Capitalist hydrofoils strike back! (Part 2)

This Liquid Highway video succinctly recaps the history of Thames ferries from 1900 on, with the Denny D2 starting at 1.43, and showing a number of the hydrofoils described in Part 1 of this series on innovative Thames transport.

Oh, those Russians

Part of Airavia’s agreement with the Russians was for spare parts. However, the Russians claimed a misunderstanding on this point, forcing Snowball to pay high prices for the unique, sole source hydrofoil and engine parts. Which is a typical capitalist trick, a bait and switch for extra charges.

Unfortunately, by the time that Airavia ‎launched its service, the GLC was no longer in a position to assist financially or otherwise, such as pushing for integration of hydrofoils with London Transport services. Inflation and weariness of backing another money pit were the likely reasons.

In addition, the summer tourist season was not enough to support the service year round – tourist numbers dropped off dramatically in autumn and winter with the cold, wet Thames becoming a deterrent to sightseers.

By March 1976, Snowball was bankrupt. Services continued, but he had lost his millions. The Kometa hydrofoil service was also uneconomic, and the Russian hydrofoils stopped operating after 10th September 1976.

Airavia had operated the Raketa service for just as long as the Hoverservices HM.2s between similar piers, and without any grants. The hydrofoils were sold back to Poland and the Soviet Union in 1977, and Airavia Ltd was liquidated that December.

The bankruptcy of Airavia Ltd left Snowball heartbroken. Not only did he lose the hydrofoils and the London lifestyle, he lost his flat in The Ivory House in St. Katherine’s Dock, and because he had put up The Clarendon Hotel in Shanklin as collateral, lost that too. His three younger children, who were sent to boarding school the year before, arrived home for their Easter holiday to find everything in the hotel gone, and their father now living in a caravan. They’d also lost everything.

Hydrofoil Taxi – 1978

Catamaran Cruises Limited started operating a Thames taxi service from West India Dock pier in Spring 1978 using two Russian Volga 275 hydrofoils, a later version of Herbert Snowball’s personal hydrofoil the Hydro Ski 1, which carried five passengers and the pilot at up to 30 knots. On a demonstration run against the tide it made the journey from West India Dock pier to Westminster pier – about 5 1/2 miles – in only 12 minutes, making 27.5mph or 23.9kts. Where the departure and destination points were near the Thames, the hydrofoil taxis were generally faster than a cab in road traffic.

Unfortunately the service, and the last attempt at a commercial local commuter hydrofoil service ended dramatically when they were both destroyed by a Brazilian passenger liner turning for Greenwich Buoys.

The Capitalists’ turn on the Thames – 1976

Seeing their arch-rival Russians build up large military and civil hydrofoil fleets, the Americans became very interested in flying ship technology in the 1970s, primarily for fast attack and patrol uses, with some civilian spin-offs. Hydrofoils still fascinated many with the promise of fast water travel. Not wishing to miss out on the hydrofoil race, aerospace company Boeing developed a commercial line of passenger and military hydrofoils based on a standard ship platform – the double deck Jetfoil 929. Shorter and wider than the Soviet designs, Boeing marketed these craft as riding as smoothly as their 727 airliner. The Jetfoil’s first commercial passenger service was between Hawaiian islands.

In 1976, Boeing had ‎put its Flying Princess Jetfoil 929-100 on an extensive 7 week promotional tour of north-western Europe and Scandinavia, sailing ‎7,000 nautical miles to visit 26 ports in England, Scotland, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Several companies expressed interest in operating Jetfoils between London and Oostende, Belgium, including British Rail with Sealink, the Belgian state-owned ferry company Régie des transports maritimes, and the Dutch shipping company J Lauritzen.

If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium

But P&O beat them all to it, albeit on a trial basis, leasing the Flying Princess for a 1 June 1977 Zeebrugge – London service start under the name P&O Jet Ferries. One daily round trip was operated, leaving Zeebrugge in the early morning, and returning from Tower Pier in the late afternoon.

The new route ran for an initial 12-month period, and was intended both as a route proving exercise and a feasibility assessment of the Jetfoil under North Sea operating conditions.

P&O selected the London – Belgium route to avoid competing ‎directly with established ferry services, to take advantage of the Jetfoils’ much faster speeds, and to provide a one seat trip to the Continent. The company chose Zeebrugge as the Belgian port as it already had a presence there. As such it felt it provided a much better alternative to the traditional, slower boat train.

This pil‎ot service determined the basic viability of London – Continent hydrofoil service. One problem experienced was the ingestion of debris from the Thames into the water pumps, which required some modification of the boat.

Hydrofoils through the Thames Barrier

There were still a lot of working berths on the Thames above the Barrier at this time and the West India Docks was still receiving large vessels, so timing the Jetfoils’ passage through the Barrier ‎without delay amidst other shipping was at times challenging. The service was tightly scheduled to allow for the return trip, so they were given priority whenever possible. Also, the double deck Jetfoil 929 required the bascules of Tower Bridge to be raised for each passage, but at a cost of £6,000 per opening (£28,000 in 2020!).

However P&O suspended operation of this trial service on 25 September 1978, a little earlier than planned, without explanation. Perhaps they were satisfied with the trial, as they had already decided to expand their cross-Channel hydrofoil service, purchasing two second generation Boeing Jetfoil 929-115s to operate between London and Oostende at a cost of $23m (approx £10m).

Due to delays in relocating their London pier to St Katherine’s Dock, this service restarted on the 29 February 1980, with Jetferry One the first Jetfoil 929-115 and the Flying Princess operating until the second new Jetfoil was delivered, unsurprisingly named Jetferry Two. Once that occurred, the hydrofoils provided three round trips per day with a journey time of 3 hours 45 minutes during the peak season of March to October, starting with morning departures from that arrive at their destination around noon. For the shoulder months of November and February there were two return trips a day, and December to January just one quotidian crossing. The adult single fare was around £22, a price point between existing air and ship-train fares, with airline type meals provided onboard.

The -110 and -115 version numbers referred to each model’s tonnage, with the -110 Flying Princess fitted out with 195 seats, whilst the next generation 929-115 had 259 seats. Both models had two passenger decks in a wide-body airliner two-aisle layout, the upper deck saloon having about 50 fewer seats. But all seats were the same class.

Each Jetfoil had a Captain, First Officer, Engineer, and up to five cabin attendants (depending on the anticipated loading), with all six sets of crews based in London. The Flying Princess, being leased and still US registered, required an American captain.

P&O had an option to purchase additional Jetfoils, and was evaluating other possible routes such as London – Rotterdam on which a Jetfoil could provide faster, reliable sea travel with new standards of comfort and service compared to both regular ships and the cross-channel hovercraft services.

These hydrofoils were much quieter than hovercraft, and provided a much smoother and vibration free ride as well. The Flying Princess had comparable reliability to the SR.N4 hovercraft ferry, around 75-80 per cent.

One journalist noted that a drink placed on a seat-back table of a SR.N4 would quickly vibrate off even in calm seas, whereas at similar speeds in 3-4 metre high waves a drink on a Jetfoil would stay put. Plus the Jetfoil had less overall motion at 42 knots (48 mph) than a North Kent commuter train at 60mph.

P&O Ferries targeted 250,000 passengers for 1980, despite the February start of service, and projected up to 350,000‎ annual passengers. The company marketed the service as “Plane Sailing”, emphasising the central London departure and onward European rail connexions from Oostende. In the first fortnight of service, 70% of passengers were European and 30% British, which echoed the London – Zeebrugge demonstrator service demographics.

The ‎’Jet-Set Special’ offered passengers discounted short stays in Oostende, Bruges, Bruxelles, or Antwerp starting at £109 including first class rail travel, compared to the regular return airfare of £99.

Motion on the ocean

Boeing’s worldwide experience was only 5 per cent ‎of its Jetfoil trips were cancelled due to rough seas. However in evaluating the cross-Channel route, P&O had overlooked the large percentage of Channel sailings that occurred in darkness. This greatly restricted the captain’s visibility of the waves, so it was not possible to set the foil depth accurately to smooth out the ride. The Jetfoils had an automatic wave contour mode, but in practice this gave a more jerky ride. Nor was this mode able to avoid larger waves.

The Jetfoils were ideally suited to calm seas. But the choppy seas of the Channel produced a fore and aft pitching motion that sometimes caused the rear strut to come out of the water. The Jetfoils were powered by a water jet propulsion system, and this strut contains the pipes that suck the sea water into a pump, powered by the two gas turbines, which propel the water to produce the forward motion. However when the rear strut comes out of the water, propulsion is lost and the gas turbines shut off automatically, which decelerates the craft very quickly and drops the vessel to hull borne operation. In 6ft mid-Channel swells, this provided quite an unpleasant ride.

The struts can retract and in areas where they are operating in confined waters where low tide in harbours may expose underwater obstructions.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) sea state code had largely adopted the ‘wind sea’ definition of the Douglas Sea Scale, wherein these sea states have the following wave heights:

4 – 1.25 to 2.5 metres (4ft 1in to 8ft 2in)

5 – 2.5 to 4 metres (8ft 2in to 13ft 1in)

The Jetfoils on the foils were limited to sea state 5 by day, and sea state 4 by night, as the foil operator needed to visually gauge the wave pitch.

Sand in the gears

One of the Jetfoils became stranded on the Goodwin Sands off Sandwich and had to be brought into Ramsgate Harbour by the RNLI. The Jetfoils were susceptible to the severe weather conditions in both the Channel and the North Sea, and sometimes broke down mid-journey. Shortly thereafter P&O closed down their Jet Ferries division in September 1980 and sold its almost new Jetfoils.

Other Boeing Jetfoil fast passenger ferry services were operated from Newhaven to Dieppe and Brighton to Dieppe in the early 1980s, but these services quickly became commercial failures. One of the problems for these craft was their mechanical unreliability.

British Rail expands its surface skimmer game

Notwithstanding Jetfoil reliability issues, London was to be connected to the Continent again by Jetfoil and hovercraft, this time by British Rail trains from London Victoria to Dover.

On May 17, 1981 the new Inter-City Europe program was launched to speed travellers between London and Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam or Cologne, taking advantage of the Jetfoil’s speed. Launched by British Rail, in conjunction with European railways, it operated special refurbished trains between improved terminal facilities at London’s Victoria Station and Dover, and new Jetfoil services across the Channel to Oostende, Belgium.

The rail – Jetfoil link was advertised as cutting the London-Brussels time to five and a half hours from the standard eight hours, and the London-Cologne time to 8 hours, 15 minutes from the typical 11 hours, 45 minutes. It would be possible to leave Cologne as late as 3pm and Brussels at 6pm to arrive at Victoria by 22:30 that evening. Unremarked was the fact the London – Zeebrugge service had been even quicker.

The Inter-City Europe fares remained the same as the current ones, except with a $12 surcharge in each direction for taking the Jetfoil. For example, the one-way fare from London to Brussels in Economy Class was £28.60, and in First Class £34.10, with the Jetfoil supplement included.

On the Inter-City Europe run between London and Paris, passengers travelled between the heart of each city in five hours, 40 minutes, using the Seaspeed hovercraft between Dover and Boulogne and SNCF turbo trains from the Boulogne Hoverport to Paris Gare du Nord, beating the traditional running time between London and Paris by two hours.

This new service wass based on a redesigned International Services Timetable, which would bring more than 120 key cities in Europe, as far away as Hamburg, Basel and Toulouse, within same day travel with a morning departure from London.

Cross-channel service was also increased, with 13 trips a day to Paris (five by hovercraft and eight by ship), 11 to Brussels (four by Jetfoil, two by hovercraft and five by ship), and eight to Cologne (four by Jetfoil and four by ship).

Royal Navy Jetfoil EVALUATION

A military version of the Boeing 929 Jetfoil was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1980, christened HMS Speedy, to evaluate its characteristics in the UK ‘Offshore Tapestry’ role for fishery patrols in the Fishery Protection Squadron. She was evaluated for about two years, but was determined not to be sufficiently sea worthy to operate reliably in the North Sea.

Jetfoil Commercial evaluation

We in London Reconnections always prefer hard data, but in its absence anecdotal evidence can be informative, and in this case confirms the Royal Navy experience. A colleague of the author had taken one of the P&O Jetfoils to Belgium a few times and reported that that they were very vulnerable to bad weather, with services cancelled if the wind strength went over sea state 5. As this applies on about half the days of the year in the English Channel, Jetfoil service reliability was appalling. Passengers were transferred to next available conventional ferry, typically a three to four hour delay, which broke any onward connections. This weather problem also applied to the Channel hovercraft, which also had the bane of excessive noise onboard.

So hydrofoil services between Britain and the Continent were possible, but there were many different variables involved, such as pricing, hydrofoil robustness, maintenance regimes, etc that made a sustained commercially viable service difficult. Realising this, BR cut its losses after a season. Some observers noted that British Rail did not even ensure that transferring passengers could find the berth from the railway station.

However Belgian ferry company RTM successfully operated two Boeing Jetfoils between Ramsgate \ Dover and Oostende from 1981 through to 1997, apparently with a more aggressive maintenance regime.

I love that dirty water

There was a serious hazard to hydrofoils of driftwood and flotsam on the Thames, which intensive efforts by the Port of London Authority (PLA) was gradually reducing. Whilst a Jetfoil’s foils were able to chop through a 0.5m diameter log without damage, the Raketas and the Jetfoils had trouble hitting a number of floaters on the Thames, often damaging the fins, foils, and propellers. Which says more about the condition of the river in the 1970s and 1980’s than the ships.

Hydrofoils are fuel thirsty, and operating such ships during an era of high fuel prices whilst trying to compete with competitive fares did not allow such a service to wash it’s face. Unfortunately, due to the poor economy and high inflation, passenger loadings were rarely high. For a new mode of transport with less than ideal reliability, full seat utilisation was very difficult to achieve year round.

Thames Speed limits, finally

The Port of London Authority (PLA) has since set speed limits for vessels. The PLA Byelaws refer to vessels moving “through, on or over the water” to include hydrofoils and “air-cushion vessel operating in the non-displacement mode”. In addition, seaplanes and flying boats are prohibited from landing on or taking off from the Thames above Tilburyness, unless they have obtained permission from the Harbour Master (being the PLA).

The ultimate evolution of Soviet hydrofoils

Premier Khruschev had boasted in a speech early in the 1960s that ‘we have ships that can jump over bridges’, which greatly confused western observers at the time.

Western intelligence didn’t know it, but Rostislav Alekseyev had had another brainstorm, perhaps inspired by his hydrofoil powered by jet engines – why not lift the entire ship off the water to remove surface friction altogether?

Being a pilot as well, Alexeyev had experienced the tendency for aircraft to hit a cushion of air just before touching down. Called ‘ground effect’, it was the build up of air pressure between the wing and the surface. This allows greater aircraft weight for less power, meaning increased range and/or payload.

His starting point was flying boats – like a modern centaur, these amphibians are half boat, half aeroplane, and they once ruled the skies after the demise of airships in the 1930s. From the traditional flying boat layout, he created a sleeker hull for faster speed, and moved the stubbier wings to the bottom of the craft to maximise the ground effect. The Soviets called them ekranoplans, from ‘ekran’ meaning surface and ‘plan’ meaning wing.

From initial models and one person prototypes, Alexeyev discovered that the larger the ekranoplan, the higher the ground effect cushion and the greater the flight stability. So he made a huge leap to his first major vessel, the ten engine KM, with eight turbojets on the front of the fuselage to avoid sea spray, and two on the tail. She weighed 240 000 kg, but could carry 350 000 kg, at 430 km per hour. In contrast, the latest 747 freighter weighs 449 000 kg but can carry only 134 000 kg, albeit at higher speeds.

CIA analysts who first saw the enormous KM in satellite photos dubbed it the Caspian Sea Monster, as they had no idea what this enormous machine was designed for. Her small wing surface restricted it to low altitude flight profiles, which was unlike any other aircraft. But that was the point – it was not an aircraft.

It was only with the CIA’s discovery that US intelligence realized that Khruschev had been referring to ekranoplans.

The KM first took to the air in 1966. During her extensive career as a flying testbed, she was continually modified – her wingspan was altered to between 32m and 40m, and her length was varied from 92m to 106m. The two engines on the tail were moved over the cockpit as an alternative layout. Unfortunately the KM crashed into the sea in the late 1970s. The attempt to recover the leviathan from the depths was thwarted by its vast weight.

Alexeyev’s next project was multi-functional Orlyonok troop and vehicle transport ekranoplan in the 1970s, three of which entered service with the Soviet Navy in the late 1980s. He also designed and constructed the Lun attack craft, which carried six large anti-ship missiles on her back, like a flying destroyer. A search and rescue craft later proposed after the Soviet Union fell, no doubt in response to numerous submarine sinkings. However, the poor Russian economy soon meant the end of all ekranoplan development and operations. Despite periodic announcements of new ekranoplan designs since, in Russia, and ironically the large, ocean flight capable Pegasus by Boeing in the US, no new large craft have been approved.

Hydrofoils back in the USSR

At the end of the 1970s, Alekseev had been progressively demoted to a regular employee after a number of run -ins with Soviet officials. Nonetheless he started developing his next generation passenger ekranoplans, the Volga-2 and Raketa-2, to operate on the country’s rivers. On February 9, 1980, Rostislav Evgenievich Alekseev died from a hemorrhage that occurred whilst he was dragging a new model onto a frozen lake for testing. He was penniless. A monument to him stands in the centre of Sormovo on Alekseev Square – one of his Meteor hydrofoils.

Alexeyev’s life story was made into Russian television mini-series in 2019. Despite this English language poster, there is no apparent distribution yet in the West.

The problem with Ekranoplans

Ekranoplans, despite their excellent carrying capacity, suffered from a couple of major flaws. They could only achieve ground effect when the sea was relatively calm, with waves less than a metre. They were also a nightmare to fly, as it was very demanding for the pilots to maintain the ground effect. Their turning radius was enormous. And at their 300-400 kph speeds they were sluggish to pull up over ships. This effectively limited the craft to inland seas, not the open oceans as was initially hoped.

Furthermore, other than single person small ekranoplans, no other country or company has made a viable commercial or military version. So there was to be no bridge jumping ekranoplans skimming the rivers of any country.

Post USSR/CCCP hydrofoils

The Soviet Union reportedly produced over three thousand hydrofoils of over a dozen types, plus a few ships in the post-Soviet period. The majority were operated in the USSR and its ‘client’ states, with a few exported overseas. Most are no longer in service, lacking spare parts or engineering support from a greatly diminished hydrofoil industry.

Soviet era hydrofoils are still plying the waters of Saint Petersburg, Russia, as tourist boats from downtown to the historic Peterhof district. Peterhof was the Tsars’ Summer Palace, built by Peter the Great to emulate Versailles. Located on the Gulf of Finland, about 20 miles from St. Petersburg city center, Peterhof is one of the must visit attractions in St. Petersburg after The Hermitage. As such, fast, efficient transport services were needed.

Two companies provide these on Meteor hydrofoils, which is the river and inland sea version of the Kometa, with smaller wings and draught. The Meteors travel the distance in 45 minutes, much faster than the round about land journey. The services are a bit more expensive, but are far more convenient than trains or buses.

Catching up with Herbert Snowball

After the bankruptcy of Airavia, Snowball took up a position with Hovermarine Ltd. In the late 1970s and moved to Nigeria to oversee the company’s hovercraft operations to reach isolated villages in swampy terrain for the government. His outgoing personality and glamorous style endeared him to the country, who made him a Nigerian Chief. He also married two local women (in succession). He returned to Britain with his second Nigerian wife and her family in 1984, and he died in Laindon, Essex in 1989. He was consistently way ahead of his time.

Niche performance

Whilst very fast and providing a very smooth ride in moderate conditions, hydrofoils were still quite noisy at speed, limiting their appeal. In this regard they were similar to the other water transport wonder technology of the same period, hovercraft. But hydrofoils also had large fuel consumption and strenuous maintenance requirements.

Furthermore, hydrofoils are light yet powerful vessels, like sports cars – ‘eggshells on razorblades’ one Jetfoil Captain called them.

Despite the exuberance that hydrofoils and hovercraft ‎stirred up in the 1970s, hydrofoils made up only 23% of the 1,570 fast craft in service worldwide in 1999, with catamarans accounting for the majority of the total, according to Lloyd’s List.

Last of the UK surface skimmers

The UK’s only remaining commercial hovercraft operation is the Hovertravel hovercraft service between Ryde, Isle of Wight and Portsmouth, which has been transporting commuters, tourists, Royal Mail, freight, and even livestock since 1965. The high speed Eurostar Chunnel service has rendered the largest and most successful of the surface skimmers, the SR.N4 Mountbatten Class, obsolete. There are now just 47 commercial hovercraft worldwide still in service, half in the Far East – military and search & rescue are the predominant uses these days.

The barrier that hydrofoils couldn’t break

It is now clear that these early attempts to break through the Thames passenger ferry commercial barrier were doomed to fail – there just weren’t enough major traffic generators along the river until this century – no matter what type of vessel. The Docklands of the 1970s were derelict, and Canary Wharf hadn’t even been thought of, the first proposal of it being floated 10 years later. There was little riverside living in those days downriver of Tower Bridge.

The successful high speed Thames ferry service

Ironically, Thames Clippers, which operates regular and high speed ferries on similar commuter and tourist river bus services, started their first catamaran service in 2001, 43 years after Herbert Snowball operated his high speed service to Greenwich from the same pier. Snowball was a man far ahead of his time.

Once riverside living arrived en masse down river, and Canary Wharf became London’s second financial centre, TfL’s River Bus network broke through this barrier, with most of its routes eventually operating without subsidy. Furthermore, catamarans have proven to be the ideal passenger river ferry type – fast, quiet and reliable. Indeed, with frequent docking, the choice of boat type is as much about manoeuvrability as about speed. The latest Thames Clippers catamarans have water jet propulsion which allow reversing and lateral movement toward and away from piers.

The space age future on the Thames envisioned by Herbert Snowball is finally here.

And the hydrofoil dreams of Rostislav Evgenievich Alekseyev are still alive, plying the waters of Russia, Austria, Slovakia, and other countries. And perhaps one day, ekranoplans.

These articles are dedicated to the memory of Herbert Snowball and Rostislav Evgenievich Alexeyev.

Acknowledgements to Penny Snowball for her memories of her father and her personal photos, and to Graham Feakins, LR video curator, for his assistance in finding the many video links.

Other articles in Reconnections’ river transport series:

Prequels

Soviet fleet on the Thames (Part 1)

Capitalist hydrofoils strike back! (Part 2)

London’s First Highway series:

Part 1 – The Fall and Rise of London’s River Buses

Part 2 – The surprising success of River Buses

Part 3 – Take Me to the River – The Evolution of London’s River Passenger Transport Policy

Part 4 – Pier Pressure and Speed Limits

Part 5 – River Freight