Lisa It’s the 27th March 2019 and this is an interview with Chris Bland, Tony Course 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.
Tony: Antony George Course, no ‘h’, born in 1938 in Twickenham.
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
Tony: Hydrofoil, no …
Karen: It’s a catamaran isn’t it?
Tony: I don’t know whose running the service.
Chris: We can’t stop, twin hull. What’s the word I want?
Tony: Well it’s a catamaran.
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: Tony, could you tell me when your association or employment with Hovertravel began?
Tony: 1970, I think it was August 1970. I’d been made redundant from a previous firm of manufacturers and I’d my hand in with the amphibious license and I was told on Friday I was redundant by this American Company and on Saturday I had a job the following Monday with Hovertravel. So, I was lucky, and I think we were married on …
Karen: The day before you started at Hovertravel.
Tony: Oh right, we weren’t married on a Sunday.
Karen: No we weren’t. I think it was a Thursday we got married. Anyway …
Lisa: Did you have to do any specific training to be able to pilot the Hovercraft?
Tony: Oh absolutely. Yes, I started, you could almost say the rival firm Seaspeed, and Seaspeed was as far as I can remember set up by Cousins who was Minister of Transport, the ex-Union boss who was the Minister of Transport in 1959-60 whatever, and because there was the thought that the Hovercraft industry was not getting anywhere, they gave the contract to British Rail to run the thing as a Government Company and a chap called Brindle was recruited from being in charge of the Great Western area to start the Hovercraft for British Rail and he set up the Seaspeed SR-N6 operation as a training ground for the perhaps more important SR-N4 Ferry Service which was envisaged to follow, and fortunately for me he was marine orientated.
I think he’d been … I don’t know whether he’d gone to sea as a Marine Engineer or was just qualified in Marine Engineering, but he was very much Merchant Navy orientated whereas Hovertravel were basically from the air side, certainly to start with. And I tried to get a superior ticket, an extra Master’s Ticket and frankly I wasn’t able, didn’t have enough memory so I applied to British Rail to be a Hovercraft Pilot because I’d also managed to get a PPL, a Private Pilot’s Licence, and eventually they called me for an interview in Cowes and three ‘C’s’ were employed because they were employing three at a time and then moving them on so that they could build up sufficient crew for the Dover operation.
Also, I had a Master’s Ticket. At Seaspeed you had to have a Master’s Ticket but I don’t think anybody else, not many anyway, had a PPL so I think that’s what got me the job. I started off on the end of Ryde Pier to the end of Portsmouth Pier and we were driving basically a catamaran. I mean they were just fast boats basically. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a very good machinery record. Caterpillar engines and they didn’t like the marine atmosphere and the craft were made out of fibreglass and in the early days, the fibreglass tended to wick up water so instead of carrying sort of four tonnes we were carrying six tonnes and then one progressed to the SR-N6. I think it was about six months after that.
Well, the training was something I hadn’t really experienced before. For a start, the Merchant Navy tend to go at 15 knots in those days and we were, even the HM2 was sort of 20-25, and when it got to the SR-N6, it was a completely different ball game. We had to watch the engine like a hawk ‘cos it was a jet engine and if it was mishandled you could do serious damage, a burn out etc so the training was really geared to that. We did a week with Rolls Royce to learn about the Merlin jet engine.
Then we went to British Hovercraft Corporation in East Cowes and did a week to learn the various systems and then Seaspeed had appointed two Instructors, as I remember, Hermod Brenna-Lund who officially passed us out, Julian Druce who was just a Pilot, again Merchant Service, and he was an excellent Instructor and the three ‘C’s’, Chambers, Christie and Course trained together and it was a fascinating experience. As Chris said, ‘a ball of mercury’. And then we were trained and in my view the navigation, particularly at night or in fog was as skilled as the piloting, driving, and so we practiced on the radar because Seaspeed craft carried a radar like a ship onboard each craft, so we’d sit in the left hand seat and monitor and then if we were reasonably competent we could memorise the various buoys etc.
We’d be rostered in if it was foggy or at night-time and that’s how we were trained and then it was just experience. I think it was a very exciting craft to operate because you had 30 odd people behind you watching every move, and I remember whilst I was training, learning, coming … I won’t give the Pilot’s name … we were coming back from Woolston Southampton, one dark night, blowing a pretty hooligan from the northwest, and the Pilot got as far as the north end of Southampton Water and turned round because he was having difficulty and told all the passengers to go to the right hand side, the starboard side of the craft.
We progressed, he was still having difficulties and he put them all on the port side (laughs) I thought Christ, and then we went a bit further and he put them all right back on the stern and OK we got to Cowes, but what he didn’t know was the Chairman of Red Funnel was one of the passengers going back to the Isle of Wight. I can’t remember his name but he complained loudly the next day to Management, but I thought it was hilarious. So, we weren’t isolated from the passengers.
17 minutes 14 seconds
Lisa: The SR-N6 that you’re explaining to me now. Can you just describe it to me, the inside, because you said that the passengers were literally right behind you? Can you just give me a brief description of what it looked like?
Tony: Yeah, I mean it was 38 capacity and they were divided down each side with a central walkway. The Pilot was sitting on the right-hand side, the radar was on the left hand side and really that’s all you could really say about it. We did have headphones so that the Radar and the Pilot could talk together without the passengers … I’ve got another story about that, but you were overlooked. I mean they could see the poor old Pilot wrestling with the … going into Cowes from a nor westerly, you could see the tension and that sort of thing. We weren’t isolated.
Lisa: How many crew were there?
Tony: Normally in good weather conditions one when I started. Eventually, I think, probably after the accident, it may have had to have two and then of course they stretched the N6, BHC stretched it and it went up to, I can’t remember, 60 or whatever it was, so you definitely had to have two Ministry of Transport Board of Trade or whatever they were ensured of that.
Lisa: So, it was a very exciting development then for …
Tony: Certainly for the operators …
Lisa: … and for …
Tony: … and I think for business too. I mean we all thought we were going to be Managing Directors after five minutes. Well, the Pilots did (laughs).
Lisa: And what was your role in the Company at that time in 1970, Chris?
Chris: I was the Managing Director (laughs). Yeah, I was at the ripe old age of about 35. I didn’t progress for the next 20 years (all laugh).
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: I’d like to ask you about the accident which happened in 1972, and I wonder if perhaps Tony we could start with you?
Tony: OK.
Lisa: Was the Hovercraft at that time the SR-N6, the one we’ve just talked about?
Tony: SR-N6 012.
20 minutes 10 seconds
Lisa: Yes. So, can you just tell me what your recollections are from the beginning of the day?
Tony: Yeah, Hovertravel had probably quite a sensible roster scheme so it was divided into two. We either start early and do three hours I think, and then have three hours break and then another three hours, working two Pilots alternating and I had done the morning business and then I came on about 2 o’clock I think and two or three trips. It was winter so we weren’t so if I recall right, we tended to have a break every so often in the middle of that because of the passenger flow in the winter. In the summer of course we were shuttling.
On the particular trip, I’d experienced two trips before and the weather was slowly deteriorating and I’d got a new forecast etc, I’d asked the Southsea Terminal to monitor the gusting and it was gusting about 32 knots if I can remember rightly and I told the beach maybe gusts 40, let me know and I’ll you know, pull out. But we’d been in worst conditions certainly abroad, so the trip that mattered, I had to have a finger repaired because the one thing I really was a bit pernickety about was vision out of the forward windscreens and it was a forward finger so it was blowing up spray over the windscreen on the trip back and you know, that was unacceptable to me so we had a slight delay at Ryde and we tested the finger, they replaced the finger.
The Engineers replaced the finger and then I set off and the wind definitely strengthened and towards the North Sturbridge Buoy, I was, you know, really having to concentrate on keeping the right direction, because of course, you know, virtually not much friction to hold the ship. You need to be steady in steering in whatever direction, but the SR-N6, the amphibious Hovercrafts have got much more drift.
So, the wind was coming from the starboard quarter and as we got out of the lee of the Island of course the effect was increasing, so I was pushing like hell with the right foot to keep the right direction. But I wasn’t worried. The worst thing as far as I was concerned was having to turn back, weather cocking and you know, bring the passengers back to Ryde.
When we got the approach to Portsmouth, Southsea Terminal, Clarence Pier port side, I was then being swept towards No 2 Buoy, which was a red buoy on the left hand side, the port hand side as you are going towards Portsmouth and I had to slow down at one stage to, you know, to stop the drift and then, unexpectedly, all right the race was much higher that I’d experienced before because that’s the tide rushing out of Portsmouth Harbour which is like a vast sort of reservoir with a very narrow entrance, and we were certainly in a seaway that I hadn’t experienced before in that area and as I slowed up, I went to zero pitch, we rolled a little bit and I wasn’t that worried about it but then we rolled a second time and that’s when we hesitated.
In other words, the tide was pushing the port hand side, the left-hand side of the craft and of course in hindsight, the puff port centre opened and the wind was pushing us the other way and it was just a fulcrum effect.
I remember think once we were, you know, it was obvious we were going to capsize, I was concerned to make a radio call, which of course wouldn’t have worked anyway, and I remember shouting, “Put on your lifejackets” you know because it was instinct and I remember thinking ‘Oh, should I turn off the engine?’ I can’t remember if I put the HP cock up or not and then we were over and it was opaque and there was a rush of water and I think it was because there were two RAF guys as passengers and they’d obviously read the evacuation sign on the windows and all the rest of it, and they pushed out windows, fortunately on the right hand side.
A rush of water, I thought, you know, it will settle right down and I’m afraid instinct took over, I opened the bow door and two or three passengers followed me. The rest apart from one as far as I know, went out with the RAF guys. As I went out I banged my head and I was helped onto the upturned craft, if I recall correctly and then I helped two or three or four passengers and the rest were there, and I got them all in the middle and wondered what to do.
I was then concerned about No 4 Buoy, because the wind effect had gone, we were in the grip of the outflow out of Portsmouth and I thought we were going to hit No 4. Meanwhile, there was a banging from down below, you know, a submarine type of thing, and so I banged back ‘cos there was obviously somebody hadn’t made it out. We were getting closer to No 4 Buoy, and I thought, ‘Well I’d better try and secure to that Buoy’ so I went down to try and get the anchor free and we had to use the line to maybe attach to No 4 Buoy. Absolutely ‘verboten’ under Trinity House rules.
Then, I noticed a guy floating on his back, swimming away. Well, there was nothing I could do about that. Then, Nick Rose, who I happened to know, was driving the Trinity House Pilot Launch, and he came alongside and took some passengers off and then a chopper came … oh and I remember seeing the Coastguard red flare so I knew that, you know, the Southsea Terminal staff obviously saw what happened plus a red flare, presumably from an Authority, so I was happy that the plight was known about.
Then the helicopter came and took I don’t know how many off, a few, Wessex helicopter, and I’m told there was a second helicopter came over. I don’t remember that, but I do remember asking the RAF Winchman if I could have a lifejacket because I yelled out, “Put on your lifejackets” three times but nobody had enough time to do that or even find them probably, and I certainly didn’t.
So, then there was the poor person trapped underneath and I asked them to get Divers because I wasn’t trained as a Diver and I certainly wasn’t brave enough to, you know, duck dive and take a chance because I probably wouldn’t be here now, so that was in hand and then an Admiralty Tug, I think it was an Admiralty Tug was passing by and I wanted to get the craft into Portsmouth Harbour because that was relatively calm.
You know, otherwise there was nothing else sensible to do, and they threw me a … oh no, there was a Butcher’s work boat and I think they threw a line as well but the line parted. Then this Tug was there. I got a line, quite a thick sort of three- or four-inch hawser on the end of a heaving line and I made that fast to one of the forward feet of the Hovercraft ‘cos it had I think six feet which it landed on, on a hard surface. And the Tug put on power and of course I hadn’t worked that out, we just took a dive and I was nearly washed off the craft and I think that probably put an end to a poor person underneath.
Well, I had to cast off the hawser because you know we weren’t going to get anywhere. It would just have gone right down. Then an inflatable came out with Navy Divers and they went over and then they shook … one guy went, a Scuba Diver, and then he came up and shook his head, so there was not much else I could do and I remember them asking me, “What do you want to do?” and I was very, very cold by then and I said, “I’ll go ashore.”
I regret that decision because as soon as a Master goes ashore he loses control of the situation and there was no way I’d have allowed them to beach. Subsequently they beached the craft at Southsea. Is that right? You know, the Fire Service were chopping away and God knows what.
They didn’t know really what they were doing, because they’d got no experience, fair enough, and I ended up in hospital and then I was obviously OK and I came back to the Terminal and the Managing Director and Mark Woodnut was there and I remember a very welcome large brandy and then we got on another Hovercraft that had come over. I think it was Phil Phillips was driving …
Chris: Terry Smith.
Tony: … and back to the Island. When I got to the Island, I think I … well I was certainly reminded by a friend, a colleague, you know, keep clear of the Press. Very wise advice and they suggested, Ian Trussler who was ex-Fleet Air Arm, so the you know, the Merchant Navy and the Fleet Air Arm had a bit of a connection. He said, “Why don’t you come and stay with us?” and so I did that, and did I tell you? I can’t remember (laughs). Probably not.
Karen: You came home that same night.
Tony: Did I? Well I went to Trussler’s at some stage to escape. I don’t remember that and I stayed there for two days but I think on the day after I was looking around the beach and the Times Photographer got hold of me and they wanted to interview me and I said, “No, I’m not going to be interviewed” but they said, “Can we take a photograph then?” so I let them take a photograph and then of course we moved on towards an inquiry.
33 minutes 35 seconds
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.
Tony: More than one?
Chris: 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 Tony Course just 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, either Chris or Tony, tell me about the inquiry and how it started, the process of it?
Tony: I can’t.
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 and I’m sure that Tony Course was there.
Tony: Yeah, I mean the Ministry of Transport Surveyor, I think he was, Captain Sadler was doing the professional interview. The Police did an immediate interview and then, well, a mini interview and then I had to go and make a statement because that’s the procedure for the Coroner and I can’t remember how long it took for the Coroner’s Inquiry but I was lucky in the sense that the Law was a little bit flexible … no, uncertain about operating conditions and all the rest of it and the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Transport had decided that the Coroner’s was the best because a formal inquiry would have come across this grey area of the regulations and that came about because the Hovercraft started as a aeronautical animal and I think it’s fair to say ended up as more the marine animal, a sort of hybrid. A fast-marine craft and certainly the N6’s were, you know, air people did the maintenance, so Sadler was very fair. He’d trained with Hovertravel a couple of years or more before, he’d done his 20 hours, and he was a fellow of my own cloth, so you know, speak the same language. Hovertravel provided a Solicitor for me who was very good. I can’t remember his name.
Chris: Peter Martin.
Tony: Yep, brilliant chap. On no, that was the …
Chris: Beaumont, I beg your pardon.
39 minutes 55 seconds
Tony: Ok yeah, London, but I had an Isle of Wight guy who was very good and so Coroner’s Inquiry, I didn’t really know what to expect but the Coroner was very fair. Two days and the first day I went wearing my Island Sailing Club tie and the next day I’d changed it and the Coroner had an Island Sailing Club tie, so I thought, well you know, that’s a good sign and they also had a model I remember which made my evidence much easier because you know you could play the … and I came out of it, you know, reasonably well.
As far as I know there’ve only been two commercial incidents. My friend and colleague from Seaspeed, Ian Dalziel, you know suffered much more rigorously and as far as I know no support from Seaspeed whatsoever and I’ve always been grateful to Hovertravel for the way they approached things and very sensibly, when I was back, I did a trip to sea, you know a bit like a car crash, see whether I’d lost my nerve or whatever and that was OK, ‘Sheepy’ Lamb, Chief Test Pilot was watching me, and then they seconded me to Seaspeed for, I don’t know, the summer, something like that and I think that was a good move.
One other thing I would say, I won’t say shocked but I was highly surprised at the number of so called faces who were offering their services outside the Coroner’s Court as ‘experts’ and that resonated, you know, obviously hostile experts so everybody was jumping on the band wagon but Hovertravel, full marks. One of the best Companies I ever worked for, no doubt about it.
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 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 (laughs) 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 (laughs) 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 (laughs). So, then it was really just a case of waiting and you did come home that night …
45 minutes 24 seconds
Tony: Oh, OK.
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 (laughs).
Tony: Did I, oh, OK.
Karen: 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 (laughs). 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.
Tony: Street and Julia.
Karen: 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.
Tony: The coffin was awful. I remember that little white coffin, that will always live with me.
Karen: 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.
Lisa: How long did you have, Tony, off work subsequent to the accident?
Tony: Oh, I can’t remember. It wasn’t very long.
Chris: No, not very long.
Tony: No, I mean once ‘Sheepy’ Lamb had sort of passed me out, I think they realised …
Chris Sheepy?
Tony: Yeah, well we all called him ‘Sheepy’, he was a figurehead and nice guy. I was back on the route for a little bit I think, not for long, and then I went to Seaspeed ‘cos I was used … I’d done a couple of years with Seaspeed.
Lisa: So, did you have to wait for the results of the Inquiry before you could work again?
Tony: I don’t think so, no. ‘Cos Sadler had done his stuff.
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 (laughs).
Tony: I didn’t (laughs).
Karen: I didn’t (laughs).
Chris: After 47 years we can come clean on that (laughs).
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.
Tony: Oh, and the Pilots had to be strapped in …
Chris: The Pilots had to be strapped in.
Tony: … presumably on account of the graze but I think, you know, just for [inaudible] quite frankly.
Lisa: So, you had some kind of seat belt?
Tony: Yeah, just a simple …
Chris: Lap strap.
Tony: … lap strap, yeah.
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 regulations in terms of the weather? Was that your responsibility as the Pilot to decide whether or not the service would run?
Tony: Oh yes, absolutely. You know, the Captain of a craft, whatever craft, aircraft, anything, they are responsible for the operation, and it’s their responsibility to decide whether to go or not. No question about it, and they’re responsible for the passengers. I mean, you know, I feel responsible for the five deaths. You know, they were under my care, so however one … the result of any Inquiry, you still carry that responsibility. I mean the weather limitations were defined after that so you know the Captain really had a pretty, as far as was able, a pretty fixed line on whether to take off or not.
Lisa: And the Inquiry then exonerated you of any blame?
Tony: Yes, myself, well, you know, you always … whether your judgement was right in talking off or not. No, I’d not experienced those conditions before, certainly not the gusts. Sea state yes, but not the gusts.
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.
Tony: From a different aspect, some passengers wrote to me saying they’d travel with me any day, you know, but particularly at Juliet’s funeral, I mean we had to be very discreet, you know, with parents etc in the congregation and of course as I said before, the experts were hawking their wares so you know they were pretty … and there was one RAF Officer. I don’t know whether he had Hovercraft experience or not, but he must have had some marine thing and he wrote in the magazine at that time, an article saying I should never have taken off so, you know …
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” (laughs) 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 (laughs).
Tony: Which neighbour was that?
Karen: The one in the old cottage.
Tony: Oh right, I don’t remember. Oh, the beer man.
Karen: The beer man?
Tony: He ran some beer …
Karen: No, he had been in the Royal Navy or something like that, or the Air Force, I’m not sure.
Chris: An expert.
Karen: Yes (laughs).
Lisa: So, how long did your employment with Hovertravel go on for Tony?
Tony: Um, I think the best part of two years, and then … I’ve got to explain why I left Seaspeed. The excitement and the interest is learning to control the craft and after that I find Ferry Service a little bit sort of mundane and it gets a bit boring. There was excitement sometimes and with Seaspeed you then moved up to the Dover operation. Much bigger craft, but the same thing applies, even more so.
You learn to control and be confident with the machine and I joined Hovertravel to get a job but, once I was there, there was a lot of interest because they did overseas work and you certainly didn’t get that with anybody else and whereas as a seafarer you’d visit a Port. If you were on strike in New Zealand you might be there for three weeks. With these contracts you tended to stay for three months and you know, it was a very interesting time and you were doing a different job. Bahrain, you know, towing half a mile or whatever it was, cable, seismic sounding … you know, underneath the surface and that was fascinating.
Chris: The Hovercraft was very good for that application ‘cos of course if you put a truck in or a vehicle, it sank in sand and if you pit a boat in it went aground, so the Hovercraft was just the ticket to tow the recording cable over the interland between the water and the solid ground.
1 hour
Tony: And I had some … I mean I did three months at Spitzbergen. Fascinating! I would never have had that in the Merchant Navy and then a month or so just before I left up in the Canadian Arctic. All very different experiences.
Karen: And you had Singapore.
Tony: Oh and Singapore, yeah. That was a bit of a tragedy because we never got the craft to go. It was a HM-2 and I didn’t have a Hovertravel engineer with me which made a bit of a difference I think, and the craft had been in Pakistan doing survey work. Frankly it was pretty wrecked by the time I got there (laughs). I watched my back on that one, I wrote a copious report …
Chris: But that was a non-amphibious Hovercraft?
Tony: Yes, it’s a slightly different configuration to the normal passenger one …
Chris: Propellers in the water type.
Tony: … yeah, but we were supposed to reach a certain speed, demonstrate it and then I was going to take the craft and future crew up to Penang. Never got to Penang, I’ve always regretted that. So, it was a vet interesting career, but the same thing applied. By the time I’d decided to leave, I’ve got a friend in the RNLI who I’d met before I decided to go into Hovercraft.
I was down in Plymouth and he … I was thinking of getting a job with Decca because it was on the doorstep and advertised, and this guy said, “You won’t like this job Tony, you just won’t like it” and thereafter he joined the RNLI as an Inspector and he wrote to me two or three times saying there’s a vacancy coming up and why don’t you apply?
And I think the third time he said, I thought well, do I want to go backwards and forwards for the rest of my life or take a new challenge and I took a new challenge. Very interesting because as a … if you like, a big ship mariner, it was completely different life.
You know, you thought you probably knew quite a bit about the sea and all the rest of it but my goodness me you learnt in a smaller craft and the Hovercraft experience and I think actually they signed me on because I’d got an SR-N6 licence and the RNLI wanted to wave that at the public if necessary. I think I was asked once for my opinion and they wasted that.
Lisa: You must have got to know the Solent pretty well in your …
Tony: Yes, because I ended up … I won’t tell you why, but I left the RNLI fairly abruptly and for a long while I didn’t really know what to do. I applied for all sorts of jobs etc, and I joined Red Funnel as a Summer Mate and then they kept me on so frankly my knowledge of that particular narrow bit of the Solent was invaluable. I got a … I think it was a Hydrofoil out of trouble once in rough weather, fog, you know, purely from my experience with Seaspeed. And you know it was quite interesting the difference between, for me, the difference between Seaspeed and Hovertravel.
I was with my own cloth in Seaspeed, and I remember you know Merchant Navy Officers join a Union basically for the insurance but British Rail was sort of unionised thinking, and I remember, oh I think it was almost the first or second meeting, with the Union chap from London, saying he was negotiating salary and he was saying, “Well chaps, am I waving a paper tiger or are we going out on strike next week?” God that was a … that really was a shock ‘cos I was with a Company before that and then, so I left the Union before I joined Hovertravel because Hovertravel was a private company and I didn’t think it was appropriate to be honest.
Had I stayed with the Union, well they would have probably provided some legal assistance but … because that’s really what it was all about, this particular Union. But, it would have been a different style and I was really grateful for the style and all the rest of it with the private chap that was … When I went on the RNLI bit of the same, you know, ethos as Hovertravel but as a charity and I stayed out of the Union. That was a mistake. There we go.
1 hour 5 minutes 29 seconds
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 …
Tony: I don’t know.
Chris: 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 …
Tony: I didn’t realise that. I knew you were on the Board.
Lisa: That’s another interview (laughs).
Tony: I didn’t like the Hydrofoil.
Karen: No, I didn’t.
Tony: God, in any wind, you know, going along like this .
Karen: It really didn’t feel very safe did it?
Tony: Also I had to check the engines, ghastly constrained space.
Chris: Well, the Hydrofoils were put there to compete with the Hovercraft.
Tony: Yes, we used to race them. In good weather they’d cross … we’d win and in bad weather they probably had the edge.
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.
1 hour 10 minutes 19 seconds
Tony: They bought out the Gifford’s as well did they? Oh, I didn’t realise that.
Chris: 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?
Tony: Yes, I think so.
Chris: 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.
Tony: For me, it was a brilliant opportunity within the seafaring profession. I mean flying up top taught one to watch the engine dials and that was helpful when I started on the SR-N6. I’m very disappointed it hasn’t gone further but I always remember you saying that if you can use a boat, you use a boat and if you can use a lorry you use lorry. We come in to our own in the band in between and I gave basically that advice to RNLI plus the fact that you’ve got an outboard and a Rubber Dubber, you’ll probably going to cope with, well perhaps not a pure Rubber Dubbers but the one up the Atlantics you’ll be better in rough weather in those things. It was the same sort of principle. In many ways I, although I enjoyed further careers, I regret leaving Hovercraft, particularly Hovertravel. It was a very interesting time.
Lisa: Karen, I’m asking you this question because you’re a ‘caulkhead’ (laughs). 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 (laughs) 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: Umm?
Chris: Just saying that is now 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 (laughs) 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 (laughs), 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. Tony would know what it is, I don’t, but 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.
Karen: Umm, it’s a fair old amount isn’t it?
Tony: I used to navigate the N4’s. You know I was single at the time and I was probably the only one who could be ‘on call’. That was fascinating. I only drove it once and I certainly didn’t land it. I mean it’s always the both ends normally that are difficult expert bit.
Chris: But I mean that would wind up to some colossal speed wouldn’t it, 60 knots?
Tony: Yeah well I think you’d get up to 60, yeah. I mean I think they did 45-50 normally depending on the sea state but yeah, they could wind up and I mean it’s a specialised skill to cross … it’s like crossing a dual motorway on foot and it’s a very specialised skill to weave your way even with the speed differential between a Hovercraft and a merchant ship so yeah, it was interesting too.
Lisa Well, thank you. I think we’ll draw things to a close. It’s been fascinating.
Tony I hope we haven’t talked too much (laughs).
Lisa Thank you very much.
Chris: Switch it off and we’ll tell you what we really think (laughs).
