Gliding on a cushion of air, hovercraft skim the water’s surface, reaching more places faster than traditional ferries.
The futuristic vessels debuted in the Bay Area around the same time BART was building its first test track, but unlike the space-age trains, hovercraft failed to take off. Now, with worsening traffic congestion and limited funding for new ferry terminals, the business group that brought the Bay Area BART hopes hovercraft is an idea whose time may have finally come.
Bay Area Council CEO Jim Wunderman serves as vice chairman on the Water Emergency Transportation Authority’s board, which operates the San Francisco Bay Ferry. He’ll be asking his fellow directors to consider studying the idea at its next meeting on Thursday, Feb. 8.
It’s an appealing prospect for the nine counties that border the bay, mostly because hovercraft can reach areas the authority’s large catamaran ferries can’t, said John Grubb, the council’s chief operating officer. The wingless aircraft have no draft, allowing them to operate in extremely shallow waters, eliminating the need for costly and environmentally disruptive dredging, he said.
They’re faster than large catamarans, promising to cut the time of long-distance trips, from Antioch to San Francisco for example, by as much as 30 minutes. And they’re more fuel efficient, Grubb said.
“They can be attractive not only if the places are silted-in, but on really long runs,” he said. “They don’t create a wake, so they don’t have to slow down as much or even at all along the shoreline.”
Though little used in the United States, hovercraft have long been deployed for commuter service in the turbulent English Channel, with some of the crafts carrying as many as 425 passengers and 60 cars. Today, the vessels tend to be smaller, with more frequent service, Grubb said.
But, hovercraft are no stranger to the San Francisco Bay.
Oakland piloted the first hovercraft in the United States in 1965, running two 14-passenger hovercraft for a one-year demonstration project. The vessels ferried passengers between the Oakland and San Francisco airports and between the two airports and downtown San Francisco. Operating hours were limited to daytime, which, during the winter, precluded peak commute times. And fares were high, costing $8.50 per passenger, or about $67.58 in today’s dollars.
Ridership suffered, the Oakland Tribune reported at the time. The hovercraft operated at an average 37 percent capacity in its first five months, and the federally-supported service bled money. It didn’t help that one of the hovercraft capsized on its first day of testing and then left a boat-full of news photographers stranded on its first day of service.
Nor did it help that early iterations of the craft were both noisy and uncomfortable.
“They were an adventure to ride,” said one reporter, “providing the noise of a jet plane and the comfort that could be expected atop a bucking bronco.”
Technological advances have mostly mitigated those problems, though they are still slightly noisier and bumpier in inclement weather than large catamarans, if only just barely, said Marty Robbins, who oversees the water authority’s Vallejo-to-San Francisco route, has operated hovercraft in Alaska and often consults on hovercraft projects.
“You would get the sense of driving off a well-paved road and onto cobblestones,” Robbins said. “There’s a little bit of a rumble in your seat when its in that weather pattern.”
Other attempts to revive hovercraft service in 1976 and 1984 were unsuccessful, and the only hovercraft to have a multi-year run has no practical application at all. The truly back-to-the-future Delorean Hovercraft, built by Santa Rosa native Matt Riese, can be seen sometimes skating across the bay. But even that hovercraft, which debuted in 2012, is seeing the end of its days. Riese says the vessel is up for sale.
The water authority looked at the possibility of using hovercraft for service to Hercules, Martinez and Antioch in 2011. It found that, while feasible, the prospect of introducing a new technology that’s incompatible with its current fleet was too risky. And, because the vessels park on land, there’s the added challenge of building landing sites along the environmentally-sensitive shoreline, Robbins said.
But, even if those hurdles could have been cleared, there wasn’t any money at the time to fund it, said Nina Rannells, the water authority’s executive director. Ultimately, Contra Costa County officials decided to prioritize ferry service to Richmond, which opened earlier this month.
There might still be opportunities to develop hovercraft for certain routes in the Bay Area, particularly those along the Carquinez Strait or in the South Bay, she said. There’s already interest from at least one startup, called HOVR, to offer commuter service to Bay Area employers by the end of the year, and eventually, to the general public, as well.
Co-founders Simeon Jewell and his business partner, who preferred not to be named while he still works his day job, both grew up between the Bay Area and England and rode hovercraft throughout their lives.
“It had always been a thing like, ‘Why don’t these exist in the Bay Area?’ ” he said. “And, the only conclusion we came to is that no one has ever really done it before.”
