Lisa: It’s the 27th March 2019 and this is an interview with Chris Bland and Karen Ireland in Yafford. Could we start, each in turn by you telling me your full name, date of birth and place of birth?
Chris: My name is Christopher Donald Jack Bland. I was born at Walton-on-Thames in 1936.
Lisa: Thank you.
Karen: Karen Patricia Mary Ireland, formally Course, born in Cowes in 1947.
Lisa: Thank you very much. The interviewer is Lisa Kerley and thank you all for agreeing to be interviewed as part of our ‘Memories of the Sea’ project at Carisbrooke Castle Museum. We’re here today to talk specifically about Hovercraft travel on the Isle of Wight and your involvement with that, so perhaps Chris, if you could start by telling us briefly about the development of Hovercraft travel on the Isle of Wight.
Chris: Well, just before we go to travel, I mean take the … the original Sir Christopher Cockerell laid the service, he invented the Hovercraft. It was then taken over by the Ministry of Aviation who thought it had military potential. It was then passed over to four Companies like Westland Aircraft, Vickers, Folland and Britten-Norman Cushion Craft and they al had a go at developing basically experimental Hovercraft, but the first one that really worked was in about 1959-60 which was the SRN 2,which we did an experimental service on the Solent in 1964, between Appley and Portsmouth. To be precise, the Marine Barracks at Eastney.
Then Hovertravel, this is when the year-round public service started in July 1965, which was the brainchild of … actually it was Mr Norman of Britten-Norman who were also developing their own Hovercraft called the ‘Cushion Craft’. It made all the sense in the world at Ryde because there was no water at low tide which suited the amphibious capabilities of the Hovercraft. There were fairly well to do people on both sides from an income point of view and it could do the four mile trip in give or take 10 minutes, whereas the Ferry which had been in operation for some hundreds of years, had to rely on Ryde Pier for starters, which is about half a mile long and if Queen Victoria had that Hovercraft, they certainly wouldn’t have built Ryde Pier in 1965, so Hovertravel started July ’65 and still runs to this day.
Over the years it started off with a Hovercraft manufactured by Westland Aircraft and then turned into British Hovercraft Corporation and they developed from an 18 seater to a 38 seater to start with a gas turbine aeroplane engines, and then in the early 1980’s we went on to diesel engined Hovercraft which pertain to this day. Various forms of diesel engine Hovercraft, the latest ones being made by Griffon Hoverwork in Southampton, Weston’s having come out of the Hovercraft business or British Hovercraft Corporation about 20 years ago, having supplied an enormous amount of very expensive Hovercraft to various military organisations in the Middle East, Far East and I think even they were manufacturing in Australia at one time.
You then come to the … much more important probably was the enormous Hovercraft that travelled on the Channel between Dover and Calais which were again manufactured by the British Hovercraft Corporation and I also neglected to say that there’s a second service on the Solent running between Cowes and Southampton. That was not as clever as the Ryde Portsmouth service because it didn’t actually have any shallow water so the competition could come from a boat, which in due course it did, and that service is now run by a catamaran … I don’t mean a catamaran, I mean a …
5 minutes 16 seconds
Karen: It’s a catamaran isn’t it?
Chris: We can’t stop, twin hull. What’s the word I want?
Chris: Yes, run by Catamarans, so Hovercraft only comes into it’s own if you can’t use a boat, in the same way that you would only use a helicopter if you hadn’t got a runway for an aeroplane, because Hovercraft are much more expensive to run than a boat, so it’s a very rare application that suits the Hovercraft and in fact Hovertravel were the first round year Hovercraft service and to the best of my knowledge they’re the only round year Hovercraft service left unless there may possibly be one in Japan, but if there is, no one’s heard of it in recent history.
So, there you go, a very rare beast but it does have a lot of paramilitary applications because if you’re fighting people of an Island or have an uncivilised part of the world, you come straight up the beach and land it makes an awful lot of difference, so a big paramilitary application of Hovercraft. Where it’s going in the future I don’t know but I think it’s a very specialist bit of kit and the ultimate is the American Army have Hovercraft called LCAC’s which is Landing Craft Air Cushion and they’ll take four 50 tonne Battle Tanks at the same time and also go to bed in a Mother Ship so that they can be taken across the Ocean before they have to go into action. I don’t think I’ve got a lot more to say at the moment.
Lisa: Could you tell me a bit about your own personal capacity, how you were involved?
Chris: I worked for Rolls Royce and after I finished my apprenticeship, one of my customers I was allocated was Britten-Norman on the Isle of Wight because they were using Coventry Climax Fire Pump engines in their Hovercraft, called a Cushion Craft CC2, and I thought it would be a much better idea if they used the Rolls Royce aluminium V8 which was a better engine, so they bought two engines from me and then in 1962, they offered me a job at Britten-Norman because they said their Hovercraft was ready to be sold, which it wasn’t. It didn’t even have a flexible skirt on the bottom, it had 17 inches of fresh air and it was like driving a ball of mercury, but they were very optimistic, and they thought it was ready for sale, which it most definitely was not.
But, time progressed from there and Britten-Norman at that time were still thinking Hovercraft so they went and hired two Hovercraft from as it was then the British Hovercraft Corporation and they were put onto the Solent which is where it started just now, and I then ended up working for Hovertravel on the Solent, after we’d done the experimental hover transport undertaking in 1964. So, that’s how I got into the business, from Rolls Royce to Britten-Norman to Hovertravel. And then ultimately Hovertravel were making their own Hovercraft.
Lisa: And what was your role in the Company at that time in 1970, Chris?
Chris: I was the Managing Director. Yeah, I was at the ripe old age of about 35. I didn’t progress for the next 20 years.
Lisa: And where were you based? Did Hovertravel have offices then?
Chris: We had Offices at Ryde, yes, I was based just up the hill in Lind Street, and lived where we’re speaking from now.
Lisa: Chris, can I ask you where you were when you first heard that the accident had happened?
Chris: I was sitting with Mark Woodnutt who was the MP in the dining room here.
Lisa: So, did you have a telephone call then?
Chris: I had a telephone call saying the craft out of Ryde had turned over, so it was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and we’d had a pretty good lunch and the MP and I, I don’t know where he’d got his bottle of brandy from but he got it somewhere but it got delivered to Southsea and we whizzed down to Ryde and the second craft was there and the Senior Pilot at that time was a man called Tony Smith, an ex V Bomber pilot, and we went across to Southsea Terminal where by that time the … I don’t think they’d got the wreckage there then. It was still being towed towards the Terminal. And really history relates the rest. It was pretty chaotic. The one thing I do remember was that the Fire Brigade tried … ‘cos they thought there were people in the Hovercraft which there were. There were bodies in there still.
There were four altogether, drowned, but I don’t know where the other ones were. I’m not sure … there probably may have been only one because we had a big problem with the number of bodies because there was a miscount at Ryde. In fact, we were looking for someone that didn’t exist for a long time. But they also cut a hole … when the craft was upside down, they cut a whole in what they thought was a passenger cabin to get anyone out that was in there and in fact they chopped … they went in the wrong end of the Hovercraft and they chopped underneath the lift fan. In other words, they chopped a hole in the wrong end because the bottom of the Hovercraft was … it wasn’t anything sophisticated, it was a very dense foam because the Hovercraft had to be very light so it was a very dense foam and quite I think moderately simple to cut through, but of course you’ve got to cut through the right place. But I think as was said, I think by that time it was all over.
We weren’t going to get anyone alive out of there and in the end there were four fatalities. All very sad really. Five. I’ve said five right up to yesterday and now I was put right by somebody it was four. I’ve always thought five. I remember there was an uncle and he was taking his nephew or niece on the Hovercraft and they were both drowned, and there were two ladies with no dependents and I can’t remember who the fifth person was but it was quite extraordinary that there were so few dependents of the people that were killed. Not that it makes any less sad, I mean it was tragic.
36 minutes 26 seconds
Lisa: Am I right in thinking that there was a body which wasn’t recovered or was that the administrative error in counting?
Chris: No, I think that was the count error. It could take a long time because when they finally got the Hovercraft ashore, in the Dockyard, because they were still at that stage, they were still looking for this person, but they didn’t exist. I can’t remember the count; it was either 26 or 27 and anyway it was one wrong.
Lisa: So, could you tell me about the inquiry and how it started, the process of it?
Chris: Well the inquiry, it was a Board of Trade inquiry wasn’t it and it would have been a Marine Accident Investigation Branch inquiry. It was conducted at the Law Courts in Portsmouth by the … and the person conducting the inquiry, the Inspector, was a certain Mr Childs and that’s all I can really remember, and it was all conducted in with various people giving evidence.
Lisa: Karen, can you tell me when you first heard about what had happened?
Karen: We lived in a small town house in Cowes so our accommodation was upstairs and from the kitchen window I could see across the gardens towards the Park and the garden next to us had two poplar trees next to each other, and I was standing at the sink washing up just after four. Our son was a toddler at the time, he was 14 months, and these poplars suddenly went right over until their tips almost touched the ground and they did that twice and then this phone rang I suppose about five minutes later and it was my cousin’s husband. Now I knew that she was in bed with ‘flu and David asked me if he could speak to Tony and I said, “No, he’s at work but I think they will have stopped because I’ve just watched these trees at the end of the garden and they nearly touched the ground.”
Five minutes later, they came in the door and told me that there’d been an accident and the Hovercraft had overturned and Tony was on top of it. Now, they’d seen it on the television and I was so glad I didn’t so, there was nothing I could do and there was no point in trying to get through by phone ‘cos they’d already tried it numerous times, but they recognised his shape on top of the Hovercraft so they were able to say, “He’s OK, he’s out, he’s on top of it” so that was the first thing I heard.
Then it was just a waiting game and my one regret about that day is that there was a knock on the door and I went downstairs and there was our local Vicar and he was a really, really nice guy when I was a Teacher and I used to work with his daughter, and he came to see if there was anything he could do and I said, “No, I’m fine thanks” and shut the door in his face which I deeply regret to this day and I’ve met up with him again and sincerely apologised but you do, do some very odd things when you’re in shock.
So, then it was really just a case of waiting and you did come home that night …
45 minutes 24 seconds
Karen: … you had that big graze on your head, and he came home wrapped in a red blanket.
Lisa: And did he explain to you what had happened?
Karen: No, not really. He said he’d just been debriefed, and it was a bit difficult and rather hard and he was obviously suspended. Then following after that after a few nights sleep and what have you, he started digging up the garden.
He dug a big trench diagonally across the lawn to make a drainage pathway or something with the consequence that forever more it rained on that lawn, there was always a brown patch going right across because no rain ever got to the roots of the grass. It just drained away. So that was … yes, it was strange time and we went to … I went with him to one of the funerals which was of the gentleman and his niece.
Yes, Julia Cobble her name was and she was seven and we turned up, we were in a position in the church where we could see her mother and it was just harrowing. I can’t say any other word for it, but we did feel we ought to go and show some respect and I wasn’t really a great one for funerals. The first one I’d ever been to was the year before which was my father’s. Yes, it just seemed something that it was the right thing to do at the time.
Little white coffin and the father, when I say the father, I mean the Vicar, it was a Roman Catholic Church, he kept on and on saying how wonderful it was that Julia was going to be accepted into heaven and I can’t cope with that, because, you know, I don’t see anything wonderful about it, but then I’m not a great proponent of religion. I try and be a good person but I’m not a believer if you see what I mean, rightly or wrongly.
Chris: I think the Inquiry took place but it’s a long time before they really … British Hovercraft Corporation really got down to what was the problem because a particular Hovercraft had come back from the Far East where it had been on trial for an oil exploration job and it had some odd planking on the side. You can see it on that picture and there was a theory that perhaps it’s because it wasn’t absolutely standard was why it had happened and that was actually a red herring. It turned out to be the up boards being pushed in so there were a few red herrings as to the cause, but as Karen said, I mean there was obviously a combination of tide, time and a pretty big gust of wind that came from somewhere I think just at the wrong moment, didn’t it?
50 minutes 15 seconds
Lisa: So, what happened to the craft? There’s a photograph there of it.
Chris: Well, I’ll tell you what happened to that craft ‘cos it’s a very interesting story. We took it back to the Duver at St Helens. We chopped it in half, we resurrected it, we got two SR-N5’s from Westlands that were redundant, like that one, we took the middle out of those and we rebuilt it as a 68 seater and it went on the route about two years later under Serial Number 75 and I wouldn’t think that many people know that.
Chris: After 47 years we can come clean on that.
Lisa: And what kind of change was implemented if any after the accident?
Chris: I think that people were probably a bit more wary on the weather conditions may have been reduced to wave heights and of course all the Hovercraft were retrospectively modified to stop the mechanical imploding if the puff boards as they were called, the control ducts. The Pilots had to be strapped in.
Lisa: So, you had some kind of seat belt?
Chris: Lap strap.
Karen: Am I also correct that every craft, every journey then the passengers had to be counted on?
Chris: They always had been.
Karen: They always had been?
Chris: Oh yes. You always had to know how many were on it, yes.
Karen: Right.
Chris: Always, always counted them. You had to do that to know how many passengers you were carrying every day anyway. No, there was always a count.
Lisa: And how about people’s attitude towards the Hovercraft afterwards? Was there a … did people … were they wary of going back onto the Hovercraft? Did numbers decline?
Chris: There most certainly was. There was a dip in passenger numbers until the confidence came back which you’ll get in any sort of accident. I mean at the moment, you can take the example of … you’ve said what day we’re talking on, you’ve got Boeing 737 maxes where people are very chary about going on. And that’s two accidents in two million take offs, I mean yes, I think it definitely has a detrimental effect.
55 minutes 32 seconds
Lisa: So was there negativity in the Press subsequently?
Chris: I don’t remember a lot of negativity but the one thing I do remember is there was never … I don’t think there was any much negativity really, if you’re talking about vindictive negativity I don’t think there was and the other people that you would normally you’d expect to have … go into very deeply would be the Insurance Company ‘cos of course it was insured and the accident happened on the Saturday, and only the Lawyers of Beaumonts, the insurers for C T Baring’s but they brought a cheque down on the Sunday, so there was never any ifs or buts.
Karen: We had a neighbour who approached me outside the house and said, “Damn bad thing about this Hovercraft accident eh?” I said, “Yes, not good at all.” “Of course, what the chap should have done was beach it” and I said, “How can you beach a Hovercraft that’s upside down?” “Oh” he said, “should have done it, should have done it sooner.” The next day he came to me and said, “Oh my dear, I really must apologise. I didn’t realise that it was your husband who’d had the accident.” You know everyone has an opinion. I won’t say what our daughter says about that but no knowing who you’re talking to is one of the main things and opinions flow quite freely, but I thought that it was quite brave of him to come back and apologise.
Lisa: And Chris, your involvement with Hovertravel, how long were you the Managing Director?
Chris: Um, from about … I think for about 45 years, no, 40 years.
Lisa: So, lots of change through that time then.
Chris: Well, we went from the SR-N6 to the big diesel engine. Well we went from that, which was the 18-seater SR-N5, which we didn’t actually operate on Hovertravel, but it was a precursor of the SR-N6. You know, the SR-N6 was a stretched SR-N5 to what’s called the AP, standing for ‘Advanced Project’ AP 188, which was a diesel engine Hovercraft which we actually manufactured ourselves under license from British Hovercraft Corporation at the Duver at St Helens and we built them for ourselves and we built them for Canadian Coastguard and of course it was a superb maintenance facility at St Helens.
If you had a big problem at Ryde, it was only 10 minutes away, so my experience covered really starting off in the very early days, we used to send the Hovercraft back to British Hovercraft Corporation every night because they didn’t even have … we had very rudimentary skirts on and it was all about keeping the service running at all costs, because Hovertravel, as I said earlier, went from Ryde to Southsea and started in 1965, and then Seaspeed, which Tony is referring to, British Rail, they went from Cowes to Southampton and they went on until 19 … they kept going until 1980 I think …1979 – 1980. If I could think I could tell you the dates but anyway, at the end of the day, Seaspeed packed it up because Red Funnel were far to smart with their Hydrofoils by then, the competition, and they didn’t land in the right place.
They landed where the bridge is now at Northam. The bridge wasn’t there then. They landed … they were right out of town so Red Funnel were much batter placed once they got a fast service in to compete with the Hovercraft. I’ve got my dates now. From 1976 until 1980, Hovertravel took over that Hovercraft route and we eventually did a deal with Red Funnel and let them get on with it. It was quite interesting ‘cos at that time they took 250,000 passengers a year and we took roughly the same, and when Red Funnel took it over, 100,000 passengers disappeared somewhere, and no one’s ever found where they went.
You know, in other words the numbers didn’t add up. Anyway, Red Funnel have done brilliantly since and I should also tell you that I worked for Red Funnel for 21 years as well so …
Well, the Hydrofoils were put there to compete with the Hovercraft.
Lisa: Have passenger numbers risen year on year for the Hovercraft?
Chris: Oh yes, most certainly. I’m not up to date now ‘cos I left in 2011, so I’m eight years behind the times, but yes they most certainly have risen, but they haven’t risen as much as we had anticipated ‘cos we pit a much bigger Hovercraft on in about 2003, and that never did fill up and we went back to smaller ones.
Lisa: And where are the Hovercrafts built now?
Chris: They are built, as we speak now, they’re built by Griffin Hovercraft at Hazel Wharf Southampton and Hoverwork was sold with Hovertravel … Hoverwork and Hovertravel were all sold to the Bland Group, no relation, in Gibraltar in 2008. And they then decided to close down the Duver Works on the Isle of Wight and take the whole thing to a big factory they’d built, leased, in Southampton.
They bought them and they’ve now built themselves two new Hovercraft for the Solent that went into service about four years ago and they had to get the old ones back … they had to back them up with the old ones which is standard practice because it’s quite difficult if you’ve only got two of a type, your doing all the proving on the passenger run really, so they were reliable but they were backed up with the old ones because at that time … I haven’t got a picture of the latest ones, but you can always go and take a picture at Hovertravel because they’re running every day.
Lisa: I’m just wondering now you’re both retired, how you feel reflecting on your time that you worked for Hovertravel and why you think it’s significant for the Isle of Wight?
Chris: Well, it’s significant. I mean, as far as I’m concerned I think I saw the glory days. I mean I saw … I was there at the very beginning because before I was with Hovertravel, I was with Britten-Norman and we were having big decisions as to whether you should steer it with your feet or your hands, I think it was that basic and I think you steer the big ones with your feet but I think the little ones are still steered by a steering wheel aren’t they?
So it’s never really gone full circle. We realised then that it was becoming … it was very romantic at the beginning and everybody thought it was the latest thing, you know, this Hovercraft in the same way that when I was very young we were all going to roll around to each other’s cocktail parties in helicopters, in 1945, ’47, and they turned out to be pretty specialised and who would have ever thought that the drone would have taken over from about half of the commercial helicopter business. You know, you get big shocks in this life.
Drones have taken over from helicopters which must have put a lot of private helicopters you know out of business, or made life difficult, in just the same way that everybody orders their groceries online, don’t they? It’s the same sort of thing, I don’t think anyone could have foreseen that. But no, Hovercraft have settled down now. It’s basically a military vehicle with one or two commercial applications which I think are few and far between.
Lisa: Karen, I’m asking you this question because you’re a ‘caulkhead’. Do you think the Hovercraft is significant in our history as an Island?
Karen: Oh yes, I mean, I would. Yes, it was a very exciting thing but my goodness it was noisy and I used to have a little flat when I first came back to the Island to start teaching. I had a little flat that was behind a shop almost next to the Pontoon in Cowes and I used to watch everything coming and going, and of course the Hovercraft, we’d see them coming out from British Hovercraft Corporation for their testing so you could see all the new ones …
Chris: The Union Jack Hanger.
Karen: Yes, and the SR-N4 which was the cross-Channel one, I used to watch that coming out for its testing and the ‘6’, I was quite in love with that. I used to love watching it coming up onto the Pad. It just looked like some very large garden slug or something and then it settled down. Yes, I still feel it’s a bit of a shame that it wasn’t made more of but as Chris says, it’s a very specialised animal. It’s excellent in some circumstances and in others there are better things.
Our son, funnily enough, is in the Fire Service, and he was in Western Super Mare and they got a couple of Hovercraft because there’s a huge area between high tide and low tide where it’s thick mud and he had a go driving this Hovercraft and he couldn’t cope with it. He’s used to being in cars and boats that respond instantly and don’t skid all over the place, so he opted not to train in it, which was interesting.
Lisa: Can you see any of the old crafts at the Museum in Lee on Solent?
Chris: Yeah, well they’re all there, there’s a pretty good selection there, including one of the big ones. I mean the very big Channel Hovercraft, of course they were done for finally by the Channel Tunnel. That did for them, but even before that it wasn’t an amphibious route was it and the fuel consumption was pretty enormous.
It had 16,000 horsepower so very, very expensive on fuel and it probably went the same way as Concord because Concord, that was really the reason I think. Well Concord I thought was fantastically technically, but it took 100 tonnes of fuel to get six tonnes of passengers to America.
Interview ends
1 hour 18 minutes 50 seconds
Transcribed May 2019
Chris Litton