_________________________________________________________________________________________ Griffon Marine
business with close-knit ties with many of the same shareholders and key individuals involved from its earliest days,” begins Mark Downer, CEO.
From 2009 until last year, Griffon Marine existed first and foremost as a hovercraft design, manufacturing and support company, and remains the last of that specialization in the world outside of Russia and China. In 2025, the business rebranded from Griffon Hoverwork to Griffon Marine, with a clear strategic objective to retain its hovercraft expertise as a backbone while broadening into the wider marine market, particularly at the high end of innovation and new technology. Having developed deep expertise around an exceptionally lightweight specialist marine vehicle, the company restructured into three business units to bring those capabilities to the broader marine market.
The first is Griffon Marine Solutions, a design consultancy bringing together 20 specialists, including naval architects, aerodynamicists, marine engineers and regulatory experts, who can apply their expertise across hovercraft, hydrofoils, surface effect vessels and beyond. The second is Griffon Marine Shipyard, originally a hovercraft-building facility which has since expanded into broader aluminum boat construction with considerable early success. The third is Griffon Marine Support, a global support network, built on decades of experience servicing over 200 hovercrafts across 50 customers worldwide, now extended to serve the wider marine market.
For the last seven years, Griffon Marine has been carrying out maintenance on all Royal Marines boats used at HMS Tamar in Plymouth. Mark tells us more about this exciting scheme:“ As part of this project, we
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