You will find a number of videos of varying length showing hovercraft in operation with the UK Interservice hovercraft trials unit, and a number showing the early days of hovercraft rallying in UK as well as a short video from the world championships near Stockholm in September 2022. Other general videos are added as we obtain them.
For the Lectures click on the image to go to the video.
To browse the channel click on the THS icon:
Current Channel Content for Society Presentation Recordings is as below (7th June 2024)
Presentation Meeting 15th April 2025
Mik Henriksen and team from MHO-Co
In this video we have a presentation of the SES CTV operations of MHO-Co who are based in Denmark and the UK.
Mik Henriksen, MHO-Co CEO leads, supported by Roger Whittaker, Michael Halberg, Anders Nissen. Important insights into SES as high-speed vessels delivering personnel to wind turbines in the North Sea for inspection and maintenance tasks, normally on call out and delivery back to shore in the same day. Journey times are typically halved compared with other CTV craft, and fuel usage much reduced at the same time.
Viewers are recommended to visit MHO-Co site (https://mho-co.dk/) for vessel detail specifications and much more about MHO-Co overall fleet, and the site of UMOE (https://www.wavecraft.no/) for more on these SES craft from the designer and builder. THS thanks go to MHO-Co personnel for this presentation and discussion.
Presentation Meeting 20th March 2025
Eduard Ercegovic, Technical Director of Aircat Vessels
Eduard Ercegovic tells us about the development of Aircat 35 Crewliner Crew Transfer SES, its build programme in partnership with Strategic Marine in Singapore, and the deployment of the first three craft to Angola for service out to Floating Production, Storage and Offloading Offshore facilities. This project is a major step forward both for offshore O&G projects and SES vessels.
The presentation gives a comprehensive technical overview of the vessels, a virtual walkthrough, and some video of the craft.
The presentation is followed by a Q&A session touching on several aspects of the design and operation.
Many thanks to Eduard, and Aircat Vessels for this presentation.
Presentation Meeting 12th December 2024
Ben Avery, Chief Pilot for Griffon Hoverwork
Ben tells us about the training programmes he has been involved with this year for Oita, Poland, Canada and more. Griffon Hoverwork together with Hovertravel have developed effective programmes for hovercraft pilots as well as engineers and maintenance personnel.
The programmes are recognised by International Maritime Authorities. The first part of the video (approximately 35 minutes) is Ben’s presentation with slides and a short film from Japan. There follows a discussion session of about 40 minutes where experiences are shared with other attendees who are hovercraft builders and operators.
We learn that training to operate hovercraft does require some dedication by a student to become skilled, and an aptitude that is special for these craft that run over terrain not accessible to other vehicles or vessels. Nevertheless, piloting a hovercraft can be a very rewarding experience!
THS Presentation Meeting 6th June 2024
Chris Fitzgerald, President, Neoteric Hovercraft Inc. – Hovercraft Training
This talk should interest:
It covers the theoretical and practical training given and includes clips of manoeuvers students are taught to rehearse until competent.
THS Presentation Meeting 22nd February 2024
Iain Davis, Vessel Master, CWind Pioneer
Iain Davis, Vessel Master of the CWind Pioneer, gave us an overview of operations out to Wind Farms by CWind’s specialist vessels. This includes high-speed personnel transfer to site, and the in-field operations while maintenance is ongoing. He explained the advantages as well as the challenges of an SES in this service, together with the complexities introduced with hybrid power systems. The presentation included slides and some short video showing CWind Pioneer docking at a Wind Turbine. Following his presentation there was a Q&A session. Participants in the meeting included Engineers, Naval Architects, and Air Cushion Technology experts.
THS Presentation Meeting 12th October 2023
Bryan Phillips – Amphibious Marine
Bryan Phillips presents his company, Amphibious Marine, the hovercraft they have designed and delivered to clients. He also summarizes the experience of driving one of his craft up the west coast to Juneau, Alaska and give an outline of his manufacturing process. The presentation, which lasts the first 30 minutes, is followed by a discussion session where further details of the craft design and operation are highlighted, illustrated with more slides and videos. Amphibious Marine craft have a number of unique design features to keep them very light compared with their payload, and the large diameter propeller is a highly efficient thruster as well as having a low noise profile. The result is craft with low installed power for their speed and payload, and so low fuel consumption.
THS Meeting August 2023
Ben Avery, Griffon Hoverwork
Our Meeting on August 17th was a presentation of the trials program of the Griffon Hoverwork GH12000 ferry ‘Baien’ before delivery to Japan. Ben Avery gave us an overview of the trials and the design improvements to the proven GH12000 design. A discussion followed, around operational experience and influence of design elements on performance. This video gives a special insight into the latest in hovercraft technology, as well as knowledgeable commentary and discussion from experts who were present.
This video is available for viewing only by members of The Hovercraft Society.
22/23/24 March 2023 THS Discussion Meeting
Alan Bliault, THS Technical Secretary
This event was held in three sessions, as an experiment to fit with the different times in the European, Americas, and Far East including Australia.
The event was not recorded as a video, but Alan did present with slides that can be accessed here.
January 19th 2023
Professor L J Doctors: ‘Hovercraft skirts and Surface-Effect-Ship seals’
In the first part of the talk, a survey of the history of the development of skirts from the early days in 1959 was made. The purpose of skirts, of course, is to substantially increase the obstacle-clearance capability over land, as well as to improve the seakeeping. The features of the various skirts and seals were presented using diagrams and photographs.
In the second part of the presentation, a method of estimating the additional drag due to a deflected skirt was explained. This theory has been used to substantially improve the correlation between theoretical predictions of the total drag of a towing-tank surface-effect-ship model with the experimental measurements.
In addition to the recorded presentation, the slides used by Professor Doctors can be found here. They are in pdf form which will load another window.
8th December 2022
Hovertravel Presentation at THS AGM 2022
A combination of animated slide show and video sections showing Hovertravel experience through the Covid period and recovery of business during 2022.
This presentation is available for viewing only by members of The Hovercraft Society.
October 13th 2022
Chris Fitzgerald: The Light Hovercraft Market
Chris discusses the characteristics of the light hovercraft market over the last several decades. He reviews the key elements for success in business building and selling such craft with some perhaps surprising conclusions. In the second part of his presentation (after around 20 minutes there is a slide show of advertisements from the very many small hovercraft companies that have come and gone.
This slide show and a transcript paper for the presentation can be viewed by going to the links below:
Slide show of adverts for small hovercraft firms past and present: link
Paper giving transcript and more from Chris’ talk: link
The last 30 minutes contains discussion with the attendees with interesting insights into what customers want and what they need but may not realize until they have purchased a craft. Neoteric is therefore careful to discuss this with clients at the beginning.
June 14th 2022
Trygve Halvorsen, ESNA Naval Architects: SES opportunities in the energy transition
March 3rd 2022
Adrian Went: GriffonHoverwork – A view from the top
December 9th 2021
Andy Mayo: Hovering into the future with HoverAid
