To London by Hoverspeed

Riding a hovercraft across the English Channel was always a childhood dream. As an engineering fanatic, I simply loved the futurist look and feel of hovercraft transport. I finally fulfilled my dream in October 1990, when I caught a Hoverspeed craft from Calais to Dover. This trip was the final leg of a six-month odyssey travelling through Europe. At the time, Dean Keiller and I were on our way to London. We’d just finished a three-month Eurail backpacking adventure around Western Europe and were running out of time to validate our UK working holiday visas.

On 23 October, we caught a bus from Rotterdam to Calais, passing through Belgium along the way. We’d just completed a four-day whirlwind tour of southern Holland, exploring its dikes and windmills. I’ll share more about this experience in a separate post. We’d bought a combined ticket that included a bus to France, a hovercraft crossing, and a bus to London.  

The bus we caught to Calais had originated in Amsterdam. At the time, much like today, this Dutch city was renowned for its liberal regulation of marijuana. As a result, the French border guards in Calais took one look at Dean and me with our heavily laden backpacks and casual track pants and decided we were prime drug-smuggling candidates.

They searched our backpacks from top to bottom, quizzed us relentlessly about our assumed drug habits and our potentially illicit intentions in the UK. They were understandably flummoxed by our stories of travelling through Eastern Europe preaching the gospel and the Bibles in our bags. They eventually let us pass, stamping our passports and directing us into the Hoverspeed departure lounge.

The arrival of the Princess Anne, a Mountbatten-class (SR.N4) hovercraft, was an awe-inspiring sight. Watching it glide up the hoverport’s gently sloping beachside ramp was simply breathtaking. At the time, it was the world’s largest commercial hovercraft, powered by four massive Rolls-Royce engines that drove four equally impressive propellers. It could carry up to 418 passengers and 60 cars (loaded from the front) and cross the channel in less than half an hour. You can see her in the opening photo above.

Dean and I were booked on a slightly smaller vessel, the Swift, which carried 278 passengers and 36 cars (loaded from the rear). I recently learned that it was taken out of service and scrapped less than a year after we rode it. The Princess Anne continued operating until 2000, when it was finally retired, thus ending all hovercraft services across the channel. Apparently, the Swift held the record for the fastest crossing until Princess Anne surpassed it with a 22-minute voyage in 1995. That's the Swift arriving in France, shown above.

The ride across the channel wasn’t as expected. We’d anticipated a smooth ride, gliding, effortlessly across the water on a cushion of air. The reality proved very different. The day we crossed, the sea was rather choppy with small white-capped waves. As a result, the hovercraft bounced, or rather crashed, its way through the cresting waves, resulting in a bone-jarring trip across the channel. It would be fair to say that a fast crossing that was this uncomfortable wasn’t something I wanted to repeat anytime soon.

Upon arrival in Dover, we transferred to another bus that took us into central London. We then transferred on the Tube to London Bridge station and caught the train to Catford Bridge to stay with my Auntie Shirley and Uncle Tony. Dean and I based ourselves on their lounge floor for the next few weeks as we explored London and debated our working holiday plans. I’ll share more about our time in the UK in future posts.

One final observation.  Our bus to Calais stopped for a mandatory driver's rest break in Belgium. This was my first time in Belgium.  However, the stop didn't meet the minimum criteria required for me to mark it as a country I've visited. It would be another 18 years before I'd finally return to Belgium.