BBC/Sally FairfaxWhy did a high-tech crossing over the River Humber that took people just 20 minutes to travel between Hull and Grimsby stop operating after a year?
The BBC’s Hidden East Yorkshire podcast has gone back to 1969 to explore the origins of the two companies running hovercraft services between the two banks.
Ultimately, a combination of fragile vehicles and debris in the estuary, meant the service would cease to exist long before construction of the Humber Bridge.
Paul Drury-Bradey, who has been conducting a research project and hearing peoples’ memories, said: “Some people used it for work or shopping but a lot of people used it just for the novelty. It was such new technology at the time.”
BBC/Sally FairfaxTwo separate firms ran the hovercraft trips. The first service was called Hoverlink, with a craft called Mercury. A rival company was then set up in the same year named Humber Hoverferry Limited.
The craft, which uses a cushion of air to travel over land, water, mud, ice and other surfaces, ferried passengers from the Corporation Pier in Hull to the docks at Grimsby.
Tony Stamp, 63, remembers a trip to see the hovercraft set off across the Humber. His dad walked him to the pier when he was around seven years old.
“That was very exciting for me”, he said. “My dad had built it all up, telling me about these fabulous new devices, that hovered on air.
“We saw the people get on and watched it leave. It was quite choppy but then it built up speed.
“I never went on myself,” he added. “But I would have loved to.”
Despite their novel solution for people crossing the Humber, the services were withdrawn never to return. The Humber Bridge, which was designed in 1964 while the hovercraft operated, would eventually open to vehicles in 1981.
Mr Drury-Bradey said: “With the technology of the 60s, they [the hovercraft] were a bit too fragile. In the end they lasted less than a year.”
The researcher also said he would like the banks of the Humber to be better connected with quicker journey times.
He concluded: “It’s the way to grow economies, the way to grow jobs, the way to grow opportunities.
“But whether a hovercraft is the answer to that these days, I’m not so sure.”