Lake Geneva a Picnic on the ice

Lake Geneva was the playground of the rich and famous for several years while Hugh Hefner had the Playboy mansion up there so some of the homes along the lake are rather large and impressive. One of those mansions is the Wriggly mansion, which is an old school building that stands out in a stately manner. The grounds are well kept and yet the place has kind of a haunted look about it. Then there were some other homes along there that were pretty cool and I thought if this was summer we could have a picnic right here. Since my 800 sports the GM 350 V-8 liquid cooled engine it has a heater and defroster like an automobile, I had the winter front and the crew enclosure so it was fairly warm inside the hover cabin, even though it was only 25 outside Linda and I were very comfortable wearing sweaters and jeans so we decided since it was so comfortable we would stop and have a picnic in front of one of the mansions. So there we were on that twenty-five degree day in February sitting in front of a mansion sipping a soda and munching on a sandwich talking about how we were the only ones doing the things we were doing. Do you know what it is like to have the knowledge that you are one of only a handful of people who first can do what you are doing and secondly are doing it? So far that was a good day! I was looking around at all the people out there on the ice there were some walking around close to shore, some ice fishing, some playing on the ice with sleds, some were ice skating, there were even 3 airplanes that came in later and landed on the ice, but we were the only ones, possibly in the entire world, sitting in a sixteen foot hovercraft having a picnic in a comfortable 65 degrees. Guys do you want to impress your lady friend take her on a picnic in a place and at a time when no one else could possibly do it and then say to her “honey there is no place I’d rather be than right here with you right now because I love you” then hand her a little “I love you” gift, now that’s romantic. You really have to try this guys it really racks up the points ya know what I mean!

Lake Geneva at 60 mph

So where to go? I had never been on the lake before so I wasn’t sure where we wanted to go. That’s the cool thing about having a hover it is seldom about where can you go it is more about where do you want to go. You don’t have to worry about the thickness of the ice and with 40 gallons of fuel on board I really wasn’t worried about the distance I probably had enough fuel to circle the lake about 400 times. This Hovertour 800 is fairly thirsty on water lapping up about 9 gallons of high-octane gas per hour but on ice its is all together different it barely runs more that an idle at around 30 mile per hour. So I figured we were only using about 1-2 gallons per hour. Even at $4 per gal I could afford to cruise all day on this. With that in mind I pointed the hover toward the middle of the lake and twisted the throttle and with that the 800 lunged forward and let out a throaty yelp as if to say “its about time you let me stretch a little”! You know that feeling you get when something cool is happening and you are there but you almost feel like you are watching it in slow motion? That pretty much sums up how I was feeling that day and when the 800 was cruising 8 inches off the surface and hitting about 60 miles per hour I thought I need to show some restraint here so I hit the button on the handle bars and slowly the hydraulic pump began to close the rear shutters and slow the crafts acceleration slightly and we tapered off to a speed of about 40. It is hard to describe the sensation you get skimming over the surface at that speed I guess it would be like being strapped to the front of an airplane while the pilot is either just lifting off or just before he touches down on the runway only you never lift off more than 8 inches and you never touch down more than 8 inches. Did you know that at 40 miles per hour on a lake that is 3 miles long you could reach the other side in about 4-5 minutes? There was no speed limit out here on the lake so it was how fast do you want to get there? I really wasn’t in a race and the purpose of being out here was to take in the sights so I thought lets drop this thing down to around 15 miles per hour and see what this shore line looks like. 

Lake Geneva continued

After unloading we were ready to launch. Linda and I had never taken the 800 on a long ride before just little hops on a frozen river and I didn’t know what to expect out of its performance on such a wide-open lake. Earlier that summer I had an engineer tell me he thought based on the design the craft would probably hit somewhere around 200 miles per hour given the right conditions and enough room to reach that speed. Today was that type of day and the lake was big enough, all that remained was my nerve and it wasn’t being very supportive of anything even close to that speed. You know as a guy something inside of you wants to try it just once but at my age I’ve learned to put that little boy in check. However I couldn’t help showing off a little and since all the people around me were avoiding the open water of the docking area I thought it would be fun to head right toward it. I started out slowly and moved the hover over by the docks and then gunned it and flew over the ice like an eagle soaring toward its next meal with the occasional wing tap on the surface my big yellow hover attacked it’s challenge and conquered it without even slowing down. The Hovertour 800 on the ground is a beast and you would never be able to move it but once on cushion it's more like a seagull or a duck floating on top of the water. I keep telling people the hover is awesome on ice because it's also a boat and will float you go where you want and don't worry about the conditions. Thin ice no ice it's all the same. The first time I flew a hover on thin ice and it began to crack as I traveled across it I almost panicked I swear all of my instincts were screaming "your gonna die" then my brain kicked in and I remembered it would float and then it became an experience you have to do to understand. After crossing the open water and returning to the ice I did a 360 spin just to make sure the crowds around me were looking and saw what I had just done. I wasn’t disappointed you could tell they were all impressed. Ok so it was a little show boating but when you got it you might as well flaunt it. With that I pointed the 800 toward open ice and we were under way.

Ice Hovering on Lake Geneva Wi

One of our recent backwater adventures was an ice adventure. If you have never been on a hover on the ice you have got to do this. February 16^th is our anniversary so we decided to go to Lake Geneva WI for the weekend and try a little adventure in our Hovertechnics Hovertour 800 twin prop hovercraft. Saturday was around 25 degrees and no wind I really like no wind days when your hovering it makes it so much nicer. We took off from the shoreline on Lake Geneva in front of The Cove Resort and Convention Center. It was the first time I had ever driven on the ice with my car so I was apprehensive even though there were dozens of other cars on the ice. I probably wouldn’t have had so much of a struggle if I hadn’t been towing a 2,000-pound hovercraft behind me. We managed to get into position and I got out and used the hydraulic jack to lift the front end of the hover trailer about three feet off the hitch beam. All that was left to do was to start the hover and let my 2,000-pound twin prop 340 horse powered beast gently slide off the trailer. Funny how that GM engine sounds like a muscle car even when it’s on a hovercraft, I hit the switch to close the shutters on the back side of the prop so that I got maximum lift with no thrust and the Hover 800 rose like a morning mist into the air and slid backward onto the ice and our Lake Geneva Hover adventure was ready to begin.