New role for river rover

In April 2000, following the epic flooding that took place in Mozambique and HoverAid’s use of a Mark 4 River Rover to get to 10,000 people marooned on mud flats, a smallgroup of HoverAid volunteers offered to do some work on the oldest of our River Rover hovercraft (a Mark 3) in case it too could be used for flood relief work.

RR308 was used on the British Hovercraft Expedition to China which flew hovercraft to the source of the Yangtze. Sadly with a highly tuned petrol engine RR308 isn’t really suitable for locations with variable fuel quality.

It was decided to completely refurbish the craft, re-build the engine, and re-fit her as a demonstration and training vehicle for use here in the UK.

What better way toshow aid organisations the potential of these amazing vehicles than to take one with such an illustrious pedigree directly to their doorstep.

Bruce Firth-Clark, Roger Mayo, Richard Wheat and Alan Glover have spearheaded the work, and we hope to see RR308 back on the water later this year, at a church or lake near you.