Hovercraft

Was chatting with HN at the weekend about great “booze cruises” that we had made to France over the years. Buy cheap day ticket for car and passengers to Calais, arrive in France and hit the Hypermarket of your choice and load a trolley with cheap wine and beer. Repeat as necessary until car is full and then return.

Back in the early nineties when lil bro’ had returned from oil drilling overseas for a well earned break we decided that we needed to do such a run. Instead of a ferry we chose to use the Hovercraft service that was still operating.

Turned out to be a “wizard wheeze”, your drive down to the landing slip and then into the belly of the beast before ascending to the passenger deck to find your seat. Felt very much like getting onto a small passenger plane. The engines start and it rose gently onto it’s skirts and then we were off, 25 mins later we came straight up a beach and then onto a concrete apron.

The return journey was more eventful, we hugged the coast for a time (it had got more choppy out there) while the cabin crew dispensed drinks and then we turned out to sea. It was like a wild roller coaster ride as we went up and down the waves, we were quite enjoying ourselves (managed to keep the beer in the glasses).

The other passengers were not, the crew closed the bar and within 5 mins the first person was using the sick bags and that set off a chain reaction. We were both fine and all too soon for us the roller coaster reached the harbour and calm descended, the cabin crew apologised to the passengers for the wild ride but we thanked them for the experience and drove off with silly grins on our faces.

Here is news piece from back in 2000 when the service finally ended. Am really glad that I took the opportunity to use it while it was still there - a grand day out and a ride on a venerable British invention.