Since May was shaping up to be the wettest May on record in the Atlanta area and the whole Southeastern US had pretty much been deluged with excessive rain, we didn't really know what to expect weather wise for our Smokey Mountain Cruise. However, we had parties from four states including OH, SC, KY and GA brave the elements and gather in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. Stan Sykes and his dad would be flying a handsome, very patriotic red, white, and blue UH-13T with a very s-m-o-o-t-h running Suzuki Swift 4 cylinder engine that put out plenty of power and a 12.5 hp Tecumseh OHV lift engine that also had power to spare. He and his wife Kristen pulled it down from Youngstown, OH, an eleven hour trip. His dad, Stan also, came over from Spartanburg, SC with his wife Marilyn to join in the fun. He had built a Barry Palmer designed "Fantastic" back before I knew what a hover was so he is quite experienced in hovers having built several others and having gotten his son hooked on our unique sport.

The "big" hovercraft on this cruise was a UH-17T powered by a 110 hp Corvair (oh that name brings joy to my heart...my grand dad helped me purchase a new Monza for my 21st birthday) engine and a 22 hp v-twin Briggs lift engine. It had perhaps the most beautiful finish on it that I had ever seen done with fiberglass on foam construction. The hull was just about blemish free. Tom Shulte and Leo Stamms, the builders, brought the craft down from the Florence, KY area. Louis Bondurant III from Marietta, GA (Atlanta) with his Air Commander AC3 and the writer, Harold Carter from Snellville, GA (Atlanta) in his StarCruiser made up the other half of the flotilla. Louis is pictured during last years cruise on the front cover of the MAR/APR 03 HOVERNEWS and on page 4 in the same issue in front of a dam on a tributary of the Tuckasegee.

The plan on Saturday morning was to hover the Tuckasegee River through the middle of down town Bryson City and on to Dillsboro for lunch. Knowing of serious rapids above Bryson City that Louis and I could not navigate a year earlier due to low water, we packed some snacks in case we could not make it to Dillsboro. We felt we now had a much better chance of running this section due to higher water and more flow over the rocks. Little did we know that Murphy's Law would kick in big time before the day was over.

The Great Smokey Mountains get their name form the blue haze that lingers giving each ridge a deeper shade of blue as the distance increases. The morning was beautiful and the first leg of the cruise uneventful. It was great to be on the water again after a fairly "hoverless" winter. As we progressed through the long, winding lake that used to be the river valley of the Tuckasegee, the shore line grew ever closer as the lake was slowly becoming one of the rivers that fed it. After a few more miles we came to a boat ramp and a situation you would have a problem understanding unless you saw what I am about to describe.

I have never thought about this. When a river flows into a large body of water (lake), at some point the river stops being a river and becomes a lake. The results are that the current basically stops flowing and the surface "stagnates" to a degree. So? Here is the problem. The huge amounts of spring rains washed every thing that will move from the streets to the storm drains and from the banks of the river which includes bottles, cans, foam, any type of debris that floats, old boat docks with plenty of nails sticking out, leaves, limbs, lumber, whole trees, etc. which result in an awful mess to the magnitude that I have never seen. This stretched several hundred feet up and down the river, from bank to bank and there was no way around it. Being that the best part of the cruise was yet to come, (the good stuff, white water, rocks, shoals, etc.) giving up and turning around was not a viable option. Louis was the first to go though. He made it through suffering only three or four detached bags. The 13T got through okay and then I carefully picked my way through the "floating land fill" with no damage. We waited 10 or 15 minutes for the UH-17 to come through but it never did. We couldn't see because of a bend in the river. So, Louis and Stan went back through the debris field to check on Tom and Leo. I refused to go back through it so found a place to nudge my hover into and climbed up the bank and walked down the road to
see what was going on. On the way back through, the 13T sustained a rip in the bag so it had to be pulled up the ramp for repairs. Louis found a little scrap of shore line to pull up on and re-attach his bags. We were very fortunate that one of the very few ramps on the river was right where we needed it. Apparently, as the big 17 was trying to get through the trash, something caught the bag and pulled a section of the bag loose at the inside attach strip and the "garbage" started collecting in the bag and virtually clogged up the drain holes. Because a 1500 or so pound craft is not easily picked up, Tom got a ride back to the boat park and returned with his van and the trailer to retrieve the 17. Louis went through the obstacle course one more time, leaving the other two hovers behind to nurse their wounds and then we went on up the river as far as we could and ended up turning around at the same point as we did the last time we ran the river. We had hoped we could get over the rocks due to more flow with the rains but it just looked too dangerous and we did not desire to push the envelope. I want to point out here that Louis and I always wear our PFD's knowing that once you are in the water, they serve no purpose inside your craft. Upon returning to the ramp and through the floating garbage dump one last time, we found that the two Stans had gotten the tear sewn back up. So the four hovers headed back to camp, three in the water and one on the trailer.

About a mile before making it back to camp, the muffler decided to break at the mount on the UH-13T lift engine. There were a couple of silver linings here: 1) the muffler dropped on the bag side of the air splitter and didn't sink in 500 feet of water; 2) the mount gave up about 1 mile from home base so Stan and Stan air boated back to the boat park. As a note, the muffler and mount were all factory with no mods. So, if you are running a similar engine with stock mounted muffler, you might consider a brace or two for the muffler.

With half of our fleet in dry dock, we decided to use what was left of the afternoon to visit Fontana Dam, the highest (over 400feet) dam east of the Mississippi. This was built during WWII to power the aluminum plants nearby that furnished material for the bombers and fighter aircraft that helped us win WWII.

Sunday morning was overcast and the threat of rain looked very real so we all packed up and headed our separate ways. Almond Boat and RV Park turned out to be a great place to have a hoverin. The cabins were very clean and comfortable and the shoreline provided a nice, easy transition without having to use the boat ramp. Perhaps more of you can join us for next year's Smokey Mountain Cruise. In the meantime, I hope to see many of you at this season's events.