Bluebird Rebuild. Read Between the Lines.

[Lakesailor]

I don't agree with the rebuild of Donald Campbell's wrecked Bluebird K7 anyway. The history in the boat is the wreckage. But the people in charge of the project ( and particularly Gina Campbell, but she is not impartial) want to re-build it and get it water-worthy again.

However the re-build is slowing down and the excuses being given are fairly pitiful.

"It's never been tried before. People have made new panels but trying to resurrect old ones and make them into new ones while making sure it flows nicely has been a bit of a challenge.

It has been tried before. If he had seen the documentary about Jaguar's lightweight E-types he would have seen one original car which was completely wrecked had been restored using the original panels.
I think they have gone down entirely the wrong road.
This has been rumbling on for years now and he hasn't a target for completion.

 

[wizard]

If I remember correctly there was a serious family split about raising it anyway.

Some things are best left alone ...

 

[RichardS]

As a teenager, I remember watching that final fateful Coniston run on the BBC with my Dad all those years ago. It was live I think and very shocking.

I don't know whether I would like to see her rebuilt.

Richard

 

[tcm]

I met some peeps who had a big boat next to us in S of france big-lettered name BLUEBIRD on the stern and i said humm that's a rather special if not reserved and contentious name for a boat isn't it? and they said well, this is Gina Campbell and i sed oh er well i spose that's ok then, ahem. So we got chatting.

From their initial PoV it's a grave, really, but others had initial plans to raise it and put it on show "as is". Cos yes, as lakey sez, the history is in the wreckage, that TV footage very memorable even tho some of us barely at school. Apparently Gina sed well hum ok you can show it as a wreck PROVIDED that right next to it you display the smashed Mercedes in which Princess Di died. See? So ahem, fair enough, the plan shifted to fix it up.

I think it fair enough the Gina is "not impartial" really?

There's money to do things, but not sure how badly we all ever need to see it run again? As a fixed-up non-working museum piece, fair enough imho. I suppose.

This should def be in the mobo dept really, btw!

 

[Lakesailor]

What the underwater lights and polish forum? Not really.

Her argument about the People's Princess is pretty vacuous. She wasn't using the Mercedes to break any cross-Paris records.
Besides that the main thrust of the existing exhibition in the Ruskin Museum in Coniston where the Bluebird will be on display is a video loop of the Bluebird crash. The crash is what locks the history to the lake district and Bluebird K7.

 

[Robin]

Is it Gina that owns the Bluebird restaurant in Lymington? Campbell's Bluebird record breaking landspeed car is now on display in the Speedway museum here in Daytona and by chance(we were lunching in a local cheapie Bob Evans restaurant opposite) We watched them crane the car off a low loader truck when it arrived at the Daytona Speedway racetrack.

 

[pvb]

I've been thinking about underwater lights....

 

[tcm]

I've been thinking about underwater lights....

Hum, not polish then?

 

[tcm]

What the underwater lights and polish forum? Not really.

Her argument about the People's Princess is pretty vacuous. She wasn't using the Mercedes to break any cross-Paris records.
Besides that the main thrust of the existing exhibition in the Ruskin Museum in Coniston where the Bluebird will be on display is a video loop of the Bluebird crash. The crash is what locks the history to the lake district and Bluebird K7.

I kinda think the crashed K7 would be better left alone.

These days it seems "vacuuous" is only used to describe/denounce/belittle what women say, never what men say. Oh well.

 

[pvb]

Hum, not polish then?

Don't mind which country they come from.

 

[Lakesailor]

I kinda think the crashed K7 would be better left alone.

These days it seems "vacuuous" is only used to describe/denounce/belittle what women say, never what men say. Oh well.

If you take the Smith bloke who is attempting the rebuild to be a woman then you probably have a point.

 

[RivalRedwing]

wouldn't it be simpler, and probably cheaper, to build a copy and sit it next to the original left as is? The before and after comparison would be quite striking

 

[Seajet]

RivalRedwing,

sounds a great idea to me, as you say easier & cheaper ( for a grp static replica ) and in much better taste IMO.

 

[Lakesailor]

It all gets a bit messy. The Lakeland Motor Museum at the southern end of Windermere has a great Bluebird display with several replicas. http://www.lakelandmotormuseum.co.uk/campbell_bluebird.php
But it seems that Gina Campbell wants to be in sole charge of the real K7, so it won't be going there, the obvious choice, but to the Ruskin Museum at Coniston (which is close to the site of the accident. of course).
I would have thought the idea of the retrieved wreck and the replica alongside would have been by far the best outcome, but egos are at play.

 

[ValleyForge]

Whats happened with the K777 replica, run at Coniston speed trials a couple of years ago ? - A superb piece of work, even though they failed to get her onto the plane - wasn't there a bit of humbug flying around about it though ?
Personally I would have preferred Bluebird to remain in the deeps and marked as a site of archaeological interest to deter trophy hunters but too late for that now.

 

[tcm]

It all gets a bit messy. The Lakeland Motor Museum at the southern end of Windermere has a great Bluebird display with several replicas. http://www.lakelandmotormuseum.co.uk/campbell_bluebird.php
But it seems that Gina Campbell wants to be in sole charge of the real K7, so it won't be going there, the obvious choice, but to the Ruskin Museum at Coniston (which is close to the site of the accident. of course).
I would have thought the idea of the retrieved wreck and the replica alongside would have been by far the best outcome, but egos are at play.

I think there's the issue of it being where D Campbell died maybe. Plus of course, people living in Coniston aren't allowed to be buried in Windermere.

 

[NickRobinson]

I was a schoolboy on holiday in Barrow the day of the crash. We went through that afternoon and I collected some of the c. 12" polythene bags which I assume were placed in the hull as secondary buoyancy. The East of Lake shore was littered with them. One had flakes of blue paint inside.
(Don't ask, Mum threw them out a few years later in a shed clear out...)

 

[DownWest]

I thought I read somewhere that the hull had a lot of pingpong balls as buoyancy? This was before the crash, so may have changed?

 

[Seajet]

DownWest,

if it were true it might at least have given a clue where the wreck was I suppose !

Looking at the wrecked real thing, it becomes very obvious that what some people want to rebuild is effectively a complex one-off fighter aircraft, from a bent and mangled one; it could be done but would take a huge effort, almost certainly from skilled ex aircraft people.

While there are lots of retired and unemployed aircraft fitters, they are are going to be expensive to keep even if just their bed and food was paid, and without that I doubt they'd get many staying long, especially at Lake District prices.

What with the bad taste aspect as well, the rebuild idea is madness !

Display the wreckage with a model of how it was, along with films and probably a computer simulation / CGi job.

 

[DownWest]

SJ
I had a look in Duxford a couple of tears ago and they had recieved a Zero airframe. It was pretty corroded and they guy told me that they would not try to restore it, just stabilize the structure for display. ( it was incomplete too, more or less the centre section and fuselarge, no engine)