Donald Campbell’s Bluebird roars back, but Coniston Water loses out to Isle of Bute
WHEN it emerged that Donald Campbell’s jet-powered Bluebird K7 speedboat would roar back into life it was widely assumed that it would return to Coniston Water.
That was where Campbell was killed in January 1967 as he attempted to reach a new water speed record of 300mph, and where the boat and his body were eventually recovered 34 years later.
But the Lake District National Park Authority expressed disappointment yesterday when it was revealed that the hydroplane will undergo crew training in August off the Isle of Bute in Scotland. A statement on the Bluebird Project website said: “We are thrilled that, after extensive consultation with a wide range of stakeholders on the island, agreement was reached to travel to Bute in August 2018, with assistance from the British Army, to get Bluebird K7 waterborne again and under her own power for the first time in over half a century.”
But Steve Tatlock, park management team leader for the Lake District National Park, said it had been hoped the trials would have been conducted on Coniston. He said: “The park authority facilitated a change to the Coniston Water bylaws to allow the proving trials of Bluebird K7.
“The efforts of the Bluebird K7 group to recover Bluebird and her pilot Donald Campbell was the start of a long journey which will hopefully end with Bluebird resting in Coniston just a stone’s throw from where Donald Campbell already rests.” Bill Smith has been leading the Bluebird’s restoration project for the last decade. He said it was hoped that the hydroplane would later be trialled on Coniston, but that it awaited an invitation to operate on a suitable waterway.
Campbell’s daughter Gina has said: “My dying promise and wish is to see that boat back on Coniston.”