Page 31 - Theory and Design of Air Cushion Craft

16 Introduction to hovercraft

Fig. 1.14 British sidewall hovercraft HM-218 in operation in Hong Kong.

Fig. 1.15 HM-2 glass reinforced structures under construction.

shortly after these ideas were put forward: the fuel crisis of 1974. Suddenly the world
changed. With fuel costs now a major consideration, these very large ACV and SES
concepts became uneconomic, and thus not attractive to the prospective operators,
the ferry companies. It was only in the mid 1990s when fuel costs reduced again in rel-
ative terms and became more stable, that very high speed ferries became economically
attractive. The vogue of the early 1990s had been catamarans in sizes now
approaching that originally projected for SES. With this market acceptance, the next
step will eventually be the re-introduction of air cushion technology to further
increase speeds and work capacity above the practical limits for catamarans.
After ten years' endeavour, many of the practical problems had been solved for
ACV and SES in the UK, and hovercraft operated on well known routes in many
areas of the world. The SR.N4 fleets of Hoverlloyd (4 craft) and Seaspeed (2 craft)
operated in the English channel (Fig. 1.11) to transport almost two million passengers