The hovercraft that kept on going

Gigantic hovercrafts once carried hundreds of passengers and cars across the English channel on a cushion of air, now there's only one place left on the planet that the public can ride this unusual mode of transport all year round.

Southsea, England (CNN) — On October 1, 2000, the skirts of Princess Anne and Princess Margaret deflated for the final time. These two colossal SR.N4 hovercraft had shuttled vacationers and booze cruisers between the UK and France since the late 1960s. Now it was time to say au revoir. What prompted their retirement? Plenty. Passenger capacity was less than a quarter of the average ferry. These "Mountbatten" class hovercraft were spendy to run; after each trip, their Rolls-Royce gas turbines -- normally used on aircraft -- had to be rinsed with distilled water. The opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 didn't help. Neither did the scrapping of duty-free booze and cigarettes, which had always heavily subsidized the service between the English port of Dover and Calais and Boulogne in France.