sometimes the hovercraft pilot dosent inflate the skirt fully to ride across the waves better but sometimes the wind is so strong that thy have no choice but to turn back and a few weeks before this video was published the same hovercraft lost all its rudders on one side and 1 blade snap of the other side so they probaly wanted to ruduce that from happening again hope this help you out Gosport ferry fan

I'm only about 4 years late to comment, but there's definitely some mechanical issue there. Just after it enters the sea, as they rev up, the skirt loses inflation and she is a boat not a hovercraft. The skirt is flopping in the breeze and not supporting the craft at all. They veer to port and you can see the starboard engine is not running at full speed. It is kind of hard to really tell because of camera rolling shutter but if you look at the air currents behind the craft, the port engine is producing a strong wash but there's little to nothing coming from the starboard engine). At the point the puff of black smoke is seen, that engine suddenly spins up and the skirt fills up a bit, as they limp back to land. I think they had an engine issue and took the decision to abort (correct call in my opinion). The other hovercraft that runs through the shot is doing fine against the wind and riding high.

Are we sure that they aren’t just training? Is the other hovercraft in the footage the one being used for passengers. The hovercraft the video is focusing around looks to have no one on bored but crew. Could Hovertravel be taken advantage of the bad weather. Instead of wind or technical issues. Maybe it was just a demo for new crew on bored.

Lightweights !!!

Even the power of mankind can’t compete with Mother Nature!

It looks like there was something else going wrong rather than the wind on the occasion. That black smoke from the engine might be a clue. In another video from someone else, she manages to ride much heavier seas and an easterly wind that is much stronger.

The fans at the rear can be controlled independently and the wind is so strong the hovercraft can t get going to full speed, the captains using his port engine to try and turn and the nozzles to come back in , when she comes up the ramp, the skirt looks pretty inflated to me .

Got to be mechanical failure, hence the reason the skirt lacked inflation.

Hovercraft be like: Ight, I’m out

The 2nd fan is not working , so there is not enough power to fly over the water waves level .

More mechanical issue than winds....

Well safety is first

Problem with the skirt at the back there probably caused the abort. It clearly is sitting too low in the water at the stern, better to be safe than suffer any further damage.

IF IT CANT HOVER ....... IT CANT FLY ...... INFLATION SEEMS THE PROBLEM PLUS ENGINEDDONT LOOK RIGHT ALSO ....... BEST PLAN CARRIED OUT RETURNING SAFE

Yeah I'm with you on that one too! At least with the two new craft they should be more reliable and being more powerful and having larger propellers and ducts they should be in a better position to fight against strong winds and rough seas.

the cushion isnt fully inflated.. thats why.

Mechanical issue.

msg me!

Definitely mechanical failure...