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Featured Companies

Marine Machinery Association
The Marine Machinery Association is the trade association that serves the interests of the American vendor community to the world's shipyards.
    USA Virginia
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Valcom srl
Since 1974 Valcom srl designs, develops and manufactures measurement and control instruments in marine industry on vessels as well as in offshore applications.
    Italy
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Martech Enterprises Ltd.
Martech is an engineering consulting company incorporated in British Columbia, Canada. The company provides highly specialized professional engineering services to the marine and offshore industries assisting during execution of complex projects.
    Canada
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ShipShape International Limited
The ShipShape Management Team comprises in total 125 years experience covering every discipline required to run a successful cruise or ferry business from sales and marketing to operations.
    United Kingdom

Hovercraft is History

      10/3/2000


Sherlog Ultrasonic Tightness Testing Tool
Australian Subs to be Upgraded
Control Systems for Gas Turbine Frigates

Hovercraft is History


The cross-Channel hovercraft service made its final journey to Dover after succumbing to competition from the rail link and the ferries. Crowds gathered to watch the craft rise on its skirts and whisk off to sea for the last time. The two craft, Princess Anne and Princess Margaret, will be replaced by highs-peed catamarans that are cheaper to operate and can carry 100 cars, twice the number the hovercraft can accommodate.

After 32 years at sea the two craft have been offered for sale at £4.5m by their owner Sea Containers, the transport and leisure group. If a buyer cannot be found the craft will go to the hovercraft museum in Lee-on-Solent, Hampshire. Invented by Sir Christopher Cockerell, the hovercraft was heralded in the 1960s as a revolutionary means of transport. Sir Christopher experimented with coffee tins, kitchen scales and vacuum cleaners, and found that the best way to make boats go faster was to float them on a cushion of air.

Hovercraft is History

The first hovercraft was built in 1959 by Sanders Roe on the Isle of Wight. It carried a crew of three at 25 knots over calm waters. In the 1970s it established a world record by crossing the Channel in 22 minutes, travelling at more than 60 knots. Hovercraft will continue to be used for passenger services between Southsea and the Isle of Wight. Many countries, including the US and Russia, use them for military manoeuvres as they are the only amphibian transport to allow troops and tanks to role out on land.


Financial Times (FT.com) by Astrid Wendlandt in Calais, 1st October, 2000  







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