After her time on the beach, the Griffon Hoverwork team took Solent Express back out to sea. Once on the water, they proceeded to give a demonstration of the manoeuvrability of the craft as they spun her around on the spot and then sped up to make a few passes. Despite her size, it was made to look easy to control her direction and to pivot in next to no space. Given that this is all done with the ducting of the rear fans and the two front nozzles whilst countering some wind, it was most impressive.

They then came back ashore which I hadn’t expected. There were a few people onboard that need to disembark before the hovercraft departed so we got another view of the landing and departure before they headed out to see and back up the Solent in the direction of their base at Ryde. It was a fun way to spend a Saturday morning.

In a previous post, I discussed how the hovercraft, Solent Express, made a visit to the beach at Lee on Solent. Once they had parked her on the beach, the public was encouraged to come and have a look around her. Plenty of people took the opportunity! She is a large hovercraft compared to the ones that run the Ryde-Southsea service with a capacity of 130 passengers. Her size is apparent when up close. Also, because she was on the slope of the shore and on a ridge, there was a large drop from the bow to the ground making her look even more sizeable.

There was plenty of time to have a look around. I got both close and also up on the embankment above the beach to get a wider view. Having so many people walking about really gave some scale to her. She was a little way out of the water when she landed, and the stern was on the beach. However, the tide was coming in and, by the time they departed, this was well in the water. More of that at a later stage.

I did get to take a look at some of the design features. The skirt is an integral part of the hovercraft and, while it looks flexible and flimsy from a distance, when you get close up and see how thick it is and how it is joined together, you appreciate it is a lot sturdier than it initially appears. Given the conditions that is has to experience, this really shouldn’t be such a surprise.

The ducted props at the rear are substantial. The props are large and the ducts with their flaps for directing the flow are big pieces of engineering. The carbon fibre drive shafts looked particularly cool to someone with an engineering background. All in all, she was quite the craft.