On thin ice. Why such fishing?

For example, October 27, 2014, two people in tow tractor got under ice in the gulf of White Sea, 1 kilometer from the shore. It happened with many fishermen watching but the drowning people could not be saved. Another death accident happened there 5 km from the shore when the machine got into the hole, one man drowned at once, the other clutching ice-edge died of hypothermia in an hour but he had managed to call the rescue service beforehand.

At that place, the ice is notorious for its fragility; it wears off because of flowing and falling tide, sea and fresh water mixing due to the Una River mouthing the sea. Weather adds to the situation if it is raining and warm. Such weather can limit access to island areas and prevent the inhabitants from getting help. “Hivus” hovercraft, which is used in such cases while moving at average speed raises water spray, so as a result the propeller-rudder system can be covered in ice and become out of order. For a small vessel, ice is as dangerous as for a plane. In order to avoid a spray rescuers are forced to cruise two times slower.

As it so happens the problem of fuselage freezing of a hovercraft does not concern our models Christy 453 and Christy 6183 due to double-deck flexible skirt preventing from spray and composite materials with a minimum possibility of freezing used to produce a fuselage.  Our hovercrafts cannot be even imagined in the real situation when, for example, a van got under 15 cm ice. Luckily, the car was slowly submerging so all the passengers managed to get out. As a result, the van drowned at 5 m depth in 50 m distance from the shore. 

The weather can play such a trick that a little warmth can lead to holes and flange ice. So fishermen can readily expect that one can go fishing walking on ice and on the way back they can find out that there is no ice at the shore.

Unfortunately, only after such accidents with a car getting into the ice-holes some winter fishing-lovers start thinking over their safety. Every year winter comes and brings us numerous order requests; people get interested in amphibious hovercrafts because a hovercraft is a unique transport that can safely cruise across thin ice, snow and water. Here is the link to the video of fishing trip, which was shot by our customers during ice drift in the Agul river in Krasnoyarsk Region. This video shows good passability of our hovercraft in conditions that seem extreme for other means of transport.

We invite all of you who are interested in purchasing a hovercraft to have a test-drive and to evaluate the advantages of this exceptional vessel.