I saw a post online about something coming to Lee on Solent near the Hovercraft Museum on a Saturday morning. A silhouette was posted which looked like it might have been Solent Express. This is a hovercraft that was built nearly twenty years ago and operated for a while on the Ryde-Southsea route with Hovertravel. It is a BHT130 and was found to be too large for the route and not commercially suited to the operation. In 2011 it was laid up pending an alternative operator being found. Since then, it has been stored at varying locations. I got photos of it when it was originally in operation and had wondered whether I might see it stored but hadn’t really pursued that idea.

Then, recently some images of it showed up on the pad at Ryde as it was being used for some testing and demonstration ahead of a potential sale to a new customer. The idea that it might be the subject of the Saturday event seemed pretty plausible. Sure enough, the announcement was made that it would come to the shore at Lee on Solent, everyone would be able to get a good look at it on the beach, then it would do a short demo on the water before heading off. I figured that this was definitely something I would like to do. Sure, I had a guest for the weekend, but they weren’t going to miss me for a few hours.

The weather was pretty ideal. The sun was out but the air temps weren’t very high. A bit of a breeze but nothing too serious. I wasn’t sure how busy it was going to be so got there in plenty of time to scope it out and find a location. I had plenty to work with. People gradually drifted in but there was never a completion for space. I decided to start out slightly up the bank near the slipway for the arrival. I would change later on.

While the hovercraft wasn’t due in until 10:15, it was visible for quite a while before. I saw it off in the distance heading in and thought it was going to be early, but they were busy doing some manoeuvring out in the Solent and weren’t coming ashore just yet. It wasn’t too long to wait, though. Soon they were heading for the beach. I was split in my mind about what I wanted to get. I love stills but the motion of a hovercraft really shows well in video. I decided video would be the main focus, but I would get as many stills as I could. Fortunately, unlike aircraft, hovercraft are not so fast that you can’t switch back and forth without creating a massive disconnect in the video timeline.

There was a large ridge in the shingle on the beach, but a hovercraft doesn’t have any issue transitioning such a discontinuity. They pulled up on to the beach and then settled down. A shorter time while they shut down and then the beach was back open to allow everyone to get a closer look. I think I am spending enough time on this post already, so I am going to split it into multiple parts. More to come.