News splash! 51 years on, Bluebird floats again
THE record- breaking Bluebird K7 hydroplane yesterday made a poignant return to the water more than 50 years after she was smashed to pieces at 200mph.
The jet-powered vessel, hailed as an icon of British engineering and endeavour, was racing to a new world water-speed record in 1967 when she flipped out of control in a horrific crash that claimed the life of pilot Donald Campbell.
Yesterday his daughter Gina wept as she saw the boat – pristine after being salvaged from the depths of Lake Coniston in Cumbria and painstakingly restored – once more on open water.
Project leader Bill Smith floated Bluebird on a loch on the Isle of Bute in Scotland to check for leaks.
Ms Campbell, who arrived at the lochside in a silver Range Rover with the registration K7 DAD, said: ‘I can’t help but fill up. She’s beautiful. 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.’
Having broken eight records in the 1950s and 1960s, Campbell, 45, was attempting to break his water speed record of 276mph – set in Bluebird – when he was killed.
His final moments were captured on a chilling few seconds of film, and in a 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…’
The wreckage was lifted from the bottom of the lake in 2001, along with Campbell’s body – with his race suit still intact. The restoration project, involving 14 engineers, began with five years of taking Bluebird apart and cataloguing its parts. About 98 per cent of the original materials were saved.
The project has been run entirely by enthusiasts and volunteers, supported by a crowdfunding appeal.
It is hoped Bluebird will return to Coniston next year, where she will run at speed, but will not be chasing records.