Rumours of the potential return of Solent Express to Hovertravel’s cross-Solent service after 9 years have been fuelled this week by the arrival of the sizeable craft on the pad at Ryde – and it’s appearance on an official app.
The company have neither confirmed nor denied that the 2007-built BHT-130 hovercraft will be making a return to the Ryde-Southsea route in the near future, but there are plenty of indications it might.
Solent Express was pulled from service in October 2011 following a major prop shaft failure mid-Solent. Since then, the craft has been laid up in Southampton with sister company Griffon Hoverwork and has completed only occasional sea trials. It has been up for sale and remains listed.
However, it was just a couple of weeks ago that Griffon announced through Twitter that the craft was back on the water and had been inspected by the Maritime Coastguard Agency. This tweet was quickly deleted and replaced by a similar tweet, which omitted mention of the MCA.
Solent Express has been seen back on the pad at Ryde this week for a refuel, which isn’t too unusual for trials in the Solent. But eagle-eyed customers have noted that the much-loved craft has also appeared on Hovertravel’s official mobile map. The map shows the position of each service craft and given that Solent Express hasn’t been part of the fleet for 9 years, potentially nods towards her return to passenger duties.
Regular customers have been calling for the return of the BHT-130 for sometime as it is thought of as being more reliable and resilient than the newer Flyer craft. Whilst it is thirsty on fuel and is less ‘green’ than its newer counterparts, it can cope in rougher conditions with all-important bow thrusters. It can also carry 130 passengers – which even at limited capacity would allow for a large number of passengers per flight whilst maintaining social distancing.
Island Echo approached Hovertravel for a statement asking whether or not Solent Express will be making a return to the company. The response does not address the matter, but does confirm that Solent Express re-fuelled earlier this week.
A spokesperson for Hovertravel has said:
“Hovertravel can confirm that at 11:30 on Thursday 5th November a hovercraft owned by Griffon Hoverwork GH-2142 (Solent Express) landed at Ryde to re-fuel, while undertaking a number of sea trials. The 85-tonne hovercraft then returned to Griffon’s factory in Woolston”.
With unconfirmed rumours of Wightlink suspending their catamaran service during the lockdown period and passengers returning to the 10-minute Hovertravel service, a return of Solent Express after nearly a decade could be a wise move in the winter months. Wightlink say their service is being constantly reviewed at this time.
Would you like to see Solent Express back in service? Comment below 👇
Why the hell is this even being considered, if the cat isn’t running during this lockdown, why consider this at all….
It’s bigger and more reliable and can cope with rougher weather
Noisy, and spend half to Winter laid up as too rough to travel. Still as Ryde is built to oblivion, will need more Solent sea transport to get the new housing ex city tenants families over here to visit them in jail I guess, as way too many will be of such ilk.
Noisy, primitive craft. We need electric battery quite machines now, not noisy, 60’s technology.
Noisy, but reliable, 60’s technology does it every time for me.
Electric is crap. Give me a proper diesel engine any day. Far superior .
Think you should go back to the 60,s such a unrealistic statement from someone who has no technical Idea
Yeah primitive tech… And what about those boats eh? Thousands of years old! Trash (idiot, BTW)
They could put a big wheel either side and stretch two chains across to Southsea or they could put it across the Medina without the chains. Nah, wouldn’t work there either. Back to the drawing board again.
Which means they might actually do it.
You`re going to need a bigger boat! Social distancing, rough weather, reliability. Job done at a stroke.
We need to be finding reasons for NOT crossing the Solent, not looking for beter ways of doing it.
Racis’ against overners?
Idiot!
I’ve not seen reliability figures for each generation of hovercraft, but the company do seem to cancel passenger carrying journeys quite a lot, nowadays.
Maybe Hovertravel could publish their records? Then we’d all know the truth.
You could submit a FOI request to them 🙂
I asked the staff sometime ago what are their operating limits and they stated 30 knots of wind in their area, as well as some other things such as wave height – cannot remember what they said about this,as it was some time ago – which means that it doesn’t really matter whether they use the bigger or smaller Hovercraft – the limit at which the maritime coastguard agency instruct them to stop operations is the same.
30 knots is the limit for the new crafts not the old ones. The new hovers are much lighter and therefore struggle in wind and waves
Maybe they will have three running for xmas, one every ten minutes..
Make a chain ferry,nothing wrong with that is there?????,always reliable!!!!!
Hmm really undeniably reliable cowes never breaks down does it completely bullet proof lol
Great idea. The Island leads the World in Chain Ferries, and people come from all over to admire!
re-Chain Ferry: Windermere has been running a chain (cable) ferry across the lake for ages – never any continual breakdowns etc. I suppose the tide is all to blame.