This paper addresses the distributed leader–follower connectivity-maintaining and formation maneuvering control issue for underactuated multi-hovercraft without acceleration measurement. Firstly, a novel time-varying offset term is introduced into the position vector, which transforms the motion equation of the hovercraft into a fully actuated form. In addition, an unified bounded potential function strategy is proposed to simultaneously achieve connectivity-maintaining and formation maneuvering error stabilization without the need to design additional formation error stability terms in the controller. Then, in the absence of dynamic leader acceleration measurement, a distributed variable structure robust term is introduced into the bounded formation maneuvering control protocol, which resists entirely the influence of unknown acceleration on the system. The proposed protocol was rigorously analyzed using the Lyapunov theory. Finally, simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed control protocol.