Developed from the acquisition of the UK’s two leading hovercraft manufacturers by the Bland Group in 2008, Griffon Hoverwork brought together over 50 years of Hovercraft development, engineering design, manufacture and operator support experience stemming back to their invention by Christopher Cockerell in 1954.

The company now has more than 190 craft in operation with 64 military, commercial and rescue service customers in 43 countries.  This includes a single order for 12 large hovercraft for the Indian Coast Guard, the largest craft built in UK since 1980 (BHT 150 now operated by the Korean Coastguard) and fleets for the Canadian Coastguard, Pakistan Navy, Peruvian Marines and Colombian Marines (latter two for counter narco-terrorist operations) and Saudi Border Guard.  Commercial operators of their craft operate ferry services in UK and Canada, oil operation support in USA and Kazakhstan and project support in Indonesia.

Griffon Hoverwork has consolidated into two UK premises in Southampton and Portsmouth, has exceeded £30m in annual turnover and, as a respected mid-scale UK marine manufacturing business, won the Queens Award for Export, the National Apprenticeship Employer of the Year Award and is a UK Government export representative.

As the world leaders in the design and manufacture of hovercraft – marine vessels which can access shallow water, land transitions, obstacle strewn river rapids and flooded areas where conventional boats cannot operate – Griffon Hoverwork offer a range of craft stemming from a 5 man special forces or rescue craft through endurance patrol craft and 80 to 200 person ferries to a design ready to support amphibious forces deploying their heaviest equipment, at speed, direct from open sea to dry land.

Griffon Hoverwork are respected as a company that nurtures long term relationships by acting with integrity, evidenced by returning customers, a strong supply chain and employees whose innovations are taken actively on board.  They run a quantified approach to project delivery with robust production engineering and visual workshop project control.

Adopting a strong culture of quality engineering, lean manufacture and assurance processes, they have been certified ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018.  In delivery of an unusual marine product, they are very used to working to the standards set by classification societies, national government marine regulators and international armed forces fleet authorities as well as the stringent supplier standards expected by major corporates including oil and gas and shipping entities.