The Hovertravel service has been pushed onto a shuttle service this morning after technical problems were reported with one of the craft.
OnTheWight reader Mary Craknell was on the hover just before 7am and posted the following comment to Facebook,
“The adventure has started well … The hover engine has broken mid solent and we’re limping along!”
Luckily, the Hovercraft have two engines to get them over, so it wouldn’t have been too much of a problem, although may have delayed bus or train connections.
We’ve requested further information from Hovertravel, but at time of publishing were still awaiting a response.
Update: 9.19
A spokesperson from Hovertravel told OnTheWight,
This morning, on the 06:45 service from Ryde, Freedom 90 had a fuel pump failure but continued on to Southsea, arriving 5 minutes late. We operated a shuttle service with Island Express during the commuter period and the service is now running to the normal summer frequency of 30 minutes.
Thanks to Linda Bassett for the heads-up.
Article edits: Headline changed from ‘Hover engine failure mid-Solent leads to shuttle service’ to ‘Hover fuel-pump failure mid-Solent leads to shuttle service’
Image: Access Denied under CC BY 2.0
