

, London and the Television Tower, Berlin. * Spinnaker Tower hosted one of the regional events for the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

Children in Need ''BBC Children in Need'' is the BBC's UK Charitable organization, charity dedicated to supporting disadvantaged children and young people across the country. Established in 1980, the organisation has raised over £1 billion by 2023 through its ...

events in 2006. This involved the mascot of the event, Pudsey Bear, abseiling down the structure. * Series 4, Episode 1 of '' Coach Trip'' featured contestants spending the day on the tower. * '' Blue Peter'' recorded the 2006 ''Book of the Year Award'' inside the tower. * Contestants on ''The Biggest Loser'' had to climb over 1,500 steps to the top of the tower as part of their weight-loss task during February 2011. * BBC's '' Stargazing Live'' was hosted and filmed at Spinnaker Tower as part of a series of free local events in 2012. * In 2014,

Gosport Gosport ( ) is a town and non-metropolitan district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Hampshire, England. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census, the town had a population of 70,131 and the district had a pop ...

Caroline Dinenage Caroline Julia Dinenage, Baroness Lancaster of Kimbolton, (born 28 October 1971), also styled as Dame Caroline Dinenage, is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gosport since 2010. Dinenage ...

abseiled off the tower to raise funds for the MS Society.

References

External links

Spinnaker Tower website (Heritage Projects Ltd)

Web Cam of Spinnaker Tower
{{Buildings in Portsmouth, England timeline Towers completed in 2005 Buildings and structures in Portsmouth Buildings and structures celebrating the third millennium Towers in Hampshire Observation towers in the United Kingdom Tourist attractions in Portsmouth