Hearts Racing for Hovercraft Homecoming

Canberra Times
20 Dec 2003

By Peter Brewer

  [Click for a high quality picture]   

For technology nutters, kids and gadget freaks, nothing beats a hovercraft for sheer curiosity value.

And they'll all be making a beeline for Lake Burley Griffin late next year when Canberra celebrates it's curious claim to fame as the site for the world's first hovercraft race.

(As seen above) Hovercraft builder Owen Ellis and enthusiast Sam Waugh were skimming around the lake and its shores yesterday to select a suitable location to recreate that historic occasion, then settling their craft to extol the virtues of a form of transport still rarely seen and only vaguely understood.

Back in 1964, when 12 hovercraft faced the starter's gun over a short course between Sullivan's Creek and Yarralumla Bay, they were even stranger still.

"Hovercraft have come a long, long way since those early days." Mr. Ellis said.

"Those first designs barely worked. The technology was so new that people used any sort of engine they could get their hands on."

In 1964, only five of the 12 hovercraft finished the so-called (as it was billed at the time) "space-age race". Top speed was 48km/h achieved by Mr A. Powell.

But the first race succeeded in pulling a big crowd. Some 30,000 people lined the lake shores 40 years ago.

The 2004 celebration is hoped to attract more than 60 hovercraft, although international interest may be restrained by the event's timing, coming just three months after the world championship in Berlin.

Mr Ellis, a Qantas engineer who admits to a "passion and fascination" for hovercraft, hopes to bring a new race machine here, capable of over 120km/h.

He designs the Renegade hovercraft, which are produced from Mr Waugh's workshop in Oak Flats, south of Wollongong. Mr Waugh's son, Robert, is the world Formula S hovercraft champion, winning the title in Indiana last year aboard a machine of Mr Ellis' design.