The Bluebird Project

Basically was wondering if the original steering wheel exhists and if so will it be repaired and reinstalled?

The wheel does still exist, or at least a one quarter part of it. It was retained by Leo Villa, and then following his death in 79, passed on to his son together with the rest of his collection and subsequently sold at auction in 1992. It's location now is unknown, but suffice to say when the boat is rebuilt, a new wheel, of the same pattern will be required.

I remember a pic after the accident showing a large piece of sponson with the logo on it lying by a jetty, I'm assuming this is lost as I remember a diary entry mentioning new sponsons being made. So how much stuff was recovered in 67 that has now disappeared?

Have any people who bought parts at the auction in 92 come forward and given them back? I spose it would be a bit of a dilemma considering they paid out for them.

Well lets be grateful that we have so much of the most adaptable and successful jet boat in history, lets face it the range she covered in speed record terms ,particularly water records is amazing and i doubt that anything built thereafter will ever match her . Most things built new today are not built to be adapted or improved on or they cant be improved .

The instrument panel is most likely down there somewhere and I'm sure we'll have another look for it one day. It's also conceivable that it's got itelf completely buried. Some of the parts we recovered were barely visible and this can be annoying because the sonar can often see through the mud to a depth of several inches but there's nothing to look at on the cameras so you have to start digging.
I'm certain the instrument panel isn't on the impact site or in the main wreckage trail because we'd have found it so the most likely area is off to the north east somewhere because that's the only area we've not saturated. Another possibility is that it came up in 67. I tracked down the last man to see the sponsons and other bits before they were scrapped and he was certain there was a piece of scrap with clocks in it so it too may be long gone.

A pity but part of down side of anything like this i suppose, when something like this happens at the time people dont think that someone will restore later on, a bit like babs when they decided to build over her at pendine before owen wyn owen decided to restore her. Just another hurdle.

If I remember, there's another steering wheel at Filching, which I reckon is the same as the one fitted ? ... I reckon Fred Blois should be tasked with prying it from them ..

James Von Jetpump

I thought Don Sidebottom had the wheel remains, that's where I saw them, and Don was the winning bidder at the Neales auction...........

Mike-got 2 or 3 of the original type clocks put away-working on the rest-most seem to be Gnat items anyway except for that bloomin weird Egt guage which is eluding me so far but if it was on an aircraft I'll get it!

Mike Bull wrote:I think that one at Filching is the original one from CN7, not K7. Mind you, it does look the same!

Probably is-Bluemells made all the wheels for DC and Malcolm including their private transport as well-pity they're out of the game but there are a coupla firms capable of making a new repro wheel for K7-it's the Burman steering gear which is more problematical!