Hovercraft Construction and Racing

I have to say, I started hovercraft racing by curiosity. 
A friend, with whom I have done my license as driving instructor for boats in the water rescue service, had found an inflatable hovercraft in the classifieds and started to search for details. Soon we discovered that this boat had a history and a former owner told us to stay away from this craft. But he told us, that he might have something more interesting for us.

He got us in contact with a lady, who had bought a Scat HP on Ebay, but was not able to get the craft up and running. We ended up putting some money on the table and had bought our first hovercraft.

This has been back in 2002 and we started the training for an international racing license in Berlin in spring 2003 with the #361. At this time, we have already been infected with the hovercraft virus.

The first challenge came up, as we where told, that we would need a 2nd craft to participate in the World Championship 2004. Before we have used our craft as a team. With just a few weeks to go we started to rebuild and old Osprey craft from Scrap. In 2005 the 2nd Osprey based craft, the #362 followed. 
The 2nd Osprey had the be rebuild, with only the upper hull reused. You can check out the evolution of the 362 here.

Having two crafts the Scat HP was sold at the same price, we paid in 2002 and we have had some fun in the F S and the F 50 over the years.

In 2012 I decided to build a new F50 craft, the 2nd and now black #361, just 6 weeks before the WHC in Saalburg. The plan has been to use the existing craft in the Formula S with a new engine. The new craft should run with a Rotax 503 in the Formula 50. While the new craft worked as expected, the engine of the Formula S Craft blew up in the training.

Since then, I changed engines of the #362 back to the Rotax 503 again and as before I never failed to see the chequered flag.

The Covid crises has caused some setbacks and my 8th participation in a Hovercraft Worls Championship had been moved by two years to 2022.