Hovercraft

Peter wrote:

I wonder why the hovercraft has largely been abandoned for passenger services? I can only assume it is not profitable due to cost. Or perhaps it poor weather restrictions cause more cancellations that ship ferries?

I would have thought they were ideal for cross channel ferries as they can fly over the sandbanks that would otherwise cause ship to detours of an hour or so.

I think in the case of the SRN4? it was all about fuel costs, I took this in about 1993 ish at Calais

I did about three channel crossings , always noisy, uncomfortable and you could not see much out of the windows. There was also the added pretence of each crossing being called a flight. (yes strictly speaking it probably was but honestly!!)

There were also strict licensing requirements with the person in charge being required to hold both a Master Mariners Certificate and an Air Transport Pilot's Licence.
There is just one SRN4 left at Lee on Solent (another was 'dismantled' a couple of years ago) although there are hovercraft services operating elsewhere in the world and at one time we used to have a small fleet of military hovercraft under the control of the Royal Navy.

fairly sure the link was posted on the forum, so apologies to whoever it was!  .  assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governm...chure_2021_-_NEW.pdf