Welcome back, Bluebird
An icon of British engineering and endeavour, she was destroyed in a deadly crash. But yesterday, rebuilt, this beautiful craft slid gently into the water for the first time in 51 years. And soon the roar of her jet engine will again resound across the wa
MORE than 50 years ago, a shocked nation watched her smash into pieces at nearly 200mph.
But yesterday the record-breaking Bluebird K7 hydroplane made her poignant return to the water.
The jet-powered vessel – hailed as an icon of British engineering – was racing towards a world water speed record when she flipped out of control in 1967 in a horrific crash that claimed the life of pilot Donald Campbell.
Yesterday, his daughter Gina, 71, wept as she saw the boat launched once more onto open water, pristine again after being salvaged from the depths of Coniston Water in the Lake District in 2001 and painstakingly restored.
Bluebird was successfully floated on Loch Fad on the Isle of Bute ahead of further testing which will see her jet engine fired up.
Ms Campbell – herself a former powerboat racer – spoke movingly of what it meant to her finally to see new life breathed into the magnificent craft in which her father died. She said: ‘All these years of painstaking work, dedication and love that’s gone into getting us here today is just outstanding. I can’t help but fill up. She’s beautiful.’
Having broken eight world speed records on water and land in the 1950s and 1960s, Campbell was trying to break his own water speed record of 276mph – set in Bluebird on Lake Dumble-yung in Australia in 1964 – when he was killed.
The 45-year-old died when Bluebird flipped and broke in half on Coniston Water on January 4, 1967. His final moments were seared into the national consciousness, having been captured on a chilling few seconds of film, in stark photographs, and in the haunting recording of his last words: ‘She’s tramping, the water’s not good... I can’t see much... I’m going... I’m on my back... I’m gone.’
Ms Campbell said: ‘I grew up with her. A lot of her togetherness happened in our garage, so from a child of six or seven years old I watched her incarnate. I never appreciated at that age what she represented. She was my dad’s workplace and now to see her reincarnated again after 50 or so years, it’s like deja vu.
‘Here we are in 2018, she’s futuristic now but way back in the 60s she must have looked like a space machine. It’s like a time warp seeing her on the water again. I’m blown away.’
The wreckage was lifted from the bottom of the lake in March 2001, along with Campbell’s body, his race suit still intact. A team has been working on the restoration on Tyneside ever since.
The project, involving 14 engineers, began with five years of taking Bluebird apart and cataloguing the parts. About 98 per cent of the original materials have been saved or melted down and welded back on to the boat in other forms.
After initial water tests are carried out in favourable conditions in Scotland, it is expected Bluebird will return to Coniston Water next year, where she will run at speed, though not at the velocity she reached previously.
Yesterday’s brief ‘flotation’ test – without firing up the jet engine – was simply to check for any leaks.
All going well, the engineering team hope to turn on the power tomorrow and carry out further tests over a two-week period before returning to their North Shields depot.
Lead engineer Bill Smith said: ‘We’re basically training ourselves on Loch Fad because no one really knows how she will handle.
‘We have had five years of cataloguing everything that was salvaged and another ten years of
‘I can’t help but fill up. She’s beautiful’
putting her back together. Every part has been cleaned and repaired. She looks absolutely beautiful now and she is how she should be. I’m pleased for the team. We’re happy with what we’ve achieved so far but we’ve still a long way to go.’
After the successful launch, an emotional Ms Campbell said: ‘We faced a lot of criticism for doing this. Some people thought it best to leave the wreckage where it lay, undisturbed.
‘But I always knew this was the right thing to do. It’s what my father would’ve wanted. It was like an inner voice that drove me on.’
Ms Campbell said she had felt her father’s presence by the loch, adding: ‘I’m not given to flights of fancy but when Bluebird took to the water, I felt a bolt go through me. I knew my father was suddenly with me and he was delighted by what we’d done.’