Coniston Local

Campbell's Bluebird to return to water at Coniston

Last updated at 09:23, Friday, 08 May 2009

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IT’S bewildering to think that this hunk of steelwork, rivets and sculpted metal was the boat in which Donald Campbell made history.
Bluebird K7 is being painstakingly restored from the gnarled wreckage recovered by diver Bill Smith and his team from Coniston Water in 2001.
“It looks like it’s all ribs and bones,” said Bill, from his Tyneside workshop.
His remark belies the “tinkering” involved in reconstructing Bluebird from the debris salvaged from the lake after 34 years.
Remarkably, 98 per cent of the original boat has been recovered and meticulously sculpted into the recognisable framework of Bluebird.
The boat will roar back to life next year before being permanently housed in Coniston’s Ruskin Museum.
It would be an injustice to Coniston and it’s association with Donald Campbell if Bluebird didn’t run again on the lake, but the proposal hasn’t met with universal approval.
Speaking about returning Bluebird to the water, Bill said: “We’re hoping it isn’t going to happen on the River Tyne.
“We’re hoping it will happen on Coniston Water. We just need the support of the Cumbrian people to have that happen.
“It’s a world-class attraction – as always there are elements who say ‘you might run a duck over’.”
Having promised to replace any wildfowl injured during the run, Bill returns to the job in hand – the all-consuming restoration.
“The first thing to consider is we didn’t get all of it back,” said Bill. Some was lost in 1967.
“We don’t have some bits we knew came out of the lake we could have reused.
“But we have gone and recovered every last piece.”
Without realising the inconvenience it would cause more than three decades later, Royal Navy divers scrapped the gnarled piece of cockpit wreckage, including K7’s steering box and column, the right-hand cockpit rail and
bulkheads F-18 and F-20, salvaged in 1967.
Bill Smith and his team returned to Coniston in 2007 to sift through every last inch of silt over an area of lake bed 120m long by 50m wide to recover any remaining fragments.
“If you exclude the engine, which is now a museum display piece, we’re using 98 per cent of what came out of the lake,” he said.
“Virtually everything we recovered is going back.
“All the front end was smashed in but we’ve been able to reincorporate some of it.
“Every last rivet was salvaged in 2001.
“When we went back in 2007 we pretty much cleaned the place out.
“But what you need to worry about is the bit left in a box on the shelf which you can’t think what to do with,” says the man so committed to using only original components his quest has gone global.
“All the instruments, the radio, the rivets, we’ve picked up from all over,” said Bill, who knows the boat inside out. We’ve got proper vintage rivets from 1945. We’ve sourced material for the frame made in 1955 in the same factory. That’s how meticulous we’ve been.”
Every last scrap has been diligently pieced together without the benefit of a blueprint.
Bill explained: “We have the drawings now but in many cases it was modified in its 12 to 13-year career and where the drawings do exist in many cases it wasn’t built to the drawings.
“We had to modify all the panels to make sure our skins were straight even though the frame wasn’t.
“If all we’d had was the blueprints we would have been snookered because none of it would have worked.
“We had to feel our way and break new ground.”
Another milestone was reached on December 3 when Donald Campbell’s daughter Gina set the first rivet in the final build of her dad’s
boat. Gina and I said a few words and thanked each other as well as the team and sponsors then she pulled the trigger and the gun fired with a satisfying ‘thunk’.
“At long last we’re putting rivets in instead of removing them,” said Bill.
Although the team is still at the “smashing tin with hammers” stage of the restoration, Bill is confident Bluebird will run next year.
“By the end of this year it will be more or less complete but then there’s the question of getting the systems in the engine.
“When you’re working with volunteers you can’t crack the whip.
“If they were on wages you might have some say in the matter,” said Bill, extending an invite to anybody interested in the project.
If you’re handy with a hammer you could find yourself contributing to K7’s rebuild.
If not, you’ll have a memento to take home with you.
“It will be 2010 before we’ve got a fully working exhibit,” he added.
“But she will run. Our brief from the outset was to bring her back to how she was the minute before the accident.
“Every system has to work, every control has to work and it all has to work in harmony and under load.”
But this is the infamous Bluebird we’re talking about – the boat that took seven world water speed records.
How fast will she run?
“If you ever watch at the end of Wimbledon the veterans come out and bash a ball around and you might vaguely recognise one as McEnroe – it’s a bit like that,” explained Bill.
“K7 has to look right. It’s a case of what makes her look right.
“It’s no good getting her up on plane and having her look all wrong.
“I would guess about 100mph, which is the equivalent considering when she was actually built, like driving a car at 40mph on the M6.”
Donald Campbell took Bluebird to more than 320mph during his second breathtaking run on January 4, 1967.
The water speed record attempt ended in tragedy when Bluebird somersaulted across the water, smashing upon impact.
The wreckage of Bluebird was recovered on March 8, 2001, when Bill was inspired to look for it after hearing the Marillion song Out of This World, which was written about Donald Campbell and Bluebird.
Campbell’s body was recovered from the lake on May 28, 2001.
He was laid to rest in Coniston cemetery.
“To begin with, when we were nobodies, we had the usual ‘leave him alone’.
“But Gina was behind all this. I wanted to find the boat but she wanted to find her dad,” said Bill.
“The real incentive wasn’t in finding the boat but in finding Donald.
But that left the real question of what to do with the boat and this crumpling, muddy thing was not a fitting memorial to him.
“We wanted to put it back together, which I think is perfectly reasonable.
“That’s where the impetus came from. The whole endeavour is ground-breaking.”