Port of Pescara

The port of Pescara was conceived mainly as a staging area for use by numerous local fishing fleets, which had laid the foundations in the river in the second half of the 19th century. This project was created at the request of the navy to remedy the low water depths at the mouth of the river and the need to create an entry into deeper water and that was safer. Thus was born the port-channel, with two moles guardians 500 meters north-east, on stilts. Initially the port in Pescara was equipped for small and medium tonnage ships, in addition to providing support to the fishing activities that were already active in the central Adriatic. The port immediately showed signs of development beginning with the economic growth of the city.

During the First World War, the port recorded a setback due to the almost total lack of commercial traffic caused by the presence of the Austrian Navy in the Adriatic. In the period between the two World Wars, the port of Pescara developed considerably in line with the growth of the city, making it the busiest port of Ancona and Bari. During the Second World War, in the spring of 1944, the port was almost completely destroyed by the Germans retreating from the city. In the post-war reconstruction projects, platforms were designed to provide a better commercial port, and backdrops were designed around 5 meters. With the increase of trade, due to the economic boom of those years, the problem became eminent of overly shallow water for vessels of larger tonnage due to siltation and mud carried by the river Pescara. The problem was solved using periodic dredging of the seabed of the port-channel.

In the 1980s, a group of citizen entrepreneurs suggested a municipal plan for a marina with relevant facilities to support recreation and navigation. A modern marina with moorings and advanced shipbuilding facilities was thus born. The port of Pescara has the third greatest number of berths in Italy after Savona and Naples.

In the harbor one can do the following:

• Fishing: restricted to some parts of north and south shore of the channel.
• Boating: reserved to the north quay, in the sections under concession to the "Yacht Club", the "Rowing Club" the Pescarina and the tourist port "Marina di Pescara", placed at the head of the southern mouth of the river.
• Commercial facilities on the south bank of the channel upstream of docking vessels (liquid and solid bulk cargo).
• Passengers: reserved, set periods, to the south bank of the channel and berth destined for motorboats (currently suspended).

Compared to other ports in the Adriatic Sea, the port of Pescara has not been very productive in both tourism and freight due to the problem of the port being too shallow for ships (including tourist) of large tonnage. Another problem is the silting of the river Pescara. The port has had to be dredged repeatedly, an expensive undertaking, and these problems have had repercussions on tourism. The Italian maritime company Snav, which connected the city of Abruzzo with Split in Croatia using small modern hydrofoils, has decided to move to the Port of Ortona, thus depriving the city an important link for maritime tourism.

To solve the problem of silting the harbor was provisionally appointed a specialist company in Venice, which picked up the mud spilled into the open sea, but the future of the port will depend very much on the recovery of the former fruit and vegetable market now COFA abandoned, because the Chamber of Commerce of Pescara has purchased the former COFA and adjacent areas that will be retrieved and used for tourist accommodation facilities, fairs and trade. They also carried out work that will include the construction of a heliport in the marina, interventions to improve the internal structures of the harbor, dredging operations of the docks, the breakwater and restoration of the seabed and also the extension of existing docks to permit mooring of large vessels safely at a depth of about 9 meters.

• Total area of Marina di Pescara: over 200,000 square meters.
• Seabed: mud and sand
• Depth: shore fishing: 0.50 to 3 m
• Commercial harbor pier: 5 m
• East dock: 7 m
• Surface area of commercial docks: sqm. 15,000, East dock port: sqm. 47,000
• Moorings and Docks features: two dedicated to fishing piers with 92 mooring points
• South quay length (including commercial dock): 885 meters
• North quay length: 590 meters
• Length of the east dock: 420 total yards (220 m wharf, quay 200 m east)
• Water surface: square meters. 105,000
• Berths Ro: no two docks at the new quay
• Vehicle parking: area adjacent to the Maritime Station
• Access time: daylight hours for units of more than 150 tonnes, continuing for the other

• Pescara

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• (in English and Italian)
• http://www.trail.abruzzo.it/archivi_infra/010807110845.pdf