I worked for Hoverspeed for the summer season in 1982 when I was 18, the last year it flew from Ramsgate. I loved the job there, marshalling the cars on to the hovercraft. The last thing to go on to the 'craft before it set off, was a large suitcase-like box containing passenger manifests and vehicle numbers, etc., and one of us would be asked to hand it to the Car Deck crew before the door was raised. Occasionally, the Car Deck crew liked to have a laugh, and would "kidnap" the person handing over the box, and I was their victim on a couple of occasions. Instead of just taking the box from me, they'd ask me to pop in to the passenger area and hand it to one of the stewardesses, and then I'd get back to the car deck just in time to see the door seal shut! I was then whisked off for a round trip to Calais! The upside of this was that I'd then be able to get the daily Crew allowance of Duty Free (200 ciggies, plus a half bottle of spirits costing £2.50). On a couple of occasions, when travelling for Duty Free on the staff discount, I had the opportunity to make the trip on the Flight Deck, which was a fantastic experience, one I'll never forget; I was seated on the "Jump Seat" between the pilot and co-pilot, and given my own headset so that I could ask questions during the flight - fascinating and practically the only place where you can get a clear view of where we were going.
WHOW ❕ What a nice story 👌🏼😃 When I was a child I dreamed to make a yourney one day with a hovercraft. But before I could do it the service ended 😢 Same thing with the Concorde. Yeah that's live 😜🤷🏻♂️ Love from Berlin 🇩🇪 Ramsi 🙋🏻♂️
I went on one from Folkestone must admit it wasn't to my taste I'd rather go on a ferry. It felt like riding an electric sanding machine in a monsoon 🤷
i wish my local museum was this cool, instead its just a bunch of war of 1812 shit and while thats important history and all history didin't end in 1950 like american town councils want to believe, wow an old cannon, nah, i wanna see the HOVERCRAFT america is a new country that does a worse job at its celebration 1950s-90s era history than countries far older than it
@@circleinforthecube5170 Come and visit Beamish Museum in the north east of England. The newest part is a 1950s town complete with a hairdressers, cinema, police houses, a fish and chip shop, and a record store with the hit parade of 1951 ... and that is only one of six full size reconstructions of various periods in local history.
No joke though. I travelled many times on the Princess Anne and in one trip the crossing was made in 22 minutes. Much faster than the tunnel. And it was faster with a car on and off. Much better service than today. You have no idea.
You think THAT'S funny. "So loud, it was nicknamed THE CONCORDE OF THE SEAS" Well, I had Honda's first CAR, the N360, their equivalent to the MINI. Cheap and chheful - or CRUDE! TWO cylinders, instead of FOUR, etc. My father commented "are you sure they haven't put one of their MOTORBIKE engines in it? " I now think they DID. My girlfriend CALLED the noisy little blighter CONCORDE! She would wait for me to pick her up in it, next to the hatstand, and put her hat and coat on, when she could hear it coming down the road! The Mini was considered a wonder of technology, to get more SPACE in it, than other cars of that size. But my Honda could get more NOISE in it!
Living in Belgium as a kid in the 70’s, my parents would pack me and my brother up in the car and we would make the trip from Calais to Ramsgate with Hoverloyd most christmases. Absolutely loved it!! If the weather was bad though (and when isn’t it in the channel in winter!!) crossing times were so much slower as the hovercraft couldn’t cut through the waves like a traditional ferry. Thanks for the trip down memory lane Tim.
Good news! The Ryde to Southsea hovercraft isn’t the only one in the world anymore! The former hovercraft route in Japan from Oita City to Oita Airport has been re-established! And the ramp up to the airport terminal makes a 90 degree turn. So if you want to see hovercrafts drifting around a corner in ways only the Japanese can, it’s once again possible.
I remember the passenger hovercraft that used to run between Southampton and Cowes doing some neat drifting round corners. One was on the Monday morning of Cowes Week when the pilot clearly hadn't expected the harbour to be quite as full as it was. The look of horror on the faces of the crews of the nearest yachts as a hovercraft came skidding sideways towards them with engines blasting was a sight to behold.
If you go to google Maps, and enter hov.ota as the destination, it will show you the two ends of the route. As of today (July 2, 2024, there is even one of the hovercraft sitting on the ramp just to the left of runway 01 at the airport!
Drifting hovercraft is not something I expected to be on my list of things I want to see in Japan (previously only occupied by maglev trains and fancy toilets) but it sure is on the list now.
I live in Hampshire and it's nice to see Tim pay a visit to one of Britain's most niche museums! The people who run the Hovercraft Museum are all very passionate and its very reasonably priced! Well worth a visit
Ahh the memory of the vibration, the regal rise up into the air as we set off and WOW! the acceleration and sheer thrill of the speed bombing across the channel. Yes, it was an amazing experience and I was lucky enough to go there and back twice.
Went on the hovercraft across the Channel in late spring 1974 in both directions. On the way back to the UK, we went just after a storm, including taking our car. A hovercraft rides the surface of the sea, so rough water means a rough ride. My father and my younger brother (age 7 at the time) both lost their lunches. I can remember looking over to my father and brother and watching them really, really not enjoy the experience. I've never been particularly susceptible to motion sickness so was basically unaffected.
They were amazing but if you got a choppy sea they had a weird random lurching movement. I remember it was very quick to drive on and off, quicker than the Eurotunnel train.
@@digidol52 I was lucky enough to experience both dead calm and particularly choppy Channel crossings. I say lucky because to a young boy I was in awe of the thrill of the bouncing and bashing as I suppose we flew into the crests of some of the waves and over the troughs of others. A true sensation of man v. mother nature I recall. I _do_ suffer from mal de mer but was fine on this trip. It's the slow and methodical churn of big ships that get me going though.
A wonderful, astonishingly evocative description of stunning event (I too was extremely fortunate to have experienced the crossing). But you forgot to mention the smell of the craft - that was truly unique too 🤭🤭🤭
@@ericdunn555 first thing thought when he stepped into the cabin was they had an odd smell! Was fortunate enough to travel on these about ten times when I was a kid because my dad hated the ferries.
I've lived most of my life in East Kent, and helped build Dover Hoverport back in the late 70s. (Now demolished.) We workers were allowed a look around the giant French craft Jean Bertin when it was making test flights. Every seat had a sick bag. 🤮 I never made a crossing on one. Later in life, I helped build the Channel Tunnel, which killed the hovercraft and the Seacat. (Known locally as the Sick-cat or the Vomit Comet.) It was fast, but rolled on a mill-pond. In between the two, I worked on the cross channel ferries. As you can probably tell, a lot of local jobs are tied to Europe, and always have been.
@@althejazzman I've also heard the class 442 EMU given the vomit comet monicker (this was in the early days of privatisation, and was less a comment on ride quality than it was a comment on the livery they were given at the time)
The smaller Seacats were horrible except on a really flat day, here in Tasmania where they are built we crossed bass strait on one that size in big seas and a 200 mile journey at night was actually scary. The Incat vessels now are much bigger, half as long again but they are actually 4 times the weight and capacity.
To SARKYBUGGER. You say "every seat had a sick bag on it". But did every sick bag have sick in it? Also, I DO like your NAME, Sarkybugger. My mother once said to me: " Don't be SO sarcastic!" I replied : " Why not? You take away from me what I'm best at! So she rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and knew it was time to give up! SOME people say "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit" But THAT'S just because they don't know how to do it properly!
Yes, it was like driving very fast over a cobbled street while someone blasted white noise at 90 decibels into your ears! With the added downside that you ended up at Calais - What's the best road in Calais? The road out of it.
Tim consistently excels in delivering exceptional content. From the soundtrack "UFO" to the witty humor, it's always top-notch. Plus, there's usually something new to learn. I salute my fellow transport nerd!
I flew on that exact hovercraft several times as a kid. Nothing could prepare you for how loud, uncomfortable, shaky and AWESOME it was. It's difficult for me to get my head around the fact that there's a whole generation who have never seen a hovercraft and in some cases never even heard of them. For my generation it was as normal as the channel tunnel is now.
I had flown on board the much smaller SRN6 several times before using the SRN4 on the Boulogne route, so I expected it be noisy but it was indeed loud, vibrating and somewhat bumpy. I'm glad the sea was calm; I wouldn't have fancied riding on it in rougher seas. However, it was indeed a quick way of getting my car to France.
As a child I remember being very impressed by the startup procedure, where the skirt would fill up and we would rise up into the air. I was also impressed that the person in charge referred to himself as a pilot. I had never been on an airplane so it seemed like the height of modernity. Then it moved out into choppy waters and I got sick into the bag that was sensibly provided. It was spectacularly uncomfortable, but I still enjoyed it. I simply assumed that the shakiness was part of travel in general.
In 1979, I toured England with a band. Afterwards, I rode the HOVERLLOYD hovercraft to Calais France. It was quite an experience that I will never forget. I treasure my photo standing in front of that beast. I was sorry to hear it came to an end. Everything that has a beginning, had an end. Thank you my British cousins for a wonderful tour and trip. Cheers
Great film! I rode this back in the 1980s - very loud, very bumpy (I've never felt so sick in my life) but an incredible experience. The coolest thing was that, with the time change, we got to our destination 5 minutes before we left!
I was lucky enough to travel on the Princess Anne back in the early 80's on my second trip out of the country. As an 8 year old it was like something out of Thunderbirds or Stingray, smoothly skimming over the waves to France. Thanks for the unexpected hit in the nostalgia, Tim!
I remember as a kid getting all excited about it and then being relieved when the ordeal was over. The noise and the vibration was nauseating. It still is a very interesting and admirable mode of transport that I'm glad I experienced, but it reaching the other shore fast was the best part of the experience.
And I feel proud to say that we supplied Saunders Roe with our robust boat fasteners. We called them Nylets, the name being an amalgamation of the materials used, the body being tough 'Nylon' and a sheet or boat cover having 'eyelets' in them which located the cover to the fitting. Saunders Roe found they were ideal to secure the side skirts and facilitated easy removal of the skirts when required. We eventually stopped making them around the late 70s when demand dropped off but they had a good run and we also exported them to Europe and further afield, my father having invented and patented the fastener in 1958.
I worked as an Immigration Officer at Ramsgate Hoverport, Pegwell Bay in 1970. Travelling in an SRN4 was like being on the top deck of a bus being driven off-road at speed in a thunderstorm. The experience was not kind to vehicles. There was many a Ford towed off with its Macpherson struts poking through the wings/bonnet and once, an old 2CV lost its engine. My how we laughed!
63 now. But I'll never forget our school trip to Paris in the Autumn of 1975. We went on the SRN4 . From Dover. It was great.. noisy and quite bumpy .but brilliant. I now live about 3 miles from the museum but have never been . I must put that right this year.
I crossed the channel on one of the stretched Hoverlloyd craft back in 1974. It was so rough the Seaspeed flights were cancelled but we set off. Never known such a bumpy ride in my life and everyone was holding their stomach to avoid throwing up. When we arrived, all the passengers were staggering and it's the only time I've seen green faces. A later trip in calm conditions was much more pleasant.
@@Bouncy8864 All the cars were strapped to the deck so they didn't move about, fortunately. I traveled several times on the hovercraft and never had any damage. We went to and fro dozens of times, both as a kid with my parents and later as a father in my own right with my own son. Always loved it, though it could be uncomfortable if it was too windy. You were best off sitting at the back, it seemed to be more bearable there. We used to smile as novices rushed to the front for the view; totally pointless because all you could see was spray anyway!
I loved the Hovercraft! A speedy journey, and the staff handled suitcases, which were so heavy in those days. Strange how man invented the wheel so long ago but centuries passed before someone had the bright idea of sticking them on suitcases! Another nice way to travel was the Night Ferry, very couth ❤❤❤
I’m pretty sure I rode Princess Anne back in the early nineties. Great fun but very loud and the experience was over all too quickly. Brilliant that she has been preserved in a museum.
I travelled by these as a child a couple of times in the 60s and 70s from Pegwell Bay and Dover. I remember watching as our craft came in on the 2nd trip with its skirt flapping - this meant a 2 hour delay whilst they fixed it. With the transit motorcaravan stowed in the bowels and tied down with enormous ratchet straps, we went to the passenger lounge. Here were glamorous ladies in pillbox hats, comfy aeroplane type seats, big windows and lots of leaflets for kids to collect. The trip was referred to as a 'flight' by the staff, and once underway, the spray ensured we saw nothing through the big windows! As an adult, I can understand why they didn’t last. As a kid - the smell of aviation fuel, the excitement of boarding, the glamorous ladies, the size of the thing, and the sheer NOISE - fantastic 😊
I built the 1/144 scale Airfix kit of the SRN4 as a boy. I still remember standing on Ryde Esplanade the year the Ryde-Southsea service started, when they used to come straight up the beach to unload. The racket was unbelievable.
A fascinating trip down memory lane - Thank you. Living in Hampshire in the 1960s, we often took the (SRN6) service from Southampton (where the Itchen Bridge now spans the river) across to Cowes on the IoW. On occasions on the run into Cowes, we would pass one or more SRN4s moored out in the Solent. Happy days.
Great to see they preserved one of them. I always regret not going on them when they were in service but at least we can still enjoy them over to the Isle of Wight.
My stepfather was the production manager at BHC and he took me around the factory (I was about 7 or 8) when one of those SRN4s was having new skirts fitted. Got to climb up the ladder to the cockpit. I remember he used to bring home marketing booklets and stuff about the hovercraft which was great for a 7 year old. The factory later built BN Islander aircraft when hovercraft work was short. The Islander was in demand and BN didn't have capacity to meet demand. The BHC factory in Cowes is now a museum for classic boats.
I absolutely love these things for their 60s futurism - a real throwback to the “what could have been” of that era’s tech optimism. On that note, I appreciated the highly appropriate lift-music covers of Gerry Anderson themes! I was lucky enough to travel on one of the extended ones in the early 90s. Hovercraft out, SeaCat back - it still did feel like the future to me as a child!
Thank you for that. I used HoverSpeed once in each direction across the Channel. My trip to Calais from Dover was exceedingly smooth, but as loud as any turboprop plane cabin inside. "Takeoff" and "landing" were similar to the first/last few feet of a helicopter ride. Synching of the propellers had to be really good, because the lateral shaking was minor, if almost teeth-chatteringly intense at mid-RPMs. Departure from Dover was like leaving a seaside airport tarmac in a low-flying jumbo jet. In contrast, the arrival in Calais felt more like a beach landing in a very large inflatable raft, it was that simple. The return trip from Boulogne-Sur-Mer would be hair-raising. A strong cross-wind on the Channel created choppy water, so HoverSpeed announced we would be running up the coast to Calais first, before turning toward Dover. If you've ever been in a lake boat going full-out on a windy day, such that spray came up over you as you clomped across the waves, that would describe the feeling. There was a certain amount of roll and pitching up and down for a good 2/3 of the journey. The airbags would seem to rise and fall as the cabin lurched from side to side. Comparable in fact to in-flight turbulence at any height. No doubt safe, but still unnerving given the novelty of it all. I don't recall which hovercrafts I rode on, but one could very well have been the "Princess Anne".
I am from the land of fruits and nuts (California) and demand an eel sizing commission be established to determine how many duty-free eels can be transported to Catalina waters!
I still remember crossing the channel on one of these SRN4 hover crafts. The thing that stuck with me the most is like Tim mentioned the tremendous amount of noise these vessels made. Despite that, is was a wonderful experience I had as a 9 year old boy going on vacation to the UK from the Netherlands. Understandable that the economics didn't work out and forced them to stop operating. Great engineering and technology.
I can remember taking an old camper based on a Commer van across to France by Hoverloyd. There was an area to book for slightly higher vehicles which we was fine. The motion at speed was really odd, whereas a ship is up and down front to back and left to right the SRN4 would lift and fall in any direction with no rhythm , a giant fairground ride, I found it fantastic others didn't. Thank you so much for reminding me of such a brilliant journey.
We travelled on Swift in 1970 with our 1967 Commer Wanderer camper for a tour of northern Europe. We had seats in one of the inner cabins with no windows, so sat and shook. I went for a walk to look out of a window, but saw nothing but spray.
I took the hovercraft many times when I was at school in England but my parents lived in Belgium. I remember. It being very loud and a pretty rough bumpy ride.
Never been on one, but had a 1980s book as a kid with a cutaway of this beauty, showing all the insides, drawn in watercolour. I had no idea there was a hovercraft museum and they have one! I'm gonna have to put it on my bucket list now.
I loved these hovercraft. I was lucky enough to travel on an SRN4 France-England sometime in the 1990's. It was a very noisy experience and very bumpy but truly unforgettable.As a teenager I had been fascinated by the technology and read everything I could about them. Great video, brings back good memories.
When I was a child, in the early ‘70s, I lived in Calais. I liked going to the beach to see the overcrafts. It was impressive. Thank you for this video.
In the 1980s I managed to get a cockpit trip back from France, which was fascinating! The only access is up a vertical ladder from the car deck and through a trapdoor, so I had to go up before they left port, and of course stayed there until they arrived back in England. Three crew - pilot, co-pilot, and radar operator/navigator. I first asked on the outward journey, but couldn't go up as they'd already set off, but got my timing right on the way back. The hovercraft museum is wonderful by the way, worth every penny.
In the late '60's my family travelled to France in an old Bedford CF van, my father had converted into a 'camper van'.(plywood bench seats with no belts, and a portaloo behind a curtain) We parked in the cavernous hold before climbing a short stairway to comfortable airplane-style seats.The ride was amazing, and even the crazy bumping couldn't erase the smiles from the smartly dressed hostesses or three excited kids. One could only see spray from the windows sadly, and walking to the loo was like a fairground ride, but for us it was wonderful.
I remember a day trip to Ramsgate as a sprog in the late 70’s when one of these huge craft came in. Watching your video brought back the memory of just standing there in awe watching this thing leave the water and seamlessly travelling on to the land.
It's so strange that the most futuristic vehicles ever operated are in the past. While technology has advanced and vehicles are more efficient, very few rival the ambition of the latter half of the 20th century.
I visited this amazing museum back in 2019. They have indeed got a wonderful collection of hovercraft, but the star of the show has to be the magnificent SRN-4. Standing on the car deck you can't help but be awestruck by the immense size of the craft, sadly I never got to see one in action or ride aboard one but I'm glad one has been preserved so I had the opportunity to visit it and look around inside.
ooh, I remember a few crossings on that hovercraft between England and France, quite an experience! Glad to have had an opportunity to travel on that a few times.
I think I rode on one of these when I was a boy (5 or 6) on a family trip to England (we lived in Germany at the time), would've been the late 70's. My dad says I screamed in fear at the sight of this noisy huge 'monster' coming out of the water. Eventually some treats calmed me down, apparantly.
I loved crossing the channel on the Princess Anne. Thanks for showing the the facy that she still survives if only as a museum exhibit. Thanks for the memories from an Yank back here in the states.
I memorised all i could about this thing from a little Penguin book in the 80s. :) I never rode in it though, having been put off by the noise. I was planning to visit this museum last summer, but my health got in the way, so I'm very happy to see this video. Thanks Tim. :D
As little boys we loved the hovercrafts. Not a boat, not a plane and not a car and yet all of this together, of course that was the dream of any 6 year old. And every boy had at least the matchbox version of a hovercraft. I remember remotely a children's TV show from the mid 1970s about children making their own hovercrafts from scrap.
What an amazing museum - I had been driving from cologne to calais only to take the third last, and then in return the second last hovercraft ever going 24 years ago - I will never forget them, I looooooved to ride them !!!! THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not from the south of England, but I travelled south to travel on these to Boulogne, and then connected into the fantastic SNCF Yellow Grey Turbotrains onto Paris, The Hovercraft were noisy, (as were the Turbo Trains were too for that matter) and the spray meant the view was restricted depending on how the hovercraft turned, I still have a blue ticket wallet that Hoverspeed gave you for tickets and documents for your crossing I remember these with great fondness, along with the 2 x Jetfoils that went from Dover to Oostende ( as long as the sea was not too rough, then you were simply moved on to the normal ferry) This is a great video Tim Thank You, I really enjoyed it and evoked many happy memories.
A special rail connection with a small station was built to let the trains get very close to the hovercrafts. One could still see a part of it a few years ago in Boulogne's suburbs.
@@mrowl-the-dsm1304 You can still see it on Google satellite view (50.71423222560676, 1.5733630996572663). The railway tunnel entrance is still visible too ("Tunnel de l'Ave-Maria").
I went to school about a mile away from the Pegwell bay Hoverport when it opened in 1968, (I was 8) when they were coming in and leaving you could not here the teacher talking the windows rattled,it was bloody great, I heard they ended up putting tripple glazing in the houses in Pegwell bay, we lived in broadstairs which was 4 miles away and you could still hear them, I remember it being built, Dick Hampton's did the muck shift and they trucked the coal shale from a rail head at Richbough power station which came by train from Chislet Collery, and Cementaions built the Hoverport itself, I have some photos somewhere of that taken by my Dad the Sandwich rd was black with coal dust, you would not get away with it now, they were called The Prince Of Wales, Sir Christopher, Swift and Sure.(Hoverlloyd) Princess Anne and Princess Margaret (Seaspeed, British Rail) they held 20,000 liters of AV gas each and did about 2 round trips from pegwell to calias on that and had to fill up again.The Good old days.
I'm from Sweden and rode the first time on a Hovercraft in 1979 Portsmouth to Ryde. Then I took the car with me on Dover to Boulongne s/mer in 1986. I'm glad to have experienced this.
Love it. I crossed the channel on the Princess Margaret on 26th June 1987, yes it was noisy but so much faster than the ferries and effectively replaced the Golden Arrow train London to Paris before getting on what was left of the Orient Express which by then only went as far as Bucharest
Visitors to the museum could combine it with a trip on the Southsea - Ryde service to complete the day. I went on the SRN4 back in 1974. The noise wasn't that bad considering we were travelling across the Channel at 60mph! I did some commuting on the cross-Solent service in the 1990s and it was fast, convenient and quieter. They are powered by diesel engines unlike the SRN4s which used the 1950s aero engines. I suppose in theory that the SRN4s could have been re-engined with diesels but by the late-90s the hulls were over 30 years old. A college friend of mine was working at BHC when the SRN4s were stretched and he said that when they opened them up they were surprised by the high levels of corrosion. I can't imagine what state they were in after several more decades of cross-Channel service!
Another fabulous video! Thank you Tim. As a Canadian travelling between England anf France at various points in the 70s and 80s, I had the pleasure and thrill of travelling on these beasts a couple of times. Loved them!
I was talking about this last month how we were using this to cross the channel when I was a child, and now you make a video about it. how nice 🙂 I remember the horrible fuel smell I think we went twice with the hovercraft. 🙂 oh and it was only like half an hour, and it was quite nice. I don't remember it as something horrible at least. Now we need another video of the seacat catamarans that ran until 2005. I liked those more then the channel tunnel. It was quite a thing cruising with 80 km/h over the channel.
Im filled with regret never having crossed the channel to england on one. Granted I was a toddler when in ceased business and didnt have a great leevay of agency, but still.
I did the Ramsgate to Calais trip a couple of times on the early 80s. Loved it. We had family in the area so when visiting I used to go and watch the hovercraft arrive and leave. I loved that each gas turbine engine emited flames from the exhaust on startup. For an 11/12 year old me it was all so exciting! Perhaps not the smoothest way to cross the channel but certainly the quickest at the time!
Hovercraft enthusiast here; glad to see the good old SRN4 popping out from time to time on the tube; also, only old chaps like me will remember the soundtrack you used in the early part of your video, I grew up watching the UFO series :)
I went on the SRN4s many times. The original layout had several inner cabins with no windows and you just sat in there bumping around randomly not knowing what the hell was going on. They refurbished them by making the main cabins wider as in the layout in this video. It was a great improvement as everyone could then see the departure and arrival choreography, but still not much in between through the constant spray. We sometimes overnighted in a campsite high on the cliffs over Boulogne for a morning crossing from where you could hear these things from half way across the Channel. The noise of the revving up and taking off unseen below the cliff was something else. Fine weather crossings were great but the rough ones were very rough. The roughest I had was being on a flight against the wind and rain that got so violent, the bottles in the duty free kiosk crashed out onto the floor and we didn't make it across. The pitching and crashing into the waves was very scary and we turned back after 40 minutes; it only took 15 to get back. The apron at Calais was above a wide sandy beach and when disembarking in the storm, a stinging mixture of high-speed sand and snow howled sideways through the passengers who were not dressed for extreme sports... Memories! 😀
In 1982 my wife-to-be and I flew ourselves and our motorcycle from our home in Canada to London on our way to visit my relatives in Italy. On the day we were due to cross the channel, we were chatting over breakfast with an Australian couple sharing our B&B. They advised us not to order drinks if we took the hovercraft. As it happens we crossed by ship on our way out, but we did take the hovercraft on our way back. The first clue that this might not be smooth sailing was how tight the workers tied the bike down. The attendants offered us drinks immediately into our "flight", but we declined based on the advice we had received. OMG, was it ever the right move: as soon as we were out in open waters the ride became incredibly rough: imagine being in an airplane flying through continuous turbulence. Now imagine trying to drink something while in that airplane flying through continuous turbulence. A unique and worthwhile experience, but very much not a comfortable one and a potentially messy one. Maybe it was just full of eels ?
I do remember these hovercrafts... I think around 1990, I went with my school to England with one of these hovercrafts, because of the time limit we had, and the speed we could cross the English Channel. I don't recall if we came from Belgium or a France port. But still, it was an experience, good and bad. The time crossing, incredible, but ... as you mentioned in your video, the noise, the wobbling around on the water, some of us were so sick ... you just had to sit and wait, nothing more to do, you couldn't go outside for some fresh air ... But still, the experience and the picture I still have with it, as it was loading air, or unloading LOL Good memories. Thank you Tim, for this fine video.
Travelled on these a number of times as a kid. There was nothing like seeing one come roaring out of the horizon, straight from the water onto the tarmac. Simultaneously thrilled and scared the shit out of me. There was nothing like it.
Thanks, I had remembered using the hovercraft to France as part of my trip to watch the World Athletic Championships in 1987, but I was starting think it was a dream ...
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I worked for Hoverspeed for the summer season in 1982 when I was 18, the last year it flew from Ramsgate. I loved the job there, marshalling the cars on to the hovercraft.
The last thing to go on to the 'craft before it set off, was a large suitcase-like box containing passenger manifests and vehicle numbers, etc., and one of us would be asked to hand it to the Car Deck crew before the door was raised. Occasionally, the Car Deck crew liked to have a laugh, and would "kidnap" the person handing over the box, and I was their victim on a couple of occasions. Instead of just taking the box from me, they'd ask me to pop in to the passenger area and hand it to one of the stewardesses, and then I'd get back to the car deck just in time to see the door seal shut! I was then whisked off for a round trip to Calais! The upside of this was that I'd then be able to get the daily Crew allowance of Duty Free (200 ciggies, plus a half bottle of spirits costing £2.50).
On a couple of occasions, when travelling for Duty Free on the staff discount, I had the opportunity to make the trip on the Flight Deck, which was a fantastic experience, one I'll never forget; I was seated on the "Jump Seat" between the pilot and co-pilot, and given my own headset so that I could ask questions during the flight - fascinating and practically the only place where you can get a clear view of where we were going.
I am so insanely jealous of you right now jsyk
WHOW ❕
What a nice story 👌🏼😃
When I was a child I dreamed to make a yourney one day with a hovercraft.
But before I could do it the service ended 😢
Same thing with the Concorde.
Yeah that's live 😜🤷🏻♂️
Love from Berlin 🇩🇪
Ramsi 🙋🏻♂️
I went on one from Folkestone must admit it wasn't to my taste I'd rather go on a ferry.
It felt like riding an electric sanding machine in a monsoon 🤷
We went to the UK via Hoverspeed when I was a kid. Absolutely fun way of transport!
I dunno what kind of licence and skills they had? aircraft pilot licence ? boat license?
Thanks for helping my local museum out. They need support go visit everyone.
i wish my local museum was this cool, instead its just a bunch of war of 1812 shit and while thats important history and all history didin't end in 1950 like american town councils want to believe, wow an old cannon, nah, i wanna see the HOVERCRAFT
america is a new country that does a worse job at its celebration 1950s-90s era history than countries far older than it
@@circleinforthecube5170 Come and visit Beamish Museum in the north east of England. The newest part is a 1950s town complete with a hairdressers, cinema, police houses, a fish and chip shop, and a record store with the hit parade of 1951 ... and that is only one of six full size reconstructions of various periods in local history.
I was laughing so much at the Concorde joke that I nearly missed the callback to the callback 😂
No Kidding
No joke though. I travelled many times on the Princess Anne and in one trip the crossing was made in 22 minutes. Much faster than the tunnel. And it was faster with a car on and off. Much better service than today. You have no idea.
I was waiting for another callback when he was talking about selling it as a premium product and selling as much duty free as possible. 🤣
Me too..
You think THAT'S funny. "So loud, it was nicknamed THE CONCORDE OF THE SEAS"
Well, I had Honda's first CAR, the N360, their equivalent to the MINI. Cheap and chheful - or CRUDE!
TWO cylinders, instead of FOUR, etc. My father commented "are you sure they haven't put one of their MOTORBIKE engines in it? " I now think they DID.
My girlfriend CALLED the noisy little blighter CONCORDE! She would wait for me to pick her up in it, next to the hatstand, and put her hat and coat on, when she could hear it coming down the road!
The Mini was considered a wonder of technology, to get more SPACE in it, than other cars of that size. But my Honda could get more NOISE in it!
Living in Belgium as a kid in the 70’s, my parents would pack me and my brother up in the car and we would make the trip from Calais to Ramsgate with Hoverloyd most christmases. Absolutely loved it!! If the weather was bad though (and when isn’t it in the channel in winter!!) crossing times were so much slower as the hovercraft couldn’t cut through the waves like a traditional ferry. Thanks for the trip down memory lane Tim.
Good news! The Ryde to Southsea hovercraft isn’t the only one in the world anymore! The former hovercraft route in Japan from Oita City to Oita Airport has been re-established! And the ramp up to the airport terminal makes a 90 degree turn. So if you want to see hovercrafts drifting around a corner in ways only the Japanese can, it’s once again possible.
Tim, when you going to Japan?
I remember the passenger hovercraft that used to run between Southampton and Cowes doing some neat drifting round corners. One was on the Monday morning of Cowes Week when the pilot clearly hadn't expected the harbour to be quite as full as it was. The look of horror on the faces of the crews of the nearest yachts as a hovercraft came skidding sideways towards them with engines blasting was a sight to behold.
If you go to google Maps, and enter hov.ota as the destination, it will show you the two ends of the route. As of today (July 2, 2024, there is even one of the hovercraft sitting on the ramp just to the left of runway 01 at the airport!
@@Andy-fd5fg More pertinent, when am I going to Japan 🤩 Thanks for the news! @JBS319
Drifting hovercraft is not something I expected to be on my list of things I want to see in Japan (previously only occupied by maglev trains and fancy toilets) but it sure is on the list now.
I live in Hampshire and it's nice to see Tim pay a visit to one of Britain's most niche museums! The people who run the Hovercraft Museum are all very passionate and its very reasonably priced! Well worth a visit
Ahh the memory of the vibration, the regal rise up into the air as we set off and WOW! the acceleration and sheer thrill of the speed bombing across the channel.
Yes, it was an amazing experience and I was lucky enough to go there and back twice.
Went on the hovercraft across the Channel in late spring 1974 in both directions.
On the way back to the UK, we went just after a storm, including taking our car. A hovercraft rides the surface of the sea, so rough water means a rough ride. My father and my younger brother (age 7 at the time) both lost their lunches. I can remember looking over to my father and brother and watching them really, really not enjoy the experience. I've never been particularly susceptible to motion sickness so was basically unaffected.
They were amazing but if you got a choppy sea they had a weird random lurching movement. I remember it was very quick to drive on and off, quicker than the Eurotunnel train.
@@digidol52 I was lucky enough to experience both dead calm and particularly choppy Channel crossings. I say lucky because to a young boy I was in awe of the thrill of the bouncing and bashing as I suppose we flew into the crests of some of the waves and over the troughs of others.
A true sensation of man v. mother nature I recall.
I _do_ suffer from mal de mer but was fine on this trip. It's the slow and methodical churn of big ships that get me going though.
A wonderful, astonishingly evocative description of stunning event
(I too was extremely fortunate to have experienced the crossing).
But you forgot to mention the smell of the craft
- that was truly unique too
🤭🤭🤭
@@ericdunn555 first thing thought when he stepped into the cabin was they had an odd smell! Was fortunate enough to travel on these about ten times when I was a kid because my dad hated the ferries.
This museum s a underground gem! went there a few years back and was gobsmacked how much stuff was on show there! recommended!
I've lived most of my life in East Kent, and helped build Dover Hoverport back in the late 70s. (Now demolished.) We workers were allowed a look around the giant French craft Jean Bertin when it was making test flights. Every seat had a sick bag. 🤮 I never made a crossing on one.
Later in life, I helped build the Channel Tunnel, which killed the hovercraft and the Seacat. (Known locally as the Sick-cat or the Vomit Comet.) It was fast, but rolled on a mill-pond.
In between the two, I worked on the cross channel ferries.
As you can probably tell, a lot of local jobs are tied to Europe, and always have been.
Haha Sick Cat. The Vomit Comet however is better suited to the zero-gravity training aircraft.
@@althejazzman I've also heard the class 442 EMU given the vomit comet monicker (this was in the early days of privatisation, and was less a comment on ride quality than it was a comment on the livery they were given at the time)
The smaller Seacats were horrible except on a really flat day, here in Tasmania where they are built we crossed bass strait on one that size in big seas and a 200 mile journey at night was actually scary. The Incat vessels now are much bigger, half as long again but they are actually 4 times the weight and capacity.
Funny that every airplane seat has a sick bag as well
To SARKYBUGGER.
You say "every seat had a sick bag on it". But did every sick bag have sick in it?
Also, I DO like your NAME, Sarkybugger. My mother once said to me: " Don't be SO sarcastic!"
I replied : " Why not? You take away from me what I'm best at!
So she rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and knew it was time to give up!
SOME people say "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit"
But THAT'S just because they don't know how to do it properly!
Your musical easter eggs are brilliant and delightful - hearing "No Air" brought a smile to my face.
Thanks Tim.
Brought back happy memories of a cross channel trip.
I can still hear the sound of other passengers being very ill.
Same. I was 4 or 5, and excitedly pointing out other ships, while others were holding sickbags.
Same here. It was the most awful journey I ever took.
Definitely not the smooth journey floating on a bag of air I expected.
Crossed between Denmark and Sweden on a hovercraft when I was a kid, I also remember all the passengers were sick. 😂
Yes, it was like driving very fast over a cobbled street while someone blasted white noise at 90 decibels into your ears! With the added downside that you ended up at Calais - What's the best road in Calais? The road out of it.
Tim consistently excels in delivering exceptional content. From the soundtrack "UFO" to the witty humor, it's always top-notch. Plus, there's usually something new to learn. I salute my fellow transport nerd!
I flew on that exact hovercraft several times as a kid. Nothing could prepare you for how loud, uncomfortable, shaky and AWESOME it was. It's difficult for me to get my head around the fact that there's a whole generation who have never seen a hovercraft and in some cases never even heard of them. For my generation it was as normal as the channel tunnel is now.
I had flown on board the much smaller SRN6 several times before using the SRN4 on the Boulogne route, so I expected it be noisy but it was indeed loud, vibrating and somewhat bumpy. I'm glad the sea was calm; I wouldn't have fancied riding on it in rougher seas. However, it was indeed a quick way of getting my car to France.
I rarely use the word awesome but the Hovercraft and Concorde were awesome. The modern world seems a bit flat without them.
As a child I remember being very impressed by the startup procedure, where the skirt would fill up and we would rise up into the air. I was also impressed that the person in charge referred to himself as a pilot. I had never been on an airplane so it seemed like the height of modernity. Then it moved out into choppy waters and I got sick into the bag that was sensibly provided. It was spectacularly uncomfortable, but I still enjoyed it. I simply assumed that the shakiness was part of travel in general.
@@glyptodon_chYou realise that you were actually flying didn't you? Not very high granted but it's still flight!
They used to give the altitude of the flight, I think it was given in mm but I don't remember as detailed as that
In 1979, I toured England with a band. Afterwards, I rode the HOVERLLOYD hovercraft to Calais France. It was quite an experience that I will never forget. I treasure my photo standing in front of that beast. I was sorry to hear it came to an end. Everything that has a beginning, had an end. Thank you my British cousins for a wonderful tour and trip. Cheers
Having "No air" playing at the moment you tell about the hovercraft being no longer in use is just perfect
Great film! I rode this back in the 1980s - very loud, very bumpy (I've never felt so sick in my life) but an incredible experience. The coolest thing was that, with the time change, we got to our destination 5 minutes before we left!
I was lucky enough to travel on the Princess Anne back in the early 80's on my second trip out of the country. As an 8 year old it was like something out of Thunderbirds or Stingray, smoothly skimming over the waves to France. Thanks for the unexpected hit in the nostalgia, Tim!
I was thinking Tim should have used the Thunderbirds music instead of UFO.
@@GregInTokyo Isn't that the Thunderbirds music running from where he gets off the bus until he reaches the museum?
I'm glad you enjoyed riding princess Anne ...❤
@@Keenath UFO Theme: ruclips.net/video/j2PoXfZdYVU/видео.html
I remember as a kid getting all excited about it and then being relieved when the ordeal was over. The noise and the vibration was nauseating. It still is a very interesting and admirable mode of transport that I'm glad I experienced, but it reaching the other shore fast was the best part of the experience.
And I feel proud to say that we supplied Saunders Roe with our robust boat fasteners. We called them Nylets, the name being an amalgamation of the materials used, the body being tough 'Nylon' and a sheet or boat cover having 'eyelets' in them which located the cover to the fitting. Saunders Roe found they were ideal to secure the side skirts and facilitated easy removal of the skirts when required. We eventually stopped making them around the late 70s when demand dropped off but they had a good run and we also exported them to Europe and further afield, my father having invented and patented the fastener in 1958.
Thanks for the "Not actual footage" footnote, I was wondering which brand of bus catapult the company was using.
Acme Bus-Flinger 3000, I think!
Brings back memories of a school day trip to France in an SRN4 back in the day. Thankyou!
I worked as an Immigration Officer at Ramsgate Hoverport, Pegwell Bay in 1970. Travelling in an SRN4 was like being on the top deck of a bus being driven off-road at speed in a thunderstorm. The experience was not kind to vehicles. There was many a Ford towed off with its Macpherson struts poking through the wings/bonnet and once, an old 2CV lost its engine. My how we laughed!
63 now. But I'll never forget our school trip to Paris in the Autumn of 1975. We went on the SRN4 . From Dover. It was great.. noisy and quite bumpy .but brilliant. I now live about 3 miles from the museum but have never been . I must put that right this year.
I crossed the channel on one of the stretched Hoverlloyd craft back in 1974. It was so rough the Seaspeed flights were cancelled but we set off. Never known such a bumpy ride in my life and everyone was holding their stomach to avoid throwing up. When we arrived, all the passengers were staggering and it's the only time I've seen green faces. A later trip in calm conditions was much more pleasant.
How did the cars do on that bumpy ride? Sounds as if they should've ended up scratched and battered the same as the passengers?
@@Bouncy8864 All the cars were strapped to the deck so they didn't move about, fortunately. I traveled several times on the hovercraft and never had any damage. We went to and fro dozens of times, both as a kid with my parents and later as a father in my own right with my own son. Always loved it, though it could be uncomfortable if it was too windy. You were best off sitting at the back, it seemed to be more bearable there. We used to smile as novices rushed to the front for the view; totally pointless because all you could see was spray anyway!
I loved the Hovercraft! A speedy journey, and the staff handled suitcases, which were so heavy in those days. Strange how man invented the wheel so long ago but centuries passed before someone had the bright idea of sticking them on suitcases!
Another nice way to travel was the Night Ferry, very couth ❤❤❤
I’m pretty sure I rode Princess Anne back in the early nineties. Great fun but very loud and the experience was over all too quickly. Brilliant that she has been preserved in a museum.
I hear the hovercraft is alright too
@@animationcreations42 oh you never, yes you did go there
@@davidrenton Thank God I wasn't taking a drink of something when I read the original comment and then that reply... 🤣
Amazing you wouldn't think princess Anne was a screamer , was a whip involved????..❤
@@johnathandaviddunster38 neigh.
I travelled by these as a child a couple of times in the 60s and 70s from Pegwell Bay and Dover. I remember watching as our craft came in on the 2nd trip with its skirt flapping - this meant a 2 hour delay whilst they fixed it.
With the transit motorcaravan stowed in the bowels and tied down with enormous ratchet straps, we went to the passenger lounge. Here were glamorous ladies in pillbox hats, comfy aeroplane type seats, big windows and lots of leaflets for kids to collect. The trip was referred to as a 'flight' by the staff, and once underway, the spray ensured we saw nothing through the big windows!
As an adult, I can understand why they didn’t last. As a kid - the smell of aviation fuel, the excitement of boarding, the glamorous ladies, the size of the thing, and the sheer NOISE - fantastic 😊
I live in Calais, a few hundred meters from the hovercraft landing zone. Those f**kers were LOUD!!
children growing up in the US during the 60s and 70s were fascinated by these hovercraft
and any kid in the 2000s who read that big book of vehicles, as a kid i didin't even know they stopped with them
And not just in the US :)
I built the 1/144 scale Airfix kit of the SRN4 as a boy. I still remember standing on Ryde Esplanade the year the Ryde-Southsea service started, when they used to come straight up the beach to unload. The racket was unbelievable.
A fascinating trip down memory lane - Thank you. Living in Hampshire in the 1960s, we often took the (SRN6) service from Southampton (where the Itchen Bridge now spans the river) across to Cowes on the IoW. On occasions on the run into Cowes, we would pass one or more SRN4s moored out in the Solent. Happy days.
The Gerry Anderson music is well-welcomed!
Theme to UFO
I am retroactively shocked that Gerry didn't work a hovercraft into that series. 😂
@@roderickmain9697 Is that the music from when he goes into the hovercraft?
@@edwardphilibin3151There's one in Captain Scarlet and I think something similar appears in a Joe 90 episode
@@KingfisherTalkingPictures yes.
Great to see they preserved one of them. I always regret not going on them when they were in service but at least we can still enjoy them over to the Isle of Wight.
My stepfather was the production manager at BHC and he took me around the factory (I was about 7 or 8) when one of those SRN4s was having new skirts fitted. Got to climb up the ladder to the cockpit.
I remember he used to bring home marketing booklets and stuff about the hovercraft which was great for a 7 year old.
The factory later built BN Islander aircraft when hovercraft work was short. The Islander was in demand and BN didn't have capacity to meet demand.
The BHC factory in Cowes is now a museum for classic boats.
Always appreciate your tasteful use of Gerry Anderson music
I absolutely love these things for their 60s futurism - a real throwback to the “what could have been” of that era’s tech optimism. On that note, I appreciated the highly appropriate lift-music covers of Gerry Anderson themes!
I was lucky enough to travel on one of the extended ones in the early 90s. Hovercraft out, SeaCat back - it still did feel like the future to me as a child!
Thank you for that. I used HoverSpeed once in each direction across the Channel. My trip to Calais from Dover was exceedingly smooth, but as loud as any turboprop plane cabin inside. "Takeoff" and "landing" were similar to the first/last few feet of a helicopter ride. Synching of the propellers had to be really good, because the lateral shaking was minor, if almost teeth-chatteringly intense at mid-RPMs. Departure from Dover was like leaving a seaside airport tarmac in a low-flying jumbo jet. In contrast, the arrival in Calais felt more like a beach landing in a very large inflatable raft, it was that simple. The return trip from Boulogne-Sur-Mer would be hair-raising. A strong cross-wind on the Channel created choppy water, so HoverSpeed announced we would be running up the coast to Calais first, before turning toward Dover. If you've ever been in a lake boat going full-out on a windy day, such that spray came up over you as you clomped across the waves, that would describe the feeling. There was a certain amount of roll and pitching up and down for a good 2/3 of the journey. The airbags would seem to rise and fall as the cabin lurched from side to side. Comparable in fact to in-flight turbulence at any height. No doubt safe, but still unnerving given the novelty of it all. I don't recall which hovercrafts I rode on, but one could very well have been the "Princess Anne".
How many eels could be fit in that big hovercraft?
🤔At least two
Do you want to come back to my place, bouncy-bouncy?
"I am no longer infected"
I will not buy this tobacconist's, it is scratched.
I am from the land of fruits and nuts (California) and demand an eel sizing commission be established to determine how many duty-free eels can be transported to Catalina waters!
Still one of the coolest things ever made!
Thank you Tim! I rode one of these when I was 8 years old. I’ll have to check out that museum next time I’m in the UK.
Cheers, mush! This is one of my favourite museums. The kids love it. It's a much bigger site than it looks from the entrance.
I still remember crossing the channel on one of these SRN4 hover crafts. The thing that stuck with me the most is like Tim mentioned the tremendous amount of noise these vessels made.
Despite that, is was a wonderful experience I had as a 9 year old boy going on vacation to the UK from the Netherlands.
Understandable that the economics didn't work out and forced them to stop operating. Great engineering and technology.
I can remember taking an old camper based on a Commer van across to France by Hoverloyd. There was an area to book for slightly higher vehicles which we was fine. The motion at speed was really odd, whereas a ship is up and down front to back and left to right the SRN4 would lift and fall in any direction with no rhythm , a giant fairground ride, I found it fantastic others didn't. Thank you so much for reminding me of such a brilliant journey.
We travelled on Swift in 1970 with our 1967 Commer Wanderer camper for a tour of northern Europe. We had seats in one of the inner cabins with no windows, so sat and shook. I went for a walk to look out of a window, but saw nothing but spray.
I took the hovercraft many times when I was at school in England but my parents lived in Belgium. I remember. It being very loud and a pretty rough bumpy ride.
Never been on one, but had a 1980s book as a kid with a cutaway of this beauty, showing all the insides, drawn in watercolour. I had no idea there was a hovercraft museum and they have one! I'm gonna have to put it on my bucket list now.
I loved these hovercraft. I was lucky enough to travel on an SRN4 France-England sometime in the 1990's. It was a very noisy experience and very bumpy but truly unforgettable.As a teenager I had been fascinated by the technology and read everything I could about them. Great video, brings back good memories.
For having crossed between France and UK and back on hovercraft, when I was a teenager in the 70;s, I can confirm that was amazing.
When I was a child, in the early ‘70s, I lived in Calais. I liked going to the beach to see the overcrafts. It was impressive. Thank you for this video.
No idea a museum like this existed. What fun! Have on my list now.
Gosport also has the submarine museum. That’s worth a visit on its own.
In the 1980s I managed to get a cockpit trip back from France, which was fascinating! The only access is up a vertical ladder from the car deck and through a trapdoor, so I had to go up before they left port, and of course stayed there until they arrived back in England. Three crew - pilot, co-pilot, and radar operator/navigator. I first asked on the outward journey, but couldn't go up as they'd already set off, but got my timing right on the way back. The hovercraft museum is wonderful by the way, worth every penny.
Anything to do with boats hovercraft or sea travel you should have "The MariTIMe traveller" at the beginning 👍
Great video. Went to see these at Pegwell Bay in the 1970s. I remember them being very noisy.
The use of a backing song titled ‘No Air’ over the dramatic ending of a story about hovercrafts was far too funny
And the Cliff Richard Summer Holiday. Don’t know why people even remember that song!
And "Float On" in the bit right before that, when they were still making a profit.
Don't forget the UFO theme at the point where we first see the Princess Anne up close.
And "Surfing on a Rocket" by Air. Which fits the topic in two ways even.
especially with the chorus being “got me out here in the water so deep” 10/10
I travelled from Calais to Dover in one of these (possibly even that one) on a school trip in 1982. And I absolutely loved it: such a smooth crossing.
In the late '60's my family travelled to France in an old Bedford CF van, my father had converted into a 'camper van'.(plywood bench seats with no belts, and a portaloo behind a curtain) We parked in the cavernous hold before climbing a short stairway to comfortable airplane-style seats.The ride was amazing, and even the crazy bumping couldn't erase the smiles from the smartly dressed hostesses or three excited kids. One could only see spray from the windows sadly, and walking to the loo was like a fairground ride, but for us it was wonderful.
Great video. I travelled on this as a kid. Can still remember the noise and the spray. Thank you.
Looking for a hovercraft...sees sign reading "Hovercraft Museum"..."I _think_ this is it!"
British understatement ;)
you never know... it might be a tap some big boty goth girl trying to catch a nerd
Thatsthejoke.jpg
Some say he still isn't 100% sure 😂
@@matsv201 One can only hope
I remember a day trip to Ramsgate as a sprog in the late 70’s when one of these huge craft came in. Watching your video brought back the memory of just standing there in awe watching this thing leave the water and seamlessly travelling on to the land.
It's so strange that the most futuristic vehicles ever operated are in the past. While technology has advanced and vehicles are more efficient, very few rival the ambition of the latter half of the 20th century.
As a young boy I traveled to England with my parents very frequently and mostly on one of these.
It was a wonderfull experience every time. ❤
I visited this amazing museum back in 2019. They have indeed got a wonderful collection of hovercraft, but the star of the show has to be the magnificent SRN-4. Standing on the car deck you can't help but be awestruck by the immense size of the craft, sadly I never got to see one in action or ride aboard one but I'm glad one has been preserved so I had the opportunity to visit it and look around inside.
ooh, I remember a few crossings on that hovercraft between England and France, quite an experience! Glad to have had an opportunity to travel on that a few times.
I think I rode on one of these when I was a boy (5 or 6) on a family trip to England (we lived in Germany at the time), would've been the late 70's. My dad says I screamed in fear at the sight of this noisy huge 'monster' coming out of the water. Eventually some treats calmed me down, apparantly.
I loved crossing the channel on the Princess Anne. Thanks for showing the the facy that she still survives if only as a museum exhibit. Thanks for the memories from an Yank back here in the states.
.... That's still more than your bottom can do. Genius!
Maybe if you were Princess Anne
Wanna bet?!!!
Challenge accepted - bring on the vindaloo!
Hold my beer - and pass the baked beans.
@@WardyLion: make it a vegetable vindaloo 😂
I memorised all i could about this thing from a little Penguin book in the 80s. :) I never rode in it though, having been put off by the noise. I was planning to visit this museum last summer, but my health got in the way, so I'm very happy to see this video. Thanks Tim. :D
As little boys we loved the hovercrafts. Not a boat, not a plane and not a car and yet all of this together, of course that was the dream of any 6 year old. And every boy had at least the matchbox version of a hovercraft. I remember remotely a children's TV show from the mid 1970s about children making their own hovercrafts from scrap.
What an amazing museum - I had been driving from cologne to calais only to take the third last, and then in return the second last hovercraft ever going 24 years ago - I will never forget them, I looooooved to ride them !!!! THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not from the south of England, but I travelled south to travel on these to Boulogne, and then connected into the fantastic SNCF Yellow Grey Turbotrains onto Paris, The Hovercraft were noisy, (as were the Turbo Trains were too for that matter) and the spray meant the view was restricted depending on how the hovercraft turned, I still have a blue ticket wallet that Hoverspeed gave you for tickets and documents for your crossing
I remember these with great fondness, along with the 2 x Jetfoils that went from Dover to Oostende ( as long as the sea was not too rough, then you were simply moved on to the normal ferry)
This is a great video Tim Thank You, I really enjoyed it and evoked many happy memories.
A special rail connection with a small station was built to let the trains get very close to the hovercrafts. One could still see a part of it a few years ago in Boulogne's suburbs.
@@nesnduma Excellent, surprised there is still remains of it left
@@mrowl-the-dsm1304 You can still see it on Google satellite view (50.71423222560676, 1.5733630996572663). The railway tunnel entrance is still visible too ("Tunnel de l'Ave-Maria").
Sir Christopher Cockerell and his wonderful Great British Invention 🫡
I went to school about a mile away from the Pegwell bay Hoverport when it opened in 1968, (I was 8) when they were coming in and leaving you could not here the teacher talking the windows rattled,it was bloody great, I heard they ended up putting tripple glazing in the houses in Pegwell bay, we lived in broadstairs which was 4 miles away and you could still hear them, I remember it being built, Dick Hampton's did the muck shift and they trucked the coal shale from a rail head at Richbough power station which came by train from Chislet Collery, and Cementaions built the Hoverport itself, I have some photos somewhere of that taken by my Dad the Sandwich rd was black with coal dust, you would not get away with it now, they were called The Prince Of Wales, Sir Christopher, Swift and Sure.(Hoverlloyd) Princess Anne and Princess Margaret (Seaspeed, British Rail) they held 20,000 liters of AV gas each and did about 2 round trips from pegwell to calias on that and had to fill up again.The Good old days.
That's one long sentence.
Definitely not AV gas as that was for piston engines. The Proteus engine ran on Jet fuel
@@Honkawsuzyamal AV Gas (Avation Fuel, Jet Fuel) that is for jet engines thats wht NATO and USAF calls it.
@@Okurka. Who cares.I did it from my phone. just put a period where you what Mr Picky
@@hamptonequipment5853 Where I what, Mr Boomer?
I'm from Sweden and rode the first time on a Hovercraft in 1979 Portsmouth to Ryde. Then I took the car with me on Dover to Boulongne s/mer in 1986. I'm glad to have experienced this.
2:54 Impressed that you kept the Princess Anne joke clean 😂
Roger that❤
@@johnathandaviddunster38 Fnarr, Fnarr!
Thank you for sharing this video about one of the most fantastic engineering masterpieces ever created. THANKS
Love it. I crossed the channel on the Princess Margaret on 26th June 1987, yes it was noisy but so much faster than the ferries and effectively replaced the Golden Arrow train London to Paris before getting on what was left of the Orient Express which by then only went as far as Bucharest
Elsewhere, on the same date, I was born. We both had a memorable day!
I heard Princess Margaret went more like a rocket than a hovercraft ..❤
I don't think I've EVER seen Tim this excited before!! 😊
3:24 "But that's still much more than YOUR bottom can do" 😳😂😂😂😂😅😅
I travelled on all 4 Hoverlloyd craft in the 70s as a child - It was such a thrill and I can still vividly remember it, and the noise!
Visitors to the museum could combine it with a trip on the Southsea - Ryde service to complete the day. I went on the SRN4 back in 1974. The noise wasn't that bad considering we were travelling across the Channel at 60mph! I did some commuting on the cross-Solent service in the 1990s and it was fast, convenient and quieter. They are powered by diesel engines unlike the SRN4s which used the 1950s aero engines. I suppose in theory that the SRN4s could have been re-engined with diesels but by the late-90s the hulls were over 30 years old. A college friend of mine was working at BHC when the SRN4s were stretched and he said that when they opened them up they were surprised by the high levels of corrosion. I can't imagine what state they were in after several more decades of cross-Channel service!
Another fabulous video! Thank you Tim. As a Canadian travelling between England anf France at various points in the 70s and 80s, I had the pleasure and thrill of travelling on these beasts a couple of times. Loved them!
The U.F.O. theme, neat. Classic TV.
Aah, that's where I knew it from ... boy, am I old ...
It came from...the future
I thought it was music of the sort that might accompany an old television series about unusual flying objects
@@heliofaros1344 The far future of…1980.
And a few bits of Thunderbirds too 😁
That brings back memories! I went to France on it when I was 16 in 1978, always feel glad I got to travel on a rare form of transport.
I was talking about this last month how we were using this to cross the channel when I was a child, and now you make a video about it. how nice 🙂 I remember the horrible fuel smell I think we went twice with the hovercraft. 🙂 oh and it was only like half an hour, and it was quite nice. I don't remember it as something horrible at least. Now we need another video of the seacat catamarans that ran until 2005. I liked those more then the channel tunnel. It was quite a thing cruising with 80 km/h over the channel.
I remember reading about the effort to preserve this thing as a kid, I'm so glad it paid off!
Im filled with regret never having crossed the channel to england on one. Granted I was a toddler when in ceased business and didnt have a great leevay of agency, but still.
I have the same feeling. I know I must have asked my parents but I was only 9 years old in 2000
The Hovercraft Museum is fantastic. Visited there last year. Its friendly, and there are a lot of hovercraft there - and hundreds of models! Superb.
"that's so much more than YOUR bottom could do" oh yeah? try me
I did the Ramsgate to Calais trip a couple of times on the early 80s. Loved it. We had family in the area so when visiting I used to go and watch the hovercraft arrive and leave. I loved that each gas turbine engine emited flames from the exhaust on startup. For an 11/12 year old me it was all so exciting! Perhaps not the smoothest way to cross the channel but certainly the quickest at the time!
Truly the Concorde of the seas.
Hovercraft enthusiast here; glad to see the good old SRN4 popping out from time to time on the tube; also, only old chaps like me will remember the soundtrack you used in the early part of your video, I grew up watching the UFO series :)
Loved the UFO theme tune, which is also my ringtone. Actually picked up my phone and said "hello? HELLO?"
ha!!
I went on the SRN4s many times. The original layout had several inner cabins with no windows and you just sat in there bumping around randomly not knowing what the hell was going on. They refurbished them by making the main cabins wider as in the layout in this video. It was a great improvement as everyone could then see the departure and arrival choreography, but still not much in between through the constant spray.
We sometimes overnighted in a campsite high on the cliffs over Boulogne for a morning crossing from where you could hear these things from half way across the Channel. The noise of the revving up and taking off unseen below the cliff was something else. Fine weather crossings were great but the rough ones were very rough. The roughest I had was being on a flight against the wind and rain that got so violent, the bottles in the duty free kiosk crashed out onto the floor and we didn't make it across. The pitching and crashing into the waves was very scary and we turned back after 40 minutes; it only took 15 to get back. The apron at Calais was above a wide sandy beach and when disembarking in the storm, a stinging mixture of high-speed sand and snow howled sideways through the passengers who were not dressed for extreme sports... Memories! 😀
In 1982 my wife-to-be and I flew ourselves and our motorcycle from our home in Canada to London on our way to visit my relatives in Italy. On the day we were due to cross the channel, we were chatting over breakfast with an Australian couple sharing our B&B. They advised us not to order drinks if we took the hovercraft. As it happens we crossed by ship on our way out, but we did take the hovercraft on our way back. The first clue that this might not be smooth sailing was how tight the workers tied the bike down. The attendants offered us drinks immediately into our "flight", but we declined based on the advice we had received. OMG, was it ever the right move: as soon as we were out in open waters the ride became incredibly rough: imagine being in an airplane flying through continuous turbulence. Now imagine trying to drink something while in that airplane flying through continuous turbulence. A unique and worthwhile experience, but very much not a comfortable one and a potentially messy one. Maybe it was just full of eels ?
I remember being given a straw to drink through when served my whiskey and soda! Still difficult though.
+
As a kid I crossed a couple of times on Princess Ann, i loved it. The noise, the shaking, the size of the thing!
"My hovercraft is full of eels" - John Cleese
😂
I will not buy this record it is scratched.
@@macdjordlol😂 I’m desperately trying to recall his quip about “pinching my nipples” or am I just perving that one into existence 😂
@@macdjord 🤣😂
@@macdjord DO YOU WANT TO COME BACK TO MY PLACE? BOUNCY BOUNCY? I AM NO LONGER INFECTED. MY NIPPLES EXPLODE WITH DELIGHT!
I do remember these hovercrafts... I think around 1990, I went with my school to England with one of these hovercrafts, because of the time limit we had, and the speed we could cross the English Channel. I don't recall if we came from Belgium or a France port. But still, it was an experience, good and bad. The time crossing, incredible, but ... as you mentioned in your video, the noise, the wobbling around on the water, some of us were so sick ... you just had to sit and wait, nothing more to do, you couldn't go outside for some fresh air ... But still, the experience and the picture I still have with it, as it was loading air, or unloading LOL Good memories. Thank you Tim, for this fine video.
You would only travel by hovercraft once. The most unconfortable method of transport ever invented.
Travelled on these a number of times as a kid. There was nothing like seeing one come roaring out of the horizon, straight from the water onto the tarmac. Simultaneously thrilled and scared the shit out of me. There was nothing like it.
Are any of them full of eels?
Thank you! 😂
Thanks, I had remembered using the hovercraft to France as part of my trip to watch the World Athletic Championships in 1987, but I was starting think it was a dream ...
Why did the submarine blush?
Because it saw Princess Anne's bottom...
I'll let myself out
That must be the modern version. I know it as 'Queen Mary's bottom' 😊