In this issue the focus is on the new ferries for Oita Prefecture in Japan, and Griffon Hoverwork’s new R&D into Hydrogen powering with a significant team of specialist companies.
Progress on the new craft at Portchester seems to be accelerating now, with work starting on the superstructure outfitting on two of the craft.
On October 19th and 20th your Techsec attended the annual conference of the fast ferry operator’s organisation here in Norway. I was hoping to hear more about the two main competitions currently ongoing here for zero emission craft. Not so much on that, as the focus at present seems to be more generally on the fuel transition. There was a good presentation from Norled and Kolumbus about the battery powered catamaran now running a local service from downtown Stavanger to the local islands and Hommersåk across the fjord that begins to point the way forward. The competition process that SES are competing in was outlined but nothing new just now. Some thoughts gained from the gathering are given on page 10.
It is notable that at the end of November the RNLI has celebrated 20 years operating their rescue hovercraft. At the same time the Indian Coastguard have retired the first of their GH8000TD craft. It will be interesting to see where that goes as I am sure there is life left in it. The pictures below suggest it is in good condition as you may expect of such an organisation. One question is what could come next?!
Since our last issue of these News Notes, I have continued digitising some films I have. These will be uploaded to the THS YouTube channel in due course. Members should find these interesting, partly as a contrast to the racing film I loaded from Flottsbro. I have been finding my way through the maze of video materials on the internet again (it can get very distracting). I tried to be focussed when selecting Movietone News clips from their site. There is some really good material, while other items can be disappointing.
Preparing this issue, I have inevitably been into both LinkedIn and Facebook. Griffon Hoverwork seems to put its material on these media now, rather than the Internet site. This seems to be a trend – Company sites being largely static, and news being on social media. I don’t have a Twitter account, so cannot clarify what use may be made of that.
Our AGM will be held in a few days now on 8th December at 13:00 UK Time. Following it will be a presentation from Hovertravel which should be informative and enjoyable. The timing at 13:30 UK time may not be helpful to members on the other side of the world, so I plan to run a second session for the presentation on Zoom starting at 21:00 UK time (22:00 CET, 16:00 EST, 13:00 PST, 08:00 Sydney). Perhaps we can have a general chat after the video.
The full issue can be read in pdf form here
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