SOUTHAMPTON is steeped in a maritime history.

For years it was known as “the home of ocean yachting” and visitors entering the city were greeted by signs telling them as much.

With prestigious events such as the Volvo Ocean Race and the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race starting and finishing on the waterfront, the city had every right to claim the title.

And simply by hosting the race, it is thought the region’s economy netted millions of pounds.

But then the Volvo Ocean Race slipped away, the Clipper race went to London and other chances to host major sailing events passed by.

Last year the chance for the city to host the event was turned down after event organisers asked for hundreds of thousands of pounds in exchange for holding it here.

But civic chiefs said they couldn’t justify the £250,000 price tag leaving sailing enthusiasts wondering what had happened to the Southampton’s once proud boast.

With Olympian Sir Ben Ainslie choosing to have Portsmouth as his base in his bid to bring the America’s Cup to these shores can Southampton ever call itself the home of ocean yachting again?

The signs proclaiming the city’s heritage are long gone, leading to many people wondering whether that title will forever be consigned to history.

The leader of Southampton City Council, Simon Letts, thinks there are more strings to Southampton's bow than just ocean racing and thinks that the title is “an obsession with just a few people”.

With events such as Common People, the SkyRide and the Christmas markets he thinks there’s more to Southampton than just the sea.

The Labour politician said: “We now look at doing family orientated events, events that have a wide breadth to offer people, to entice people to come into the city.

“We’re putting on events 25 weekends of the year that will draw people into the city.”

He added that the focus has changed.

“We want reasons for people to come here, we don’t want just one event.”

Earlier in the week Cllr Letts was forced to apologise after he claimed that the government bribed Sir Ben, from Lymington, to set up his America’s Cup base in Portsmouth.

Both the Government and Sir Ben strongly denied the claims that £7.5million of funding had been used to attract him to Portsmouth, forcing Cllr Letts to back down.

He has said since that it was the geography that has helped Portsmouth in this case.

“They’ve got a big front at Southsea they have a viewing front on to a piece of open sea, which we haven’t got,” he said.

Does that mean that Southampton will always lose out to Portsmouth for sailing events?

Conservative MP for Southampton Itchen, Royston Smith, partly agrees with Cllr Letts, but still feels more could have been done.

“Portsmouth was massively more accommodating than Southampton. They were down on bended knee to get him here. He was in no doubt he was welcome.”

“We couldn’t compete [with the setting], but I don’t think that’s any excuse. I just don’t think Southampton City Council put in enough effort.”

He said the council was “between a rock and a hard place” because it can’t pay for events and won’t earn any money from them.

But he said: “You can get round this thing – you have to be creative.”

“I think that it was [a home of ocean yachting]. I think that it should be and can be again but it’s very difficult. Nothing now starts or finishes from Southampton.”

For the time being the only attractions that Southampton’s sailing enthusiasts can expect is the Boat Show and all those that come through the city on their way to the Isle of Wight.

Civic leaders have still pinned their hopes on transforming Ocean Village to bring major sailing events into the city.

Mr Smith hopes that once the work is done at Ocean Village, with a hotel and Michelin-starred restaurants, it will attract events such as Clipper and the Ocean Yacht Race to return.

Sailing enthusiasts may yearn for Southampton to be doing more but the Royal Southampton Yacht Club’s commodore, Brian Hinde, believes that no place in the UK could ever claim to be the home of ocean yachting.

“It’s something which is in the name - the ocean,” he said. “We’re on the sea, not the ocean, but every race has to start somewhere and has to go somewhere depending what the sponsors want and what the organisers want.

“When you’re off the sight of land unless you’re using modern tracking technology it’s not a spectator sport.”

Cllr Letts still feels that people know Southampton for more than just ocean yachting.

He said: “If you ask 100 people what they thought of when someone mentioned Southampton, I bet that ocean yachting would hardly be mentioned by anybody. They will say the football club, they will mention the docks, they might mention the cruise liners. They’re not going to say ocean yachting.”