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Portsmouth - Blog Posts
Turisteando en el EastCoast #eastcoast #portsmouth #leal #levl #levlmx #producer #bless #cool #trip #dharma #placemaking #counselor #design #ods2030 #newhampshire #coast #yeyeye #dreadlocks (en Portsmouth Downtown) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgIID_FpBGa/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Also in Portsmouth harbour in August 2012, also not powered by aircraft engines: the Italian Navy's training ship Amerigo Vespucci.
As explained in Oceanliner Designs' video on the ill-fated Kobenhavn, even after steam had become the prime mover of the world's warships, navies still valued sailors who could operate a fully-rigged sailing ship. Hence training vessels were still built with sail in mind, and are still in use in that capacity today, such as France's Belem, built in 1896, which recently carried the Olympic torch from Greece to Marseille, and Italy's Amerigo Vespucci, built in 1930, which also carried the Olympic torch for the Rome games in 1960, and is basically on a perpetual world tour.
Funnels are clearly visible on this side view, as, like most sailing ships today, other engines are provided, at least for safety when the wind cannot be used. In fact, the Amerigo Vespucci's Diesel engines received a serious upgrade not long after these photos were taken in 2012.
Speaking of 2012, that was the year the replica of the Bounty sank in a hurricane. It too was a sailing ship with Diesel back-ups, and Brick Immortar has a full video on the incident, which includes one of the daftest quotes I have ever heard - I struggle to believe the narrators could say it with a straight face -, with the captain claiming, in the context of sailing near a hurricane, that "a ship is safer at sea than in port."
"Take the aircraft engine out!" - the AP1-88 hovercraft
The Tim Traveller has just dropped a video about the massive SR.N4 car-carrying cross-channel hovercraft (which got a mention here) on display at Portsmouth, and he notes that there is still an active hovercraft service between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. That reminded me that I had a couple of pictures of that, and I thought I was primed for part 3 of "stick an aircraft engine in it". Two problems though.
First problem, the pictures aren't great. Taken in 2012 from the Mont Saint Michel ferry exiting Portsmouth harbour with my previous camera, which had a less powerful zoom and a lower resolution than my current one. It's still enough, in conjunction with the Wikipedia page on Hovertravel, the company that operates these vehicles, to narrow it down. The hovercraft can only be one of two vessels, the Freedom 90 or the Island Express (squinting at the bow it might be former), but the exact identity matters little. Both are of the same type: an AP1-88 built by the British Hovercraft Corporation, successor to Saunders-Roe who built the big cross-channel model.
And that's where the second problem arises: the AP1-88 is not powered by aircraft engines! It is powered by 4 Diesel engines, making it much quieter and more economical to run, while still capable of reaching 50 knots. It shows that passenger hovercraft transport is possible without gas turbines, and Hovertravel's current fleet consists of two Diesel hovercraft built in 2016 by Griffon.
Nonetheless, chalk up the hovercraft as something I have seen in action!
