Re: Return to the Water
Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2018 1:36 am
I had a read back through the correspondence between myself and the LDNPA legal eagles tonight. The byelaw wording went back and forth until it worked. An example of an issue worked through was that they wanted to give us six runs north to south and six south to north - why?
I pointed our that north to south would aim us at a huge expanse of empty lake with a reed bed at the other end whereas south to north stood a good chance of aiming us at spectators. So, what if we completed six N/S runs and hadn't learned enough to safely travel the other way? or what if the weather was against us running one way but the other way was tolerable? Why not just let us use our discretion?
This became,
There would then follow a total of up to twelve ‘proving runs’ conducted either from north to south or from south to north – direction to be decided at the time on the basis of crowd safety, data acquired during ‘development runs’ pertaining to Bluebird K7’s performance envelope, and prevailing meteorological conditions.
My words - I wrote that.
With each revision I made - the final one being dated 21/12/2009 - I appended a list of notes. They include the following.
4. We are developing a full backup plan and alternate venue for use in the event of Coniston water becoming unusable for any reason but will include in this a provision to complete a number of additional ‘display runs’ on Coniston water were this considered appropriate.
So there's the get-out for Coniston / Cumbria should the organising of a proper homecoming be too rich for their blood. We can offer the massive opportunity of Bluebird's Proving Trial to a more proactive, deserving and willing partner then perform a few display runs for Coniston just so we can say we did.
Plenty of time, though. Having seen what we're up against getting ready to run in Bute and the compromises already made we have at least a year's work when we get home to be ready to run again with a finished boat and that's if we choose to forgo the luxury of all the extra tweaks we'd like to include such as bringing the on board air-start system back to full fitness. (We'll be using offboard air in Bute because the onboard system simply isn't safe to use as yet)
So let's hope the LDNPA and Coniston get their collective backsides into gear and get an event organised that's equal to the opportunity - it's not too late.
I pointed our that north to south would aim us at a huge expanse of empty lake with a reed bed at the other end whereas south to north stood a good chance of aiming us at spectators. So, what if we completed six N/S runs and hadn't learned enough to safely travel the other way? or what if the weather was against us running one way but the other way was tolerable? Why not just let us use our discretion?
This became,
There would then follow a total of up to twelve ‘proving runs’ conducted either from north to south or from south to north – direction to be decided at the time on the basis of crowd safety, data acquired during ‘development runs’ pertaining to Bluebird K7’s performance envelope, and prevailing meteorological conditions.
My words - I wrote that.
With each revision I made - the final one being dated 21/12/2009 - I appended a list of notes. They include the following.
4. We are developing a full backup plan and alternate venue for use in the event of Coniston water becoming unusable for any reason but will include in this a provision to complete a number of additional ‘display runs’ on Coniston water were this considered appropriate.
So there's the get-out for Coniston / Cumbria should the organising of a proper homecoming be too rich for their blood. We can offer the massive opportunity of Bluebird's Proving Trial to a more proactive, deserving and willing partner then perform a few display runs for Coniston just so we can say we did.
Plenty of time, though. Having seen what we're up against getting ready to run in Bute and the compromises already made we have at least a year's work when we get home to be ready to run again with a finished boat and that's if we choose to forgo the luxury of all the extra tweaks we'd like to include such as bringing the on board air-start system back to full fitness. (We'll be using offboard air in Bute because the onboard system simply isn't safe to use as yet)
So let's hope the LDNPA and Coniston get their collective backsides into gear and get an event organised that's equal to the opportunity - it's not too late.