Climb aboard the mighty sr.n4
Step aboard the sole-surviving Dover Calais passenger ferry that took 60 cars and 427 passengers across the channel every day for over 30 years.
Donate
Your support is vital in helping us preserve and celebrate the incredible history of hovercrafts. Whether you wish to contribute to our collection, make a cash donation or provide goods and/or services, every bit of support makes a significant difference.
Thank you for your generosity and support. Together, we can ensure the Hovercraft Museum remains a unique and inspiring place for future generations.
Donating Items for Our Collection
Please do not come to the museum to make a donation without having contacted us first.
Being the main organisation that focuses on Hovercraft and Hovercraft related archive and exhibits, we often receive donations to be added to our collection.
If you’d like to add to our collection then we’d love to hear from you! In the first instance we would need to involve key members of the team in any donation, so we recommend you make contact us via our Contact page by clicking the link below.
Monetary Donations
General donations help us with the day-to day operations of the museum. These funds are used to maintain our exhibits, support our educational programs, and ensure the museum remains a vibrant and engaging place for all visitors.
In Person
We welcome donations in person during your visit to the museum. Please speak with our staff at the ticket office or café to make a contribution.
We accept cash and cheques. Please make your cheque out to: The Hovercraft Museum CIO
PayPal
Donating via PayPal is quick and easy. Simply click the PayPal button below to make your contribution securely online.
Significant Amounts
If you’re considering making a significant donation to the museum it is something we’d greatly value – it is the generosity of the public which helps keep us going.
We may need to collect some extra information about you to ensure that we can account for your donation correctly, and ensure we comply with our charity and financial legal obligations.
Specifically For
If you have a particular interest in a specific project or initiative, you can direct your donation to that area. This could include:
Restoration Projects
Educational Programmes
Exhibit Enhancements
Other Project, Aim or Initiative
For donations of the above donation, please contact us first by phone, email, or even utilising the contact form that has these options preprepared. We massively appreciate all your support!
In Kind Donations
Providing us with cash is not the only way you help support our operations. Many people choose to help support us in other ways with their time and becoming a volunteer (see our volunteer page for more info) or by buying/providing us with services or equipment that we need.
If you have something you’re not using anymore, a business that can oer us free or at-cost services, or just prefer to know what your money went towards, then this is a great way to donate. Take a look below at our Needed Equipment list. We need a wide range of equipment to fulfil our various operations and projects. Some of this equipment is expensive or hard to come by. If you have any of the items below that you no longer need, are willing to donate or supply at cost, or loan free of charge it would make a large impact to our operation.
"Boom Type" Cherry Picker
We are in need of a boom-type cherry picker equipped with a valid LOLER certificate. This equipment is essential for safely accessing high areas on our hovercraft, such as the pylons and fins of the Princess Anne, for restoration and maintenance. Additionally, it will allow us to perform roof repairs without causing structural disturbance by walking on the roof.
Wood/timber/ply
For use in building stands and parts of displays. It is also useful for making jigs/templates, and effecting repairs.
Sikaflex
For sealing craft roof leaks – predominantly on the SRN4
Aluminium Sheets
For patching roof leaks in our hovercraft and repairing corroded parts.
Press Brake or Bending Machine
A press brake or bending machine of a medium size to be used to create parts to repair our hovercraft.
Industrial Size Heated Pressure Washer
To replace our broken industrial pressure washer which has broken.
Garden Hose & Fittings
Garden hose and fittings to allow us to extend our existing hose to reach further around the museum site to effectively clean our craft.
Ubiquiti UniFi network equipment
Any Ubiquiti UniFi switches (particularly PoE) and access points which are still in support for the current version of UniFi controller. We’ll use the equipment expand our existing UniFi network to fill the whole museum with networking. This will allow us to offer visitor WiFi which will in-turn facilitate the rollout of a digital app system to allow audio tours and consuming of other media from the archive. It will also enable us to add more digital interactive displays, donation points and environmental monitoring around the building.
Ubiquiti UniFi Protect camera equipment
Any UniFi Protect cameras to add to our existing system for more coverage, and a UNVR console to add to our existing deployment. This will make monitoring of our site easier and less time consuming for our volunteers, and that we can migrate away completely from our legacy CCTV system.
Server Equipment & Hard Drives
We need rackmount servers and hard drives to run our local services currently running on commodity hardware without redundancies. With this equipment we can build out a resilient network of servers to receive our digitised archive material and run our other systems like our phone system, environmental monitoring and digital displays.
Programmable Business Radios
To allow our team to communicate around the site we’d like to be able to replace our ageing radios with some professional radios that are programmable and compatible with a UK Business Radio Basic licence.
What people say
Lovely museum! My kids really enjoyed climbing into the hovercrafts and doing the treasure hunt. They were even allowed to climb into one used in the James Bond film!
Clare Barraclough
