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May 2010
What's been happening. March, April.
The months of March and April have been a bit of a mystery to me owing to my having been overseas, but
here goes. (Ed.)
LAKE NILLAHCOOTIE MARCH RALLY REPORT PAUL MOTT
This month's rally was held at Lake Nillahcootie on Sunday 14 March '10. Colin Dainty gave me a call the night before to tell me he was not going to be at my place at 9.00am on Sunday morning to pick me up on the way. "How unfortunate" I said to Col but thinking "You beauty, I can sleep in!!" I managed to arrive at the lake at about 11.15 expecting to see a fleet of hovercraft flying around, but, not another hovercraft in sight. Fortunately, a short time later and David Cropley arrived. The water level at the lake is the lowest I have seen it at about 30%. Consequently there were not many other water craft there either. Dave and I unloaded craft and set off on a short cruise before lunch. We had only travelled a few hundred metres when Dave pulled into the shore with skirt cable tie issues. It seems that the $2.00 packets of skirt ties should be avoided in future as quite a large number had broken after such a short distance. We decided to head back and have some lunch. Peter Streader arrived shortly after our return and
joined us for lunch.While we were having lunch, the owner of the Lake Nillahcootie School Camp stopped for a chat and to check out our craft. Peter exchanged contact information with him as he indicated that the school camp is available to hire. It may be a good option for lakeside accommodation for a future weekend rally.
Peter unloaded his craft and we prepared to go for a cruise. Unfortunately Dave had issues with starting his craft and decided to call it a day and head off home. Peter and I set off to the other end of the lake and into the creek. It soon became too narrow to comfortably navigate so we returned to the main lake for a quick circumnavigation of the remaining wet area and returned to the launch area. A couple of coffees later and we decided to go for one last blast before loading up. As there were not many others around to bother us, I thought it would be interesting to try pushing Peter's craft with mine. This involved hovering up behind Peter's craft with his propeller blasting me in the face with thrust air and spray until the front of my craft touched the rear of his craft. Speed would have been approx 30 - 40 kph. At the point when my craft was pushing Peter's craft, Peter turned off his thrust engine and we continued travelling across the lake with Peter's lift engine providing his lift and my craft providing his thrust. Steering is limited but the exercise was good fun. I spun my craft away to disengage the push and Peter rode his craft to a stop without any thrust control. We decided to stop while we were both still in one piece and loaded up our craft. Another great hovering day!
April, Easter AGM.A rally was held at Lake Narracan over the Easter Weekend and the A.G.M. Was held during that time.
The new Committee was elected.
The position holders are;
President, Peter Streader
Vice President, Tony Westwood
Secretary, Col Dainty
Treasurer, Reece Isaac
Lake Narracan Report.Following the Easter weekend event, the water level of the lake has continued to drop, though boating (?) is still officially permitted and the 5 knot speed limits remain in place.In impromptu working bee was held on April 14th and involved filling in the “dip” in the main running track with around three metres of dirt kindly donated by Tony. Following concerns raised by the appearance of duck hides (and the discarded rubbish) out on the mud flats, DSE were then contacted and the wildlife officer explained that duck shooting was allowed on Lake Narracan during prescribed seasons. As a duck shooter supporter himself, he was disappointed to learn that rubbish and a considerable number of cartridge cases (including one live round!) had been left. However, while duck shooters are present, other legitimate users of the lake could be charged by Police if they are causing interference with the shooting of ducks. The most recent bird hide was constructed just two hundred metres due north of our exit ramp just a couple of weeks ago.Finally, Latrobe City Council recently announced in the local paper that they were intending to establish a Lake Management Group, which would include members of the various organisations, groups and other interested parties who use the Lake. While this is great news, there are some of us who thought that this committee already existed, but was in recess!
Lake Narracan Maintenance Group
Nature Report
Here we have three prime examples of members of a little known tribe of people not seen before in this area. These specimens were spotted wandering along a mud bank in the middle of Lake Narracan during the Easter holiday, after engaging in a ritual activity which involved covering oneself completely with the soft squishy foul smelling mud that abounds everywhere in this area as water levels drop.
It is believed that the use of mud covering assists the members of the tribe to protect themselves from the elements, and also offer some camouflage should the need arise.As weather conditions deteriorated, two nearby hovercraft were dispatched to rescue these people and bring them back to shore, where they immediately disappeared into nearby woodlands. Shortly after, two more smaller specimens, possibly male, were also spotted stranded on distant mudflats. They also were rescued and returned safely to shore, only to also quickly disappear into nearby undergrowth.
CommitteePresident – Peter Streader.
0409 667 954 [email protected]
Vice President - Tony Westwood.
0418 147 233 [email protected]
Secretary – Col Dainty.
0427 343 262 [email protected]
Treasurer – Reece Isaac.
9795 0328 [email protected]
Ordinary Committee Members
Schools Co-Odinators
Rob Forbes.
Ken Osmond.
Newsletter – Reece Isaac.
Contributions most welcome.
Send articles to
NOTE, NEW ADDRESS
Web page – http://vic.qhover.com
The next meeting of the
HOVERCRAFT CLUB
of
VICTORIA
will be on Wednesday the
12th. May 2010
at 8.00 P.M.
Box Hill Community Arts Centre
470 Station Street Box Hill
Hovercraft Museum at Lee on Trent. by Reece.
I recently had a little time over in England and one of the places I (along with my family) took the opportunity to visit was the Hovercraft Museum at Lee on Trent.
The hovercraft Museum has an annual open day but is not normally open to visitors so contact has to be made to arrange for a guided tour. When I rang I spoke with a man called Stan. He was going to meet us the next day.The 93Km. trip from Rottingdean took nearly 2 hours to complete. I found the seaside of the Museum easily. The arranged time was missed by about 15 minutes and a call to Stan went to answering machine, so we decided to get some lunch then visit the museum.Arriving at the main gate I was authoritatively advised that I was late, having been expected at 1300! There short wait till Stan returned and we were off to the Museum which is located in the old military seaplane base “Daedelus” As we approached the compound gates, the first thing to come into view was the SRn4s rudder fins then various other hovercraft items. The I parked in front of the “Princess Anne” and
some cockpit cabins from the no longer existing “Swift” and one other. I presented a HCV cap, tee shirt and drink holder to the Hovercraft Museum through Stan. We were then shown through to the exhibit hanger. The first item encountered was a Bristol (Rolls Royce) Proteus Gas Turbine from an Srn4. Amongst the exhibits are 2 of the hovercraft used in the 007 film “Die Another Day”, two Scrapheap Challenge constructions, various models, gearboxes, fans, propellers, models and hovercraft from early days to present day. Out side this hanger was Stan's
“Hoverhawk” that he was resorting then would be sold. It was retrieved from a swap at the bottom of a hill after having been sunk for many years. Warwick Jacobs arrived shortly before Stan had to leave and opened the Princess Anne for us to look through. Chris, another museum member, who was showing his brother and nephews through, also
gave a short narrative . We looked through the cattle section and the first (Premier) class, and the car deck. It was possible to look into the engine room as the engines were removed. We even climbed up to the cockpit. My wife was quite impressed the size of these machines. She had seen the images but
never realised how big they would be.Around the compound were other hovercraft both large and small along with a recent construction for a TV show. It involved converting an ice-cream van to a hovercraft. The show starred Richard Hammond from the Top Gear car show. Members of the museum were involved in the construction of the machine and it was donated when filming was completed. It's a little fire damaged as is usually the way these shows go but only minimally Warwick fired up his 007 hovercraft and gave Chris' nephews a quick spin in the compound.
Proteus engine
Warwick's other hover.
The second hanger contained more hovercraft that were in various stages of restoration.
We had to depart as it was getting late and the was one more thing we wanted to do.Following Chris, we went to Portsmouth to ride to Ryde in a hovercraft. A journey that takes seven and a half minutes!Returning to Portsmouth we then drove back to our base at Rottingdean. I'd like to say a good day was had by all but my wife became quite ill through the afternoon (food-poisoning?).
Arriving at Ryde
Navigating a busy waterway.
Stan describes how his Hoverhawk will look when he's finished.
The other hovercraft on the run.
After Bond, James Bond.
Hoverlark
