San Juan‘s Orcas Island will start tourism
with new Griffon 2000TD

April 28, 2004

To: HOVERCRAFT, ALASKA ,

I am in receipt of your letters. I also was interested in your web site. My company is located on the Orcas Island, in the San Juan Islands. We do not have any manufacturing facility here, and so we must buy the Griffon 2000TD. It will be built in Seattle by the Kvichak Marine Industries under franchise from Griffon. That does away with the Jones Act  restrictions. We hope to be in operation with the craft by next summer. We have been involved with Hovercraft for 46 years now. I am sure it is the right time and the right place.

It will be my pleasure to have you aboard our maiden flight. The new hovercraft will go from Seattle's waterfront, and travel on to Orcas Island with several stops. What an attraction we will do for the tourist industry!
Jerry

This craft, and its forebears (variously named as the 1500TD, 2000TD, 2000TDX and 2000TDX MkII) is the most popular craft in the extensive Griffon range. As with all Griffon hovercraft, it should only really be used where its amphibious capabilities are needed rather than just its high speed. Other good reasons for purchasing hovercraft include the lack of wash/wake at high speed, and the lack of normal infrastructure for boats (i.e. no harbors, no reliable deep water channels, no pontoons/piers etc.).

In the commercial market, the applications for this size of craft have included airport crash rescue, search and rescue, oil crew boats, passenger ferries (tourist and commuter), medical clinics, dredging support, civil engineering support and exploration.

In the military/paramilitary roles, this size of craft is in service with the British Royal Marines (4 craft), the Swedish Coast Guard (3 craft), Finland Frontier Guard (3 craft), Belgian Army (1 craft), the Estonian Boarder Guard (1 craft) and Lithuanian Border Police (1 craft). Crowley Marine at Prudhoe Bay oil fields, Alaska (1)

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