(Insert Maniacal Laughing)
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When I bought the Hurricane, little did I know it was supposed to come with a title. I'd long since lost the address, let alone phone number, of the gentleman whom I purchased the hovercraft from. Even had I done so, I doubt he would have had the title or received one when he had the Hurricane. A call to ODNR gave me the information I needed and a trip to the Title Agency finally allowed me to get my Hurricane legal and ready for when I go to register. |
I know I made it sounds nice and easy but, in all honesty, it was phone call after phone call told to go from Point A to Point B and back again. This process easily took me six weeks to get completed. This was not a fun time in the ownership of the Hurricane. During this, I also found out there are limited waterways in Ohio where I can ride this, mostly thanks to a few irresponsible riders from about the time I was born.
| Months passed and I looked into replacing the skirt which I knew had holes and was failing. It was picking up snow and gravel and air could be felt escaping. I knew the performance of the Hurricane was suffering as this is a vehicle which relies on air pressure. The skirt was also about as flexible as my wife (duck!) or an old army tarp which had been put away wet years ago. From underneath we were also hearing a popping when loading the Hurricane on to its dolly. I had a feeling there was something wrong under there. Finally, the decision was made to turn the hovercraft onto it's side and have a look. | 
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The holes in the skirt were larger a more numerous than I thought. I will have to admit, though, that I was impressed the whole skirt inflated through a little 4"x6" (10cm x 15.25cm) opening. It was only a small part of the larger opening that actually forced the Hurricane to hover. This thin really sucks. Air. I mean it really sucks air! Gulps copious amounts of...oh, never mind.
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The damage to the underside was quickly apparent. Aside from the expected scratches, there was a 4" (10cm) crack we could see which extended under the inner-edge of the skirt. Based on the hasty assumption the screws holding the skirt to the hull would be cooperative, we decided to remove them. Three hours later with sore hands we put away the screwdrivers, hammer, and vice-grips. Thankfully, after all that, the crack only extended slightly more than what was visible. The other nice part about all this was we were able to see where two runners had been screwed in at one time to the bottom of the hull. As they were completely disintegrated, I can only believe they were made of wood. |
At this point another hiatus was taken, this time because my position at Auto Trader was eliminated, followed a few months later by the whole location being eliminated. There was a scuttling of the complete publications arm which is why you no longer see the magazines for sell. As you can imagine, this left little time to work on a hobby when a house payment needed to be made. After eight months of searching, and a year at my new job, it was time to get back to work.
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