Fourteen years to the day we first raised Bluebird K7 from the depths of Coniston water, my how times flies. And the rebuild finally began in 2007 after wasting five years with the Hopeless Failure Lot! Its been quite a journey with many twist's and turns but what a Gig and I would do it all again in a heartbeat The old girl really coming on now in leaps and bounds.
Novie
Seems like only yesterday! Getting up at 1.00am to head off down the lake and walking smack into the side of a Sky News truck that hadn't been in the carpark when we'd left earlier. It had a gleaming white and perfectly flat side that mirrored the night sky making it virtually invisible. It was a most peculiar sensation and very confusing.
I'm only a plumber from Cannock...
"As to reward, my profession is its own reward;" Sherlock Holmes.
'It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.' W.C. Fields.
As one of those others that recalls the day as if yesterday it is hard to believe that 14 years have passed. I also acknowledge that as one of those that believed that K7 should remain undisturbed for eternity the workmanship and attention to detail is awe inspiring and I now long to see her completed. Perhaps in time I will come to terms with someone other than DC at her helm.
As a reminder of where the BBP started perhaps we need to look again at what was recovered from Coniston Water 14 years ago today.
Perhaps in time I will come to terms with someone other than DC at her helm.
I remember Gina telling me once that had Donald survived the accident he'd have been Hell-bent on carrying on. Now can anyone really imagine the bloke not wanting the British to jolly-well overcome all obstacles (or whatever it was he said) with his boat because he wasn't fit to drive? Having met or spoken with, I think, all of his surviving family and crew in the past 14 years, I would hazard a guess that he'd love all of this, think Ted is a cracking character and be only too glad that so many people are working so hard to show off his big tin boat again.
I'm only a plumber from Cannock...
"As to reward, my profession is its own reward;" Sherlock Holmes.
'It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.' W.C. Fields.
Donald had quite specifically asked that his work be carried on in the event of anything happening to him. This clearly implied another driver driving a Bluebird.
Of course, it didn't happen.
The first driver in the frame after the accident in January '67 was Innes Ireland, the motor-racing star. There were others thereafter. There might also have been people who would have prevented anyone else driving a Bluebird in the wake of the accident - but that lies in the realms of speculation, as in the event, Donald's Bluebird project was never revived and the WWSR slipped off to America, while the WLSR stayed in American hands, unchallenged by Britain - something Donald would have considered unthinkable.
Very little effort was made to fulfil Donald's wish. That is another story for another time. The point is that Donald didn't consider his seat in Bluebird to be sacrosanct, contrary to the popular myth that he did.
I would think that ATL would be the main culprit. And it's a compelling myth ... that the cockpit, where he did his greatest work - and where he died - was hallowed ground, his alone. Look more closely and the myth evaporates.
Interestingly, on BBC Radio 4 at around the same time as ATL was broadcast, there was an interview-based doco called Bluebird, Campbell and Coniston, in which one of those involved in the final record campaign said of Donald and Bluebird, "He wouldn't let anyone else get in it, drive it ... it was his job" - or words to that effect - but of course that wasn't actually the case.
Whether that person had been influenced by ATL I don't know, as I don't know exactly when the Radio 4 doco was aired, so I don't know which came first.
I am quite prepared to accept that Donald might have been prickly about people clambering into the boat who didn't know what they were doing, invading his space and possibly damaging something with their clumsy feet, but plenty of people close to Donald got in the cockpit.
I remember Ken telling me about times he'd stood, and sat, in the boat - and of course there's pictures of Leo sitting in there, doing static engine tests with the boat tethered at the lakeside. There were others, too.
So Donald can still be the cast-iron hero he always was and always will be, but in my view it's not helpful to put him on too much of a pedestal. He was one of the team.
It's worth mentioning that there are many, many precedents for putting a machine in which someone has died back into use.
Within the very narrow speed-record realm, the obvious examples are Segrave's Miss England 2, which was resurrected after the crash that had taken two lives (the boat was a three-seater) and went on to further WWSR successes with Kaye Don at the helm, and of course Parry Thomas's Babs - which is perhaps a closer parallel with Bluebird K7, in that it was to all intents and purposes lost to the world, then decades later recovered and restored, then used for demonstration runs.
Beyond the speed-record world, there are such a great many other examples that it is hard to know where to start. But one I can think of right off the top of my head is the Short SC.1 VTOL research aircraft XG905 - one of two built - which crashed in 1963, claiming the life of its pilot Richard Green, but was subsequently rebuilt and flown by several other test pilots (Harrier maestro John Farley among them).
Even on an ordinary day-to-day level, this sort of thing is happening all the time. Six years ago, my dear old Dad died sitting at the wheel of the car I drive every day. It's my car now. It's not spooky in the least. In fact, I find it rather reassuring.
All due respect must be shown for K7's seat, of course - as it must in every such situation. But a seat is basically where the driver puts his bum, and we shouldn't forget that.
And the rebuild finally began in 2007 after wasting five years with the Hopeless Failure Lot! Its been quite a journey with many twist's and turns but what a Gig and I would do it all again in a heartbeat 
The old girl really coming on now in leaps and bounds. 