Hoverlloyd
Encyclopedia
Hovercraft
A hovercraft is a craft capable of traveling over surfaces while supported by a cushion of slow moving, high-pressure air which is ejected against the surface below and contained within a "skirt." Although supported by air, a hovercraft is not considered an aircraft.Hovercraft are used throughout...
service between Ramsgate
Ramsgate
Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Ports. It has a population of around 40,000. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline and its main...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. It operated four SR.N4 type hovercraft and was a rival to Seaspeed
Seaspeed
Seaspeed was the joint hovercraft operations of British Rail in association with the French SNCF....
(owned by British Rail
British Rail
British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...
).
Company ownership
The origins of Hoverlloyd date back to 1964, when the Swedish Lloyd shipping company investigated the possibility of operating a hovercraft service. Together with Swedish American LineSwedish American Line
Swedish American Line was a passenger and cargo shipping line. It was founded in December 1914 under the name Rederiaktiebolaget Sverige-Nordamerika, beginning ocean liner service from Gothenburg to New York in 1915...
(owned by Brostroms Rederi AB), the Cross-Channel Hover Services Ltd was registered as a British company in 1965. The name was changed to Hoverlloyd Ltd in 1966. In 1976 Brostroms Rederi AB purchased the entire operation.
Early operations
Hoverlloyd commenced operations from Ramsgate Harbour to CalaisCalais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
Harbour on 6 April 1966 using small, passenger only SR.N6 hovercraft. When the much larger SR.N4 craft, capable of carrying 30 vehicles and 254 passengers, were delivered in 1969, Hoverlloyd moved operations to a purpose built ‘hoverport’ in Pegwell Bay
Pegwell Bay
Pegwell Bay is a shallow inlet in the English Channel coast at the estuary of the River Stour between Ramsgate and Sandwich in Kent. Situated in the bay is a large nature reserve, known for its migrating waders and wildfowl, with a complete series of seashore habitats including extensive mudflats...
, near Ramsgate. A similar facility was provided north of Calais harbour and was shared with Seaspeed
Seaspeed
Seaspeed was the joint hovercraft operations of British Rail in association with the French SNCF....
(who operated into Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
on the UK side of the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
). Crossing ('flight') times were typically 40 minutes between Ramsgate and Calais, which compared favourably with crossing times of 90 to 100 minutes for the traditional ferries on similar routes. It remains the case that the hovercraft were the fastest crossing of the channel and have never been bettered. Hovercraft operations were prone to disruption and cancellation during bad weather, although this was eased over time by various modifications to the craft. Also, the hovercraft had an unmatched turnround time, with the ability to disembark/embark cars at both ends of the craft, whilst simultaneously dealing with foot passengers from two main exits on the port and starboard cabins.
The craft
Between 1969 and 1977, Hoverlloyd took delivery and operated a total of four SR.N4 hovercraft on the Ramsgate-Calais link. These were named ‘’Sure’’, ‘’Swift’’, ‘’Sir Christopher’’ and ‘’The Prince of Wales’’.Main operations
Hoverlloyd concentrated on the Ramsgate to Calais link throughout the life of the company. Tentative plans to operate to OstendOstend
Ostend is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke , Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the largest on the Belgian coast....
in Belgium were never progressed. However, the company did operate a successful express coach/hovercraft/coach service from London to a number of near European cities with fares which were considerably cheaper than the air fares available at the time. The most frequent service was London - Paris with London - Brussels with fewer departures. In 1978 these were the only two destinations. In 1979 Amsterdam was added. On the UK side the coaches were operated with Hoverlloyd liveried coaches provided by Evan Evans Ltd - at that time a subsidiary of Wallace Arnold
Wallace Arnold
Wallace Arnold was one of the UK's largest holiday motorcoach tour operators. It was founded in 1912 and was named after its founders Wallace Cunningham and Arnold Crowe. By 1980 it operated 290 coaches from its headquarters in Leeds, and owned a subsidiary based in Devon...
Tours of Leeds. Coaches did not cross the channel - though the Hovercraft could take standard height coaches with luggage space at the rear.
Film footage of operations is included in the 1974 spy film The Black Windmill with Michael Caine. [1]
Film footage also appeared in the 1980 film Hopscotch with Walter Matthau.
Economics of large hovercraft operation
The SR.N4 craft were powered by four Bristol ProteusBristol Proteus
|-See also:-Bibliography:* Gunston, Bill. World Encyclopedia of Aero Engines. Cambridge, England. Patrick Stephens Limited, 1989. ISBN 1-85260-163-9* Hooker, Sir Stanley. Not Much Of An Engineer. Airlife Publishing, 1985. ISBN 1853102857....
gas turbine engines which consumed significant amounts of aviation kerosene. As the world wide oil crisis of the 1970s caused fuel prices to rise sharply, the operation of the SR.N4 became increasingly uneconomic. Furthermore, the closure of the British Hovercraft Corporation
British Hovercraft Corporation
British Hovercraft Corporation was the corporate entity created when the Saunders Roe division of Westland Aircraft and Vickers Supermarine combined March 1966 with the intention of creating viable commercial hovercraft - .None of the Vickers designs were 'taken forward', the...
meant that maintenance of the craft was also costly and no new design or build was likely. Indeed, ‘’Sure’’ was taken out of service in 1983 and cannibalised for parts to keep the rest of the fleet operating. Seaspeed
Seaspeed
Seaspeed was the joint hovercraft operations of British Rail in association with the French SNCF....
(and later Hoverspeed
Hoverspeed
Hoverspeed, formed in 1981 by the merger of Seaspeed and Hoverlloyd, was a ferry company that operated on the English Channel from 1981 until 2005....
) operated a single French built SEDAM N500
N500 Naviplane
The N500 Naviplane was a French hovercraft built by SEDAM in Pauillac, Gironde.- Manufacture :Two models were built:...
craft from 1977 but it was beset by design and operational problems and was withdrawn from somewhat sporadic service in 1983 and later scrapped.
Rationalisation and merger
By 1980, it was obvious that cross Channel hovercraft operation could only continue economically if the two operating companies merged, with consequent rationalisation. Therefore, Hoverlloyd and Seaspeed merged in 1981, to create HoverspeedHoverspeed
Hoverspeed, formed in 1981 by the merger of Seaspeed and Hoverlloyd, was a ferry company that operated on the English Channel from 1981 until 2005....
. The former Hoverlloyd services from Ramsgate were subsequently withdrawn after the 1982 season and the four ex-Hoverlloyd craft were thereafter based at Dover until their withdrawal from service between 1983 and 1993.
The end
All four ex-Hoverlloyd craft were eventually broken up and none remains extant (although the two ex-Seaspeed SR.N4 craft are stored at the Hovercraft MuseumHovercraft Museum
The Hovercraft Museum, located in Lee-on-the-Solent in Hampshire, England, is dedicated to hovercraft.The museum has a large collection of various designs of hovercraft - numbering over sixty at the last count...
, albeit in private ownership). The hoverport at Pegwell Bay
Pegwell Bay
Pegwell Bay is a shallow inlet in the English Channel coast at the estuary of the River Stour between Ramsgate and Sandwich in Kent. Situated in the bay is a large nature reserve, known for its migrating waders and wildfowl, with a complete series of seashore habitats including extensive mudflats...
was used as an engineering and administrative base by Hoverspeed
Hoverspeed
Hoverspeed, formed in 1981 by the merger of Seaspeed and Hoverlloyd, was a ferry company that operated on the English Channel from 1981 until 2005....
for a few years after passenger services ceased but the site was eventually closed and all buildings completely demolished. Nonetheless, the hovercraft pad, car marshalling area and approach road are all still clearly identifiable. Hoverspeed continued cross Channel hovercraft operation until October 2000, when the last two craft were retired and the era of ‘hovering across the Channel’ came to an end.