Donald Campbell's restored Bluebird in museum home row

[Richie]

It will all come out in the wash...... again..... The meeting hasn't happened yet...

We need to wait until you have been to the meeting, ensure it is recorded (not minutes, but recorded) that way stuff cannot be twisted later.


Malcolm / Bill. PROMISE me you will go with an open mind before lighting the taper on your bronze cannon.




Cheers

Richie

[Malcolm Ops]

Richie - I will behave in a proper manner at the meeting. That is my promise to you and to it’s Chairman. Unless e mails have been blind copied, information or requests to the BBP is not sent to the Festival Group and I would guess the same can happen the other way round.

[Renegadenemo]

November 2002 Gina declared she wanted her dad's boat rebuilt, that she wanted K7 'engineeringly perfect'. Took quite an open mind to launch this odyssey on that basis and ever since then the ambition and thinking and dreaming has just got bigger and bigger for the whole team an our sponsors... Bute was a huge leap into the unknown with the massive trust of Johnny Bute, the MST and the amazing people of the isle so is there anyone for Lake Dumbelyung next year?

If there're any closed minds at this meeting they won't be on our side of the table...

[Richie]

Can’t do Dumbleyoung next year as I have a tripod to Holland and a trip to Normandy already booked in with tankie related stuff

Maybe the year after.

[longarmedgibbon]

Has the BBP ever discussed restoring the cn7 to running order? as you clearly are the crew to do it.

[Richie]

I very much doubt they would let us.

[Renegadenemo]

I asked them many moons ago. They were happy for us to strip and rebuild but wet their collective, museological knickers when we said the deal was that we started her and ran her under her own power. Would still love to do that job, though. But I'm not asking again. If they want it they can come ask us.

[Richie]

I trust all went well ?

[Renegadenemo]

I trust all went well ?

It was interesting. We're still a little way off sorting out running the boat and touring her into the future but I'm sure all concerned want to see that agreed with minimum shenanigans. Still talk of Coniston next year too but there's a vast amount of work to do over there and not a lot of time to do it plus the bureaucrats letting us onto the water to do our job isn't even on the horizon!

We built a tiny scale model of the job when we went to Bute and that was difficult enough! Our traffic management issues we solved in real time by just closing off anywhere we didn't want cars and our crowd control involved simply shifting barriers about until we weren't overrun. Our portaloos were brimming after a couple of days and we had to introduce our no-drone policy half way through to keep the noisy things at a safe distance from proceedings. Now multiply the whole thing a hundred thousand times. Half a million people in Cumbria alone so it wouldn't take a big proportion to come for a look see and even the people detailed to pick up litter in the car park will need extra rations!

But no matter - there's still loads to do over on our side. There's the canopy issues, large tracts of her have never been painted, the engine setup still isn't right, and that's another thing, our aerospace partners didn't revisit 1966 at huge effort and expense for their beautifully rebuilt hydro-mechanical computers to sit idle for any length of time so we'll run up Bluebird's engine on the test rig shortly. The engine cover needs all of its proper, quarter-turn fasteners installing and that is going to be an absolute nightmare. The entire inside of the hull needs painting as does a fair bit of the outside, the artwork has to go on, the trailer is only half painted, none of the catch tanks are installed properly, the list just goes on and on. Still lots to keep everyone busy.

[Malcolm Ops]

As the actual dates have been published in Lancashire Life Magazine, can I add some realism and pressure to all my friends on the crew by starting a countdown day timer?

252 days to go!