15 original photos
On the suburban street where I grew up, every few weeks a levitating monster lurked over the black asphalt, blowing up a small tornado and calling alarm to all the neighborhood dogs. Sunday mornings, Dirk Vanderbilt would open up his third car garage door, roll out a trailer, offload a hovercraft, turn on the engine. The machine would lift off the ground, then Dirk would shoot down the asphalt, doing 360 spins and causing a whir across the manicured lawns. Heโd float by a few times, pulling tranced neighborhood kids like a pied piper with a gigantic fan. How Dirk came by this hovercraft or what purpose it served was a mystery; masked in this intrigue, the thought of hovercraft stuck around in my mind long after Dirk sunsetted his Sunday runs.
Thing is, thereโs no real purpose to a civilian hovercraft. The machines in toto float in a blurry space between rigidly utilitarian and completely frivolous, passing between hard definitions as easily as they pass from land to water. As odd amphibians, hovercraft live on two ends of the market spectrum: toys for the yachting-type looking to joyride from Mediterranean anchor to shore, and survival vehicles for rescue crews, who need a vehicle that can handle river currents (which hovercraft float over), operate on thin lake ice, and handle any other chore neither a dedicated land-based or water-based machine can withstand.
Renegade IQ Specs
Passengers: 2
Max Speed: 50 mph
Cruise Speed: 30 mph
Range: 150 miles
Weight: 355 lbs
Engine: 750cc, 4-stroke
Horsepower: 35 hp
A Rockford, Illinois company has a corner on this small market, and I met with a representative from Renegade Hovercraft outside of Miami to give the Renegade IQ a test drive. Heโd just left the bougie Miami Boat Show, and later that day was heading to meet with Chilean miners, recent buyers of hovercraft who intend to traverse lakes that gather in the mines. We met at a still, freshwater lake just north of the city, and he and a partner carried the Renegade off a trailer (at a claimed weight of 355 pounds, itโs easily lifted) and dropped it on shore. After firing up the engine he let the machine warm up, then turned up the throttle; the bags filled with air, and he took the craft out for a spin.