Tag Archives: ryde

Out at Sea with Your Horses

Every once in a while, when I am going through images to review what I have, I come across something I didn’t expect. While making the crossing back from the Isle of Wight, I was up on deck taking some shots and one of the catamarans that makes the crossing to Ryde was coming off Ryde Pier Head, so I took a few shots. When I go through the shots, I zoom in to check which images are sharp and which are not. In this case, I noticed that some people were out in the water with some horses. There are sand flats out a long way at Ryde so, the water can be close to the shore while it is shallow a long way out. These guys were obviously enjoying being out some distance from the shore. For reference, the pier is about half a mile long.

A Couple of Military Hovercraft

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No shock to regular readers that I might swing by the Hovertravel facilities when on the Island. A pleasant surprise was to discover that it wasn’t just the Hovertravel craft that were present. A couple of smaller military craft were also parked up. I had seen pictures of these online but didn’t realise that they were still present. I don’t know whether they are ex-military that are being repurposed or new builds for the military. Whatever the story, here they were. It would be better to see them moving but it was the weekend so not a surprise that they weren’t going anywhere.

I Can’t Resist a Little Time Watching Hovercraft

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A previous post showed a couple of military hovercraft that were on the Hovertravel pad at Ryde when we were on the Island. It will shock no one that knows me to know that, since we had time, I stopped around to see the return of one of the Hovertravel services. On the ferry across I had managed to get some shots of one of the crossings and now I was able to get an arrival. The tide was quite low so there was a lot of the sand flats to cover. This is one of the unique features of the hovercraft that the service doesn’t mind whether the tide is in or out.

There were some strong winds on the days we visited and this shows itself in the way a hovercraft approaches. Because it has no significant physical contact with the water, its only way to counteract any crosswinds is to crab into them like a plane. Consequently, It looked like it was coming straight at me as it made its approach to the pad. Now we are more local, I suspect I shall aim to make a trip across just to spend time getting some more hovercraft images.

Ryde The White Swans

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You’ll need to be of a certain age or musical interest to get this title I suspect. The seafront of Ryde is home to a lot of mute swans. I knew a few lived on the boating lake but the seafront had loads of them. It seemed you couldn’t move anywhere without seeing some more. Swans do seem to have been a bit of a theme for our vacation as I think about it further.

They were swimming around in groups in the sea and some were sheltering in the marina area. Occasionally some would fly from one spot to the other when swimming seemed like it would take too long! From where I was, it did look as if they might get in each other’s way but I guess that is just the effect of distance on my perspective.

As we walked back along the seafront, a few of them took off from the sea and headed towards the boating lake. They were flying straight towards us at one point (although I failed to get a good focus on them so those shots were wasted) but then turned inland to head to the lake. The sound the swans make as they beat their wings is quite noticeable. If we didn’t have things to do, I could have spent ages watching them.

Back To The Island So Back To The Hovercraft

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We left plenty of time to drive to Portsmouth to catch our ferry to the Isle of Wight so, naturally, traffic flowed smoothly and we got there with an excess of time. Nancy wasn’t in the least surprised that I decided to park up on the seafront at Southsea to kill some time. Oh, was this next to the Hovertravel terminal? Well, that’s lucky.

We had just enough time for one arrival and one departure before it was time to head to our ferry terminal. That wouldn’t be all though. The hovercraft passes the car ferry during its crossing so I was able to get some shots of it in operation from the deck of the ferry as we left Portsmouth. We also took a walk along the front at Ryde after lunch with Mum. Just enough time to see the hovercraft arriving and departing there too.

One interesting addition was Solent Express. This was used on Hovertravel’s services a few years ago but was withdrawn when the new hovercraft were commissioned. I had understood it was stored somewhere. Apparently, they needed space wherever that was because it is back at Ryde but still looks stored. There is plenty of seaweed around it making it look like it hadn’t gone anywhere for a while. I wonder what its future holds?

Hovercraft Transitions

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The hovercraft that ply the route between Ryde on the Isle of Wight and Southsea on the mainland have made a few previous appearances in this blog. I knew that the old hovercraft were due for replacement and that the new craft were coming in to service and figured that I wouldn’t be back before the changeover took place. However, the transition has not been smooth and there have been a number of technical issues with the new craft. Consequently, they have brought the old craft back in to regular use until things are finally fixed.

When I visited the Island recently, none of them were running! A large storm system was sweeping across the country and the high winds had brought a halt to hovercraft operations. This was pretty disappointing to me. However, it did have one unusual effect and that was that all four of the fleet were parked up on the slipway at Ryde during the day. Over the years the slipway has been expanded and improved from its original configuration, but it is still a tight fit for four craft. It would have been pretty interesting to see them all being fitted into place. Maybe this will be my last time seeing the old AP1-88s?

Hovertravel Have a Busy Day

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Another Isle of Wight development is the hovercraft. Much early development of the concept was done on the Island and many were produced in East Cowes. Hovertravel still provide a frequent service between Ryde on the Island and Southsea on the mainland. I got a couple of opportunities to shoot these hovercraft while visiting. On the day Pete and I went flying, we arrived over Ryde just as one of the hovercraft was coming in. Another was parked on the slipway at the time.

When we left the island, I headed up on the upper deck of the ferry to see what was going on and had two over the hovercraft come by in opposite directions. It was rather windy up on deck but I was able to get some usable shots of the two of them individually and as they crossed. Apparently, Hovertravel are in the process of acquiring new craft to replace the current AP1-88s that are in service. Given that they were built in the late 1980s, they have provided good service. It will be interesting to see what replaces them. I wonder whether the new vehicles will arrive before I next get back.