April 2001

Monday 2nd April

Yet another mud sucking escapade into the bowels of Bluebird, does anyone want to buy some souvenir Bluebird mud? It's 3p per ton and that includes delivery, guaranteed to make your garden grow. Alain spent another evening up a ladder polishing the other side of the tail with a toothbrush, it's looking really well and there's much less missing paint than we first though. I finished the left hand side of the tail and it looks fabulous, I also painted the Bluebird emblems on the side with Paraloid to stop them from falling off.

We had a distinguished guest tonight, Mark Evans came along to lend a hand. Mark is the son of "Corporal" Paul Evans who for those of you who still don't know what I'm talking about, is "Base", as in "Tango to Base"

Like Father like Son, Mark came to work on Donald's boat just as his Dad did 34 years ago. We gave him the hoover from hell and happily let him get covered in mud.

	Before and after a good clean by Alain
	The tail after been touched up by Bill Mark after his first night of sucking mud out the hull

Tuesday 03 April 2001

More crash analysis today, after another astonishing quantity of mud was slurped out by Mark yesterday, we've been searching in there for the linkage that held the front end of the engine. The Orpheus is mounted in the centre on either side and is like a see saw. It's possible to get hold of the jetpipe and lift it up and down rather a long way. There is a linkage at the front of the engine that limits this travel and is adjustable so that the thrust line of the jet can be precisely set up. To cut a long story short, there are strange goings on with that linkage. We need to get more info on how it was assembled because all is not how it should be. Imagine what would have happened if the engine was free to rock about on its mountings on that final run? It would alternate between trying to lift the bows and trying to push them under depending upon what the engine was up to. Our great difficulty is that many of the fasteners have rusted completely away as has the outer engine case which mounted many of the components, there is enough left to work it out though. We need to speak with our AAIB man tomorrow.

This is the link rod that stopped the engine see sawing on it's centre mountings

04 April 2001

Lew Norris comes to visit

Today we had the pleasure of meeting Lew Norris, brother of Ken and the man behind the design of Bluebird's lower half. Ken is the aeroplane man and "Brother Lew" is the boat man. Lew also brought a colleague of his, Charlie Dykes, to look at the boat. Lew explained that he's been working with Charlie but only for the past 50 years so he's a relative newcomer.

We first of all had a look at the cockpit section of the wreck, it's mostly reassembled and in that form it gives a good idea how it once was. We discussed the problems of making a high speed boat, having the centre of gravity far enough back to make the vessel behave like a boat whilst keeping it far enough forward to prevent it behaving like an aeroplane. As an engineer myself I was enjoying all this technical talk but it's obvious that Lew has probably forgotten more about engineering than I will ever know!

We all then went to look at the main part of the wreck, of course Lew was straight in amongst the water brake and rudder, he explained that the leading edges of the rudder and stabilising fin had to be kept razor sharp so that the water would remain stuck to their sides at high speeds, if the edges weren't sharp the whole fin would run in a vacuum and make the boat very difficult to steer. He checked out the position of the water brake. Bluebird, once persuaded up onto her planing surfaces, was then quite happy to stay up there for much longer than was safe, her water brake produced massive drag when it was deployed and pulled her back down again, it appears to be in the fully down position now. We studied her engine installation and theorised on all sorts of interesting things relating to engine mounts, gyroscopic effects and thrust lines, it was a privilege to spend the day with Lew and Charlie, both obviously brilliant engineers and two of natures Gentlemen. I learned a great deal about Bluebird and collected some funny stories about Donald. Everyone I meet who ever knew Donald reckons that he was a wonderful character and that he would have really enjoyed being a part of the Bluebird Project. Maybe we should make him an honourary member of the team?

Lew and Charlie check out the cockpit Bill meets Lew

06th April 2001

Just another day of slurping mud today and I'm sure that it's as exciting for you as it is for us. Thought I'd tell you about one of the pieces that we lifted ahead of time to assess the scale of the conservation problem. If you watch the film of the crash, there are two objects that fly out of the spray and land a considerable distance to the north. One we believe to be the steering wheel and dashboard, the other was the complete front spar.

We recovered this on 28th January 2001. It took a lot of finding but we got it in the end. It was located by moving a search pattern in towards the main wreck site from the north. It was late in the day when we got visual on a torn piece of aluminium poking out of the lakebed. We parked one of the ROV's next to it and set about its recovery.

This dive was carried out by Bill and Graham "Beanie" Woodfine. We had about half an hour of daylight remaining so we kitted in quickly. It was a text book dive, we saw the brown muddy bottom of the lake at 38m and the ROV tether stretching away into the gloom. After carefully adjusting our buoyancy so as not to crash into the bottom and so blind ourselves with swirling silt, we set off along the tether. About 30m out along the cable we saw the dim green glow of the ROV lights. There were two pieces of aluminium poking through the silt. As I clipped a set of grips to one piece, Beanie clipped grips to the other one. We then attached a lift bag to each set of grips and partially inflated them. Next we pulled both lift bags together and attached them to a line that we'd carried down from the surface. This line is attached to the boat and is used to pull the object off the bottom. As it rises the bags expand and eventually they take over the job of lifting the object.

Having rigged the lines to our complete satisfaction, we ran for the surface. Our fingers were freezing and there was decompression to do. We were on the surface 25 minutes later, it was absolutely pitch dark and foggy when we got back, we had to use our dive lights to illuminate the back of the boat so that the crew could help us out of the water. When everyone was ready we pulled on the downline, it took six of us to pull the spar out of the mud and four of us to drag it onto the jetty after we'd towed it ashore. Our lift bags were totally inadequate.

Lew Norris looked at it when he visited and said "maybe we built it a bit heavier than it needed to be?" Either way it held the sponsons on every one of Donald's successes. It landed 130m North of the point of impact.

	Graham and Bill get ready to dive Rebreathers at the ready
	The front spar assembly back on the jetty Good job divers have lights

Sunday 8th April 2001

We've been practising with the survey equipment again. We place a tripod on the lake bed with a sonar head mounted to it. This sonar head turns like a ships radar and as it does it fires sound waves out through the water. These pulses are returned by objects on the lake bed and build up an image. It's computer generated but it allows us to see objects in the mud up to 100m away when the water is so dark that a divers lights won't see more than 2 metres.

We then send a little swimming robot down to the lake bed and when it arrives we can see that on the sonar screen too. It's then a joint effort between the sonar operator and the ROV pilot to fly the robot out to the target on the lake bed and have a look at it. If the object looks interesting we can send a diver down to retrieve it. We're now systematically mapping every single object on the crash site. We'll post some images when we've gone through this weeks data. It's amazing what you find on the bottom of the lake.

It's been a day of politics, as well as looking after the boat, we're also trying to organise her permanent home. I have always said that I will deliver the boat back to Coniston. Even if her final resting place was to be somewhere other than Coniston I would deliver her there first.

Good news however, is that there seems to be little doubt about where Bluebird will end up. She is bound for Coniston but there is a mountain of political wrangling and paperwork to get through. We'll get there though. We did some cleaning on the engine compartment of Bluebird today, we've finally turned the tide on the muck. Her engine compartment is cleaned out from the bulkhead to the back of the turbine. There is still a lot of mud under the tail but it's thin sloppy silt and compared to the stuff in the engine compartment which was full of nuts, bolts, stator blades and dissolved mag alloy, it's easy to shift.

There'll be a proper muck slurping session tomorrow and we've a couple of very special visitors as well so watch out for that update, especially the more techie people amongst you. We've got the sweatshirts sorted so if you wanted one you can have it now. The video is taking longer because we don't know what we can use until our friends at BBC1 decide what they are going to use. After all I suppose that they must have first refusal. Good news is that the documentary is due to be shown towards the end of May.

We made both BBC1 and ITV tonight as the local news in Newcastle came to see how the preservation was going. I made a nice little CD ROM for my sister who lives in Saudi, it just had a few underwater video clips and some unpublished digital stills but it was OK, if anyone wants a copy I'm sure that our webmaster (Alain Douglas) will run one off for you.

Wednesday 11th April 2001

Today we were visited by Tony James and Bill Vanryne. Tony was the project manager for Donald and the team when the boat was converted from the Beryl to the Orpheus.. He had to make it all fit in the hole, get fuel and oil into it and make sure that the controls were all connected. Some of the work was carried out at Norris Brothers in Heywards Heath, and the rest was done in the cold and wet of Coniston in 1966 / 67 Another of Tony's tasks was to sort the spray baffles into their final form. He worked long hours and said that Donald would often roll up his sleeves and muck in. "We would have done anything for him" Tony said while talking about Donald.

Bill Vanryne worked for Rotax, a subsidiary of Lucas. His job was to get the air start system working correctly. Those two steel globes above the engine were charged to 3000psi and held 45lbs of air when they were full. The engine used about 1lb of air per second when it was cranking and the crank took 6 seconds so the whole system was good for about seven starts. I never considered what was involved in getting the start system working, Bill Vanryne normally worked on high speed aircraft but on this job he just had to turn up with a box full of valves and pipes, clash it all together and make it work. He knew every valve on the boat. He later went into teaching and had two of his pupils win young engineer of the year.

Tony spent the morning trying to work out where all the pipes went to from the extra fuel pump that was fitted late in the day as Donald realised that the Orpeus was down on power. It was fascinating to meet these two engineers as they looked at their handiwork 34 years later. They had worked in harsh conditions for long hours with next to no pay in an effort to help Donald win his record. They conveyed a real sense of the team effort that went with it all back in 1966.

Friday 13th April 2001

Perfect day to go diving, Friday 13th but we were all safely back on board Predator by the time we realised. Our mission for the Easter weekend was to carry out a "forensic" survey of the impact site. This is the area where Bluebird actually hit the water. In order to do a good job we wanted to deploy a lighting rig put together by our resident inventor Graeme Connacher. When he's not making home made ROV's he's wiring something else up. In this case a four legged "tripod" with 2000watts of lighting power. We were a little sceptical of his creation due to the fact that there seemed to be enough power going to it to light a small town and the whole thing was submerged. It was a bad idea to point this out though, he spent rather a long time explaining the finer points of the design involved in the electrical side of it all and precisely why we wouldn't all get fried as soon as we touched it.

We had to firstly position the thing in the middle of the impact site. Blustery wind and a malfunctioning sonar made it a bit difficult. After being blown off station a couple of times we finally had to resort to floating it just above the lake bed suspended beneath a buoy on the surface. Beanie then had to swim about the lake pulling it behind him while we watched its image on scanning sonar. When it was perfectly positioned, Beanie cut it loose and it dropped exactly on target. Oh did I mention that it's 140ft down? Bill and Beanie made a quick dive to look about after we'd had an ROV check that it was upright and that all the lights worked. So far so good.

Saturday 14th April 2001

Two dives by Carl and Beanie today, they took a large plastic container to the bottom and set it in the silt next to the tripod / quadruped lighting rig. They then set about placing small pieces of wreckage in the box. Trouble is that the lake bed is so soft that we had to drive an ROV up to a piece of wreckage and park it there. Once the target is lifted that's about the end of the dive. These are short dives, only about 10 minutes bottom time. The water temperature in the lake has risen to a sweltering 6 degrees Celsius so hypothermia is a little longer setting in.

Sunday 15th April 2001

What foot and mouth crisis? Coniston was teeming with holidaymakers today. Once again Carl and Beanie jumped in for the first dip. We've got a new technique. We send a swimming camera down to spot a tempting target, then we send a diver down to grab it and throw it into the box. By the time this has been done there is no visibility whatsoever so the divers just hang on the lighting frame and kick their feet for a while to blow the mud away. The frame is huge so it covers a large area, it doesn't matter where you hang on and kick. When the muck settles again we can send an ROV in to sniff out new bits that were uncovered by all the kicking. There are lots of little smashed pieces lying in the mud.

Dive two was carried out by Beanie and Bill, it's a weird sensation dropping through that water. It goes from brightly daylit but green, through brown to absolute blackness by 25metres. It's deathly silent and very still, the only sounds are from the workings of the rebreathers. Gentle plop plop of the one way valves in the breathing loop and the hiss of oxygen as its injected by the computers. At about 32metres there is a green glow below that gets brighter and brighter until suddenly there is a huge area of floodlit lakebed. It's like something out of the abyss. Out on the end of its umbilical sits a small ROV, parked on the mud patiently shining its lights on the next object to be recovered. It's a case of getting your buoyancy sorted so that you're a bit light. Then very gently swim down to the mud, grab the target and float gently upwards without moving a muscle. Even then, the silt boils up as soon as you go near it. Swim back to the box, drop the item in and run for home. We closed the box before we left so that it wouldn't fill up with silt during the night.

Monday 16th April 2001

We were supposed to take the boat to Ullswater today, we've got a quick job to do there so we set out to clear our junk from the lake bed. Before we started pulling on lines however we like to check for tangles. Down went our new ROV for a final look, we're practising with it so we sent it for a peek. There were no tangles but sticking out of the mud was a piece of perspex exposed by yesterdays thrashing about. We've looked high and low for any sign of the cockpit canopy without success. It could have gone anywhere and it's very important to the crash analysis so there was no option but to go down and grab it just in case it was a piece of canopy. Once again Beanie and Bill kitted in and went to the bottom. Our piece of plastic lay at the outer fringe of the impact site so the floodlights were not much use out there. It was strange therefore to find the ROV with its lights off. Curious thought I, Beanie grabbed the bit of plastic, the visibility blew away and I crashed into the mud. I could feel all sorts of odd things under my hands but there was too much silt to see them. I moved up above the mud and wafted away at it as hard as I could. This reduced the water to impenetrable black ink. We rose above it until we could see the lights and set off for the surface. I was all excited at the strange things I'd felt in the mud and couldn't wait to send the ROV in for a look. Friday 13th had caught up with us, our generator had disassembled itself all over the deck and the ROV had flooded. It had thrusters and video but no lights, our lighting rig had a failed generator. We opened up the ROV and poured the water out but it was out of service for the day and we couldn't get our replacement quickly. We lifted our equipment off the lake bed and set off for home but amongst other things our box contained the first piece of cockpit canopy that the lake has given up. We'll have to go back now and see what else is on that site.

There is a good diary piece on the Marillion website written by Steve Hogarth who of course wrote the song that inspired this whole enterprise. He was there with us when the boat was raised and his account makes fascinating reading. There should be a link here somewhere.

Wednesday 18th April 2001

Had to go to work today before there's no work to go to! we've all lived and breathed this project for so long that we're all in danger of getting the sack.

Mud sucking will resume tomorrow, there's still a bit to do but all the front of the hull is cleared out, at some point we need to lift the boat off the cradle and straighten her up, that cradle will likely be her permanent display cradle and she's a bit skewed on it, that'll be a fun afternoon.

Here are a few shots from the bottom of the lake just to give an idea of how horrid it is down there, these are stills from the underwater footage shot by divers and ROV's during the recovery operation.

We've got another couple of distinguished visitors tomorrow so we'll post some info about their visit.

A request from Bill
Could everyone E Mail everyone in your address book with this address
Let's see if we can beat lasts months figures of 10051 hits in March

Thursday 19th April 2001

We were visited by Anthony "Rob" Robinson today. Rob, as we've always known him grew up with Donald around and referred to him as Uncle Donald.

Rob's Mother, Connie Robinson owned the Sun Hotel in 1966 / 67 and Rob was out on the lake in the safety boat with Leo when the crash occurred. Rob was also one of the handful who helped Donald get Bluebird out on Christmas day 1966. He now owns and runs the Coniston Lodge Hotel with his wife Liz. Anyone who's seen "Across the Lake" will have seen the real Robbie transporting his younger self about the lake in a small motor boat, very confusing!

Rob is working very hard to get the boat back to Coniston, along with the museum folk, planning people and the Campbell family. He'll do it if anyone will.

When Bluebird was first lifted, Rob asked us if he could clean her off with a long brush before she came out of the lake, we knew what the paint was doing and suggested that it wasn't such a good idea. Rob grinned his familliar grin today as he got a close look at the fragile paint and agreed that it probably had been the right decision. It was good to see that grin resored, Rob was a bit upset on the day of the lift, I think he was affected by it more than most.

We spent a while poking round in the back of the boat looking for the lead ballast weights that he'd cast and bolted in there to get the boat up on the plane, there was also a tale I seem to recall about a church roof coming off second best in the lead procurement exercise, you'll have to tell me that one again Rob, and I'll post it up here.

We've spent many a happy weekend at Rob's place, we were convinced that he sent us off on several wild goose chases so that we'd keep coming back and staying at his hotel, and we were equally convinced that he knew exactly where the wreck was, even going so far as to accuse him of having it stashed under a sheet in his garage. His suggestion that we catch a young pike from the lake and train it to sniff out aluminium was not particulary helpful. When we finally re-located Bluebird, he said "Well at least you earned it" Everyone who ever visits Coniston should stay with Rob and Liz so that they can have the breakfast! Apart from the big plate of Cumberland suasage, bacon, eggs tomatoes etc, there are delicious little touches like home made marmalade and bread with apricots in it. mmmmmmmm

"Corporal" Paul Evans was also supposed to be coming over today but he was feeling unwell so we'll have to see him another time. He really badly wants his radio back but we haven't found it yet, apparently, it still belongs to the British Army! Can't imagine they'll still have a use for it.

Robbie inspects the engine and our wreck site map

Weekend of 21 / 22 April,

We had a well earned break this weekend, the sonar has gone away for repair, We've got a flooded ROV that's had to go back under warranty. My rebreather is dropping to bits, which always worries me a bit when I remember that the instruction book refers to it as "life support equipment" and the boat is in need of some maintenance. Providing that the kit is repaired for next weekend, it'll be business as usual.

Hopefully, I've got a copy of the original divers report from 1967 on the way, it'll be interesting to see how the two surveys compare. I've been looking back through some of the sonar data. We surveyed most of the cockpit wreckage over the winter and I've been working out the order in which it separated.

It seems that Bluebird hit whilst facing slightly to the right, the floor went first, it was ripped down over and it separated at the back of the cockpit, then went the right hand cockpit wall as it was blown outwards from the inside, it departed to the right. The back end of the right hand sponson smashed through the side of the boat aft of the main spar and the right hand sponson crashed into the front left side of the cockpit. The left hand cockpit wall hung on a bit longer and finally detached to the right, whilst the complete front spar came back over and smashed through the cockpit canopy before glancing off the water and flying 130 metres to the north and all this took place in that first eruption of water. By the time the boat became visible again it was all over. I've written a proper crash analysis accounting for the wreckage distribution to form a chapter of my book, which is well on the way to being finished (I never thought I'd say that!)

We're all off to see Marillion on the 19th May in Manchester, with a bit of luck all the team will be there and I've no doubt that Steve Hogarth will have something to say about the project, he might even sing "Three hundred miles an hour on water" etc etc. If we ask him nicely.

Hopefully we'll see a few of you there.

"Corporal" Paul Evans visits

Pictures Courtesy of Mark Evans

Tuesday 24th April 2001

We've got a new mission! After much deliberation we've decided that the tail end must come off the boat to get the mud out. The entire engine compartment is clear now but from the back of the engine bay to the tail is still pretty full. We can't get it out but we can't leave it in there either. One thing that all our museum, conservation boffin types agree on is that the mud must go, but short of cutting a large hole in the underside (museum boffins don't like this idea) there's no way to get in there. I must speak to Ken about this failure in his design!

There is only one alternative and that's to remove the tail end. It does actually come off, or at least it did once upon a time. It appears to be held on with the same quick release fasteners that hold the engine cover, the same cover that is twice as long as the tail section and which would demolish the tail anyway if it ever got loose at speed. However, it's not held on with those things at all, it's got 30 million screws that are only pretending to be quick release. They are seized solid despite being soaked in WD 40 for a month. We set about them tonight. Most of them gave in quite easily but they are in two rows down each side. We theorised that we could remove either both top rows, both bottom rows or one top and one bottom row. After much swearing, sweating and several shattered screwdriver tips we got both top rows loose but the back end remained as solidly fixed as ever. That's when we discovered the 10 million bolts going down into the space frame on either side of the rear section.

To be continued!

I got a copy of the official diving report from January 1967 today. It was written by CDR John Futcher and as well as a map of the crash site, it details the search that was carried out for Donalds' body. It's interesting stuff. I'll digest it and write a brief comparison between their efforts and our own. It filled in a lot of blanks for us, I'll write it up properly for the book. One of the original dive team came to visit last week, he'll be back soon to spend some time with the wreck and fill in some more blanks.

Monday 30th April 2001

We've been a bit busy these last few days so the updates have been a long time coming. We achieved very little at the weekend on the lake, we're still hampered by the fact that much of our survey kit is being overhauled after the abuse it took over the winter. We did a bit of diving in the lake but the water was filthy. Visibility was down to about half a metre and that was with 6 torches all pointing in the same direction. Too dangerous!!

We finally found the lead ingots that were placed in the back of the boat to get her up onto the plane in 1966. Robbie had a good look round in there for them but they were under the mud in the back beneath the jetpipe. I think that a certain Mr Heath Robinson must have been project director that day!

"bits of lead pipe melted down in biscuit tins, tut tut tut, what'll it be next? icebergs?" He forgot to mention that the melted pipe in the biscuit tins was held in with a couple of bits of threaded bar bent into a "U" shape and passed round one of the spaceframe members. The four ends of the threaded bar were then passed through holes in the lead ingots and the whole lot was pulled down with nuts and washers. There's also a bit of string tied to the end of one of the threaded bars that disappears forewards into the mud and squashed buoyancy bag filled bay ahead of the transom. Goodness only knows what the string is attached to or why it's there. Can't wait to dig it out.

Despite it's makeshift appearance, the whole lot stayed put in a 200+ knot crash so Robbie did a good job of bolting it all in place. Must ask him what the string was for though.

We also succeeded in getting the tail off, in a session lasting late into the night, (Leo would have been proud of us!) we tackled the 10 million 7/16 UNF bolts that held it on and I'm delighted to report that we loosened every single one. There was no drilling, chiseling, grinding, burning gear or any of the other things we considered. It was accomplished using screwdrivers and spanners. Having said that, if it was possible to released seized fasteners by swearing at them, they would all have leapt from their threads and into the box!!!

as if 10 million rusted bolts after 34 years of immersion in water wasn't a big enough challenge in itself, they were all in the most inaccesible positions imaginable. There are a series of openings along the side once the 20 million screws have been removed and the strips of aluminium that they hold are lifted away. Each opening is about seven inches long and two inches high. There are two bolts going down into the top of the spaceframe at the rear of each opening and one going back over towards the engine. It doesn't matter what type of spanner, socket, pliers or whatever else you apply to the bolt heads, they will not give more than about one eighth of a turn at any one time. They fought us for every turn as we struggled in the tiny access hatches provided to get at them. I couldn't help but think of the old joke about the gynaecologist who papered his hall through the letterbox!

We can now get at the last of the mud in the hull, we'll also have to check out the fire extinguishers, they might be full and we don't even know what they used to contain. There are dozens of flotation bags under the engine, presumably they were blown there in the crash as they would have presented a serious fire hazard under the jetpipe. They are either crushed flat or filled with water, all they need is a goldfish in them. We'll also brush the corrosion out of the underside of the cover, etch prime it and give it a new coat of silver paint. Can't wait to line up the 10 million bolts and 20 million screws!!

Lead and string in the rear hull The tail removed for mud sucking