Americans React to British Hovercraft Racing
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- Опубліковано 25 кві 2024
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Reacting To My Roots
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USA
In this video we react to British hovercraft racing. This is the first time either of us has ever seen a hovercraft race and we're shocked at just how fun this looks!
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this reaction please give this video a thumbs up, share your thoughts in the comments and click the subscribe button to follow my journey to learn about my British and Irish ancestry.
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👉 Original Video by States Boddy:
• Hovercraft
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I love the way Lindsay, like me, is concerned about the safety aspect, but Steve is channeling his male “oh it’s fine, he’s wearing a helmet” engrossed teenager energy 🤣🤣🤣
When he said... they're wearing helmets, and everything 😂
What is everything... I want to know
❤ from Northeast England ❤️
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud Gloves and Eye protection! Sorted.
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud I felt the exasperation of mothers all over the world with their kids 🤣🤣 I did it to my mum, I didn’t see why I had to wear seatbelts in the car, or even helmets when I rode my friends motorbikes 😬🤣
@@TanyaRando
😅
I had a small ashtray with a lid, and my tw*t of a SO CALLED friend said, Oh that's one of those ashtrays for motorbikes... it took me a couple of seconds to click on 😂😂😂😂
Tw*t
❤️ from Northeast England ❤️
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud 🤣🤣 (Wales)
Sir Christopher Cockerel patented the Hovercraft in 1954 , he also helped invent radar.
My wife’s friend worked on the Hovercraft that runs from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight and arranged it for my son ,who was only seven at the time to sit in the cockpit with the pilot.
He was so excited he looked like he could explode .
😀👍🇬🇧
Aww thats wonderful
I've tried operating a hovercraft. They're practically impossible to control. A rule of thumb is: If you can see it,you're going to hit it..even if there's one solitary tree in a field,you're going to hit it,no matter how hard you try to avoid it. Huge fun.
😂 one tree in a field... I'd hit it, I know I would
❤ from Northeast England ❤️
haha, yeah it does appear to be tricky to maneuver!
This should be on you and Lindsey's To Do List when you come to England 😁@@reactingtomyroots
Former Isle of Man TT racer Guy Martin, while he was still racing, became a tv presenter. One of the series he presented was called "Speed with Guy Martin", during the course of the series he set four new world speed records on different vehicles, both powered and non-powered. One of the episodes was his attempt at the world hovercraft speed record. His UA-cam channel "Guy Martin Proper" is worth checking out, there're a series of travel vlogs from India, Japan, Russia China and Latvia. "Guy Martins Spitfire" sees him helping to restore to flying condition, a Mk1 Spitfire dug up on the beach of Dunkirk.
I've just checked and there is a Hovercraft club in America. They race in Wisconsin.
If Steve and Lindsay go I will hope they record it lol
That's awesome! Had no idea it was here in the states as well :)
Races are practically non existent in the US, but we sure like to just go on joy rides. Wisconsin River is my favorite river to cruise all day.
The man who invented the hovercraft, Sir Christopher Cockerell, used to live in my town (Hythe, Hampshire). He had a pink house at the bottom end of Jones Lane.
You can buy "Hovercraft experience days" in various places around the UK. They do one by me on marshland and land between Liverpool and Manchester. You get to race them and do time trials/dual races and other stuff 😃
That sounds great, my son in law loves stuff like that...guess what he's getting for his 30th birthday.😆
That would be a really fun day out!
There is a 'Top Gear' episode in which they have a large hovercraft with a box van body.
The hovercraft you mentioned was the SRN4, which could carry 60 cars and 440 passengers.
Was that the one that used to do the Channel crossing ? if so I went to France on it once ?
@@LuckyLouDiamond1 Yes, that's the one.
This was a big thing in the 70s. The type of thing you would see on Saturday afternoon television.
And to think that hovercars were once "the future". Yes they seem perfectly controllable enough to use on the highways and around town.
When I was a kid, in the 70s, practically every school in our area had a hovercraft club. Our school had a home built hovercraft that we would thrash around the school field when we could get the motor running.
Same. Posh kids tear arsing around the school fields.
What?! That blows my mind. Love it :)
@@reactingtomyroots it’s just hover crafts
I've been from Calais to Dover on a hovercraft as a kid in the 80's. It was loud and fast 😊
I went on it in the '70s, so much spray you couldn't see out the windows either.
I went both ways one year. One trip was calm seas, it was fun. The other way was with fairly high waves. The hovercrafts don't cut through the waves like a boat does, they go over them like a ramp and slam down the other side. 🤮
@@knottyeti The one journey I did was fairly rough seas. I came back on the regular ferry which wasn't as exciting but had more things to do like offering chocolate to seasick people.
The one i went on from Dover to Calais was called The Prince of Wales.
James Bond even drove one in Die Another Day ❤😊
Jon Pertwee (3rd Doctor Who) drove one in The Planet of the Spiders. I forget which episode it was in, but I think it was the 2nd or 3rd one.
We.
Race.
_EVERYTHING_
Americans think _they're_ the Motorsport crazy ones.
Us Brits may come over as rather stiff and starchy to the rest of the world but behind that facade we are whacky as fruit cakes.
Land speed, water speed, cheese rolling , Isle of Man bike racing , Weymouth speed week sailing, lawn mower racing , 2cv Citroen racing.
Worm charming, shin kicking.
And a load more other things .
Worm Charming! I've learnt something new, where can I meet a worm charmer lol.
worm charming, not to be confused with warm and charming.
lets not forget cheese rolling 😄
And of course Bog Snorkelling.
Atherstone ball game 😂
Steve's response to Lindsay about safety 🤣😂🤣
The idea for the hovercraft came from the Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner. Christopher Cockrell fitted one to a chair in order to prove that the concept would work.
When I was in my teens, this was a popular thing for after school clubs and a few more adventurous adults would get involved with setting up racing competitions as anybody with a small garage could build
one or mainly the competitors were school groups. Mostly the power units (engines) were either lawnmowers or small motorbike units and mostly only used single engines but there was a class for craft with two engines, one to provide the lift capacity and one for the propulsion. The larger types were capable of carrying a crew of two whereas the smaller craft were usually single seater’s whose pilots learned to flyby just been told that they could steer by pushing or pulling the control stick and advancing or retracting a throttle to speed up or slow down and they had a strap attached to a limb that would stop the engine by pulling out a connector if it was pulled out of its socket, either by design or by the pilot being thrown out of the craft. The fan blades were kept away from people and crews by covering them with a heavy duty metal mesh and the remaining structure would be a lightweight wooden frame covered with a thin glass fibre skin and the skirt would be made from either rubber mats or rubberised fabric stapled to the frame.
Maybe you don't know, but the US Navy and the US Marines both use hovercraft !
Yep. They call them Landing Craft Air Cushion. They're for ship-to-shore transfer of personnel, vehicles and equipment. They're big beasts, 185 tons travelling at over 40mph 🚤😊
Yep@@kenUK762 - The originaly Soviet designed, and still in use, Zubr class hovercraft were huge; over 500 tons and capable for over 70 MPH! There's even some in a NATO force; the Greek navy has four!...
The Royal Marines have 6 man ones for use in Rainforest swamps and small estuaries or shallow beach landings where the tide can go out a mile or more.
@@tonys1636 They use Griffon 2000TD hovercraft, crew of 3, plus 20 pax - 539 Assault Squadron also use Rigid Raiders, Viking amphibious vehicles and a range of high-tech landing craft.
Also The Beatles were guest stars on Morecambe and Wise in 1963. And the wisecracks between them and Morecambe and Wise was brilliant. Especially when Eric Morecambe (the one with the specs) takes the mickey (the mockery) out of John Lennon. 😂
Just looked up Hovercrafts in the USA
and there is an event in TN
in October at:
Rural Retreat Campground
5584 State Hwy 58 South
Decator, TN 37322
which looks close to Jasper Indiana.
I think we need to get you reacting to some Horrible Histories skits and songs
I’ve been fortunate enough to race these for the last 10 years and they’re unlike any other vehicle; no brakes and steering that only works when you’re on the throttle. All the craft you’ll have seen in this video are made of composites, usually fibreglass, but carbon and Kevlar are more common these days, with metal structure to keep the big mechanical parts in place. They can do up to about 70mph on a racing circuit like this one before they become aerodynamically unstable and flip over backwards. Most of these clips are F50 craft (50 horsepower), whereas the fastest ones will be in excess of 200 horsepower. Yes people do get hurt, but it’s still relatively safe; we wear body armour and crash helmets similar to motorcyclists and a buoyancy aid for if we end up going for a swim. If you’re interested in more, there’s a few videos about from various racing teams and livestreams of events from last year on the ‘Hovercraft Club of Great Britain’ channel, and there’s an excellent documentary style video from the French club of the 2022 world championships here: ua-cam.com/video/y7NCJVzQhgI/v-deo.htmlsi=26zpT_MfG6hB67DE. The European championship started this weekend and the next round is on the last weekend in May!
Basic rules of hovercraft:
If you see something ahead of you, you're not going there.
You don't lose control. You do however briefly gain it momentarily on occasion.
About 1970, I worked (camera crew), on a Dr Who episode with Jon Pertwee driving one of these on the River Severn. Gulp, 54 years ago. Later , we took our BBC camera car to France on one of the huge 'hoverferries', and it was the last one to go that day because of appalling weather. They do not ride rough seas well....scary!
We built one of these at school back in the 80s. My mate crashed it into the tennis courts to loud applause and cheering. They're not the easiest things to control. Great fun, though.
Brits and Americans are very similar. We will race anything and if it should not be raced, we will find a way to race it. We also race lawnmowers, as Lindsay mentioned. The SR.N4 was the giant hovercraft which was in service between England and France. They built 6 of them and at one point they were widened and lengthened to make them even bigger. They could do 80mph. They were scrapped apart from 1 which was preserved in a museum.
Hovercrafts featured in the Pierce Brosnan Bond movie "Die another Day" they made use of the fact they can travel over landmines without setting them off due to the reduced mass.
top speed is about 85mph (world record) normal speed about 35 to 40 mph. they're controlled via handlebars (like a Motorbike) that control the rudders on the back of the craft
Lawnmower racing is popular as well.
The UK has places that offer 'experience days', you can book to have a go yourself
There are also military hovercraft, i also remember a heavy haulage company (Pickfords) that used a hovercraft trailer to spread the load crossing a historical bridge
There's video somewhere of a guy that laid on the ground and let one of the large hovercraft go over him to demonstrate how little force there is per square inch
Hovercraft are also used by the RNLI for rescues on muddy estuaries and coasts. I think there is one based in burnham on sea. I’m sure there is a video on YT.
Saw these race at Tredegar House back in the late 70's / early 80's. They were never invited back as by the end of the race (up the lake and down the lawn) the lawn was a churned up mud pool - all the grass gone. Fun to watch though.
I used to run science classes for children from 2.5 to 5. In one of the lessons the topic was hovercraft. My husband made one put of MDF and a leaf blower. It was big enough to sit on.
That's awesome! I bet the kids loved that :)
The hovercraft from Dover, Kent to Calais, France ran until early 2000.
There's search and rescue/fire brigade specialist units use hovercrafts on mudflats/super soft ground etc ,the racing is great to watch ..
My local country park, Rother Valley, does these events. We once went for the day and it was on. Never seen it before and it was so much fun watching them race around.
When I was a member of the Red Cross I used to attend hovercraft races as a first aider the bodies of the hovercrafts are made of fibreglass.
Please note the cowl and grill over the fan driving the hovercraft, is effectively a roll bar.
The kneel and use the control stick to hang on to.
The main body is made of Fiberglass for strength and light weight.
US marines have a hovercraft that can carry tanks, it's called an LCAC
There was a hovercraft service that carried over 400 people and 60 cars across the English Channel to France, though the service stopped in 2000 not long after the opening of the Channel Tunnel and Eurostar service
My school built and entered a hovercraft into the UK junior national championship - which we won - great fun!
As far as I am aware, the US Navy used to have very large hovercraft used as landing craft.
Hello. The Isle of Wight ferry is the last of the UK’s hovercraft fleet. Before the channel tunnel between England & France there used to be regular crossings with larger hovercraft across the channe, some of the ferries carried cars. These days we rely on the channel tunnel and a many large conventional ferries,
In 1994 I was working in New York for 6 months. While I was there it was the 50th anniversary of D Day and there were many US Navy ships harboured up in New York. I went on USS Kearsage, a marine warfare boat. In the hull of the ship there were a number of hovercrafts which were used for shallow river events.
In the river estuaries our RNLI, Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who maintain a national lifeboat & rescue service have a small fleet of hovercrafts for rescue work in estuaries and marshes.
Here you go - footage of the SR-N4 cross-channel hovercraft service back in 1997 - ua-cam.com/video/p-IecBZfqN4/v-deo.html
Thanks!
It's a shame that it didn't have footage of it going full steam. They were a lot quicker than the ferry back in the day 😊🙏
That was fun. I wasn't aware we had hovercraft racing over here. I'm deffo looking forward to tracking down these race weekends. Thanks for the heads up. 👍
Hovercraft require a lot of power to keep them hovering but not that much to propel them, because of the lack of friction, the original design had no flexible skirt which meant it needed flat water or land for it to work but once the skirt was added to the design, it really showed the capability of the principle, the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) use them in a couple of places like Morecambe where the beaches are very flat and the tide comes in rapidly.
Rother Valley Country Park is just down the road from me, it has changed a fair bit over the last decade or so. If you like outdoors adventures, country parks, lakes etc (including hovercraft racing) you have it all there (time of year depending for some things).
As a Scottish person, I have never seen this in my life. Not even on TV.
10 minutes from me is a hovercraft track, anyone can rent them, used mostly for birthdays or staff days out.. But loads of fun
1976 I was 16. A school friend had bought a kit and built one of these.
The US use massive LCAC Hovercraft for amphibious assaults (they carry light tanks)
Hovercraft are noisy , although nowadays they are a bit more environmentally friendly . If you want a laugh check out Top Gear where they turned a van into a hovercraft with disastrous results . The channel hovercraft was pretty successful as it was quicker until the tunnel opened .
The swamp boats you were thinking of in e.g. Florida are call;ed 'airboats'. But despite the name, they don't ride on an air cushion like hovercraft, they're simply flat-bottomed boats propelled by a big airscrew at the back. I think they're probably more directionally controllable than hovercraft.
We had until 2005 a hover craft service to Calais(France) from Dover(Kent) I remember going on it a couple times. This one was huge. Should check it out if there is any footage.
In around 1986 my secondary school for end of school project they made one
😮wow how did it turn out
@@helenbailey8419 it went.
The size of a go cart.
Our school made one of those in the early 70s. Very difficult to steer. It was a combined metalwork woodwork department project. At that time there were parts you had to buy but the body had plans. No idea about the more modern ones. To race large hovercraft would be very dangerous. You can balance a small one with your body weight but a large one would have to move fuel around. Also large ones need two licences.
I once bought the plans to build one with my friend. My life got busy and it never happend. You can buy the plans and build yourself guys.
Hi Steve Lindsay. Us Brits pretty much race anything in the UK from hovercraft to lawnmowers to tractors even lorries. But is your intent on checking out Hovercrafts then you have to check out the RNLI Rescue Hovercrafts along with the other RNLI Rescue vessels. The RNLI is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and are all manned by volunteers to help pillocks who go to sea without the proper equipment to survive storms or incidents at sea. Often the RNLI crews go out in the UK's worst horrendous weather
The US has built about 100 large hovercraft for the US Navy and Japan's defence forces. They are called Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC).
They have been in service since the 1980s.
I would love to see them race the hovercraft that used to do a ferry service to france.
With Lindsay's danger comment made me think of Fred Dibnah's how to ladder a chimney parts 1 and 2 or how to scaffold a chimney well worth a look at anything with Fred in it.
Check out the Dover to Calais UK based hovercraft service that ran from the late 1960s to the 80s/90s. These were the largest two in the World - the Princess Margaret and the Princess Anne. Interesting YT video where you get to see and go on the hovercraft, search title - 'Calais-Dover and back in world largest hovercraft the SR.N4.'
I mentioned in the last video that I had raced these. They are really fun but pretty sketchy. If you're going into a turn too fast and rotate sideways, and then try to 'brake', you can lose all the lifting air from the skirts (or just tip sideways and dig in) and suddenly it's no longer a hovercraft. Travelling sideways on something that suddenly drops to the floor like a dead weight is a really bad time. You have to learn to accelerate to get out of trouble, and if you really need to brake you have to turn 180 degrees and floor it. As far as I know you never use seatbelts or harnesses because if (when) it flips you don't want to be attached to it.
Very interesting to hear more about how hard they are to drive! Definitely looks like fun, but probably a steep learning curve
I live half a mile from where that track is , its a massive fun weekend 😂😂
I had a go in one of the exact same thing during a jolly day from work
I have to say it's absolutely brilliant you just have to remember to steer it like a boat - from the back as the nose don't turn😅
I have had a go at Hovercraft racing, they do drift very wide round turns because they continue in the direction of travel, you have to start the turn well before you get to a corner. If you get into trouble you just ditch the throttle and they drop very quickly.
When you see a bend or corner in your sight just start turning as a huge delay 😂using the power is an art as well to little and you sink and stop😩
the hoovercraft are mainly made out of fibreglass to reduce the weight
Lol try turn one without drifting, basically these ones you turn leaning your body... And crossing your fingers 😂
3:23 There called airboats.
They don't hover and are rarely amphibious.
You need to watch British side car racing! The most dangerous sport in the world 😲
That’s the first time I’ve seen hovercraft racing that’s awesome and I live in the UK
From the UK... never heard of this but looks great
There's a couple of places in Britain where you can hire hovercraft to try driving one.
I could be wrong but i believe the main body of these is made from fibre glass so really tough but quite lightweight. The heaviest bit is the engine at the back. the skill for the driver is to balance the weigh so the air at the front doesnt lift the front up to much so it over turns as you saw in the video. These's quite a nack to it. Steve if you want to see lunacy at speed check out the side car racing at the Isle of Mann TT.
the things they ride in the swamps are hovercrafts, an old british invention. I wouldnt say this turnout was 'popular' you should see our 100 other types of racing, we dont just go crazy for football you know, we go crazy in general. Drift racing and rally is very popular in the uk and ireland some of the best racers in the world are from here.
I have seen a peddle powered hovercraft at a local show years ago. I think there are some videos on UA-cam.
They are similar to jet ski's in the sense that if you turn with no power they fail to change direction!
We built a hovercraft the size of those little racing ones in school
The commentator sounds like 'Mr Brittas'
Hovercraft are relatively light. If you were run over by one of them you would be unlikely to be injured unless you came into contact with the blades. These races are probably safer than motorcycle races because the speeds are much lower and any secondary impact is mitigated by the fact that each hovercraft is surrounded by an inflated skirt that would absorb a lot of the impact energy.
The things they use in florida for getting around the everglades are boats, not hovercraft. Theres a youtuber in florida who had a few hovercraft btw, thats cleetus mcfarland, owner of the freedom factory race track. Hovercraft are pretty awesome btw, they can go anywhere flat even over mudflats, quicksand aswell as water and land. Top speed is about 60mph btw and they weigh a few hundred kg's as they are normally fibre glass with an engine etc.
They have this every year at the racecourse in my town.
😂😂😂hilarious.I didn't know about this..brilliant
I'm off on a bike (motorbike) meet to the iow in the summer. Ive not been there since the 80s, and obviously the bike will have to go on the ferry.
But im planning a hovercraft trip to the mainland and back whilst there 😁
You were thinking of Air Boats, they sit in the water...not the same!
In the UK and Ireland we have probably the strangest racing anywhere although may happen elsewhere, Slow Tractor Racing, it is often a feature at agricultural and vintage shows. The aim is to complete the course in the slowest time without actually stopping, which is a disqualification, drive must be maintained at all times, it's a bit easier with a steam traction engine than a diesel or petrol tractor, sometimes the two compete in classes together or in separate events. A snail is often faster. Not exactly a thrilling spectator sport.
4th of May 2024 there's one in Knaresborough near York. I might go to it.
You might like to have a look at Lawn Mower Racing as well 😄
There is an old Jackie Chan film in which he is run over by a large Hovercraft. Jackie apparently did the stunt for real, he was run over by a Hovercraft ! without any serious injury.
I have been lucky enough to have had a ride on one of these racing hovercraft 😊 passengers only. We were not allowed to drive them.
I knew someone at school did this back in the 1990's. Controlling them is so difficult as you are on a cushion of air so have no friction hence why they are drifting round the corners. Speeds can be upto 40mph depending on the engine size and prop thats fitted.
Steering is done through a Motorbike handle bar that has a throttle and cables that go to the rudders to steer with.
How have I never heard of this haha
This looks great fun, I wonder where this held? I want to be a spectator, I went for drive the other day and ended up at Stokes Bay, which is opposite Ryde on the Isle of Wight and I watched the hovercraft ferry that you reacted to, it looked great fun but the cost is £31.50 per person, it’s cheaper to go on the Red Jet ferry which is also just foot passengers
Sounds like a fun day out! We'd love to observe this in person as well--maybe even try it out 😂 Didn't realize the ferry was so expensive, but I guess that makes sense.
They don't need protection, they have the NHS
😂
FYI the Military use Hovercraft as landing craft. Imagine D-Day with hovercraft! This is modern landing operations.
When I was at high school they were building one of these in the tech department.
When I left they still hadn't finished it 😂
So I never knew if they completed it and raced it.
I have never seen racing hovercraft. I'm from the UK..xx
We have lawn mower racing here too.