If you are envious of the recent tour of HMS Illustrious I wrote about, you might be interested to learn that it has just been announced that, as part of a weekend of Navy events,  tours of HMS Daring will be available this coming September.

Alas, not in London – you’ll have travel down to Plymouth for this one.

There will also be the opportunity to tour a Royal Navy hunter-killer nuclear submarine as well as the Falklands veteran – Valiant class submarine Courageous.

More details at Navy Days 2009 – Meet Your Navy

On a sort of related topic – this year happens to mark the 50th anniversary of the first crossing of the English Channel by a hovercraft, and the national hovercraft museum will be hosting a four-day series of events in the last weekend of July.

The museum is just outside Portsmouth and is about 90 minutes by train from London.

More details at the Hovercraft Museum.

Update: for some bizzare reason I wrote that Navy Days 2009 is being held in Southampton. It is of course, in Plymouth. Sorry!

Sorry for the appalling photo quality, but I just saw a hovercraft on the Thames heading into central London.

Normally when sitting at home, I hear unusual boats (etc) as they approach the flat and I get up to have a look at the odd noise. Today, the windows were closed so I missed this until it was right in front of the flat and I scrambled to get the camera – by which time, it was a hundred yards or so away.

Anyhow – this is an ideal time to suggest reserving a weekend for a rather special event later this year.

This year happens to mark the 50th anniversary of the first crossing of the English Channel by a hovercraft, and the national hovercraft museum will be hosting a four-day series of events in the last weekend of July.

The museum is just outside Portsmouth and is about 90 minutes by train from London – so ideal for a day out.

Still waiting for the exact details to be announced, but the preliminary itinerary sounds exciting.

• James Bond ‘Die Another Day’ Hovercraft
• Exciting Guest Hovercraft including 3 Rescue Hovercraft
• Giant SR.N4 Hovercraft ‘The Princess Margaret’ Open to the Public
• SR.N5 & SR.N6 Restoration Projects
• SR.N6 Twin Prop Open
• Over 40 Historic Hovercraft from the collection on Display

The hovercraft Museum Trust

BBC article about the Channel Crossing

Update

A slightly better photo taken later in the day when the Hovercraft was leaving London.

And finally, a close up taken on Saturday afternoon when it was back and on “my” side of the river.

As I was able to see the registration number, I was able to look up the details of who owns it and sent them an email asking if there was a specific reason why it was in town this weekend.

Seems that they hire the hovercraft out for private charters – Hovercraft Rental