Back in the summer of 2007, Edinburgh briefly went hovercraft daft as thousands queued up for the trial of a proposed new service linking the capital with the Kingdom of Fife.
But while the numbers eager to try out the service far outstripped expectations, the plan was sunk at the final hurdle - with Edinburgh Council blamed for "killing" it stone dead.
At the maiden trial on July 16, 2007, a crowd gathered at Portobello Beach as rumours spread of a bizarre object on the horizon.
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Gliding towards them at what seemed like mach speed, the space-age craft appeared to be floating on a cushion of air, growing ever larger as its jet black outline hovered into view.
Across the glistening Forth waters lay a mystical, unexplored land known as ‘Kirkcaldy’ from where this alien vessel had arrived. The gull-wing doors opened with a puff of smoke and out stepped its inhabitants, the ‘Fifers,’ speaking with a strange tongue of exotic locales such as Anstruther, St Andrews and Methil.
It’s fair to say expectations for technological advancements in travel were lower in 2007, but there remains a pang of nostalgia for the glorious fortnight when Edinburgh witnessed hovercraftmania.
Under a pilot scheme operated by Stagecoach, a 92ft BHT 130 amphibious vehicle - which had previously been used on the crossing from the Isle of Wight to mainland England - was put into service on the estuary.
For a return price of £3.50, residents on both sides of the water could skim across the surface to their destination on the Forthfast in an average time of around 18 minutes while avoiding queues on the Forth Bridge.
Hailed as the future of travel between the capital and the Kingdom, tens of thousands boarded during the 12-day pilot project in July with full expectation it could become a regular fixture.
“There is a broad consensus that a cross-Forth link can deliver significant transport and economic benefits,” Stagecoach’s Brian Souter said before the inaugural launch.
And so it seemed. Around 32,000 travellers made the trip before the trial was over, with a broad consensus it had been a “major operational success”. Official plans were quickly being floated for a fully functioning service to be operational by the end of 2008.
But by 2009, the 200,000 passengers estimated to use the crossing every year were still waiting. Red tape surrounding public funding for the project, despite a Stagecoach commitment to contribute up to £10 million, had caused delays alongside arguments over the route.
The initial Kirkcaldy-Seafield journey had been favoured by the local authority, but a three-year study had found an alternative route between Burntisland and Granton more ‘commercially viable’.
Progress finally appeared to be made towards the end of the year when a tender for the service was announced by City of Edinburgh Council, with the aim of finding an operator who could run it at a profit.
Hovercraftmania had long-since expired as conversation turned to the construction of what is now the Queensferry Crossing, but the bubble was finally burst in 2011 when the local authority axed planning permission for the project.
A submission in 2009 had taken almost two years to be voted on, but councillors decided the “noise and nuisance” impact of constructing a terminal at Portobello was justification for killing off the plans - despite a recommendation from city planners.
"This has been a long and painful process,” Souter said, “We are completely scunnered and have no intention of appealing against the planning decision."
In 2014, brief hopes were raised the project may be revitalised amid rumours a new firm, named Forthfast, had reignited interest in pursuing a route, but that failed to get off the ground.
Only at a meeting of the Kirkcaldy Area Committee in 2017 - a decade after the trial took place - were the plans officially scuttled during discussions over the demolition of the former Stagecoach bus depot.
“The site is still earmarked for the hovercraft terminal but there appears little chance of that becoming a reality,” councillor Neil Crooks told members.
“Edinburgh City Council appear to have no appetite on their side of the Forth.”
The craft itself was returned South to Solent where it continued in service until 2011 before being laid up at nearby Griffon Hoverwork.
Its current status is unknown, but wherever it was eventually laid to rest, few who experienced a journey onboard will forget that peculiar period in capital history.
