Quicksilver

[Black Knight]

Not sure your statement was called for.

Was the 1st thing i've seen for ages about it. Was only asking a simple question re being a mock up like Bloodhound for demos.

[quicksilver-wsr]

I've seen your posts elsewhere in the past. "Quicksinker is dead and buried" - that type of thing.

If you expect some respect, show some first.

Nigel

[Renegadenemo]

Whoa, guys...

That exchange appears for all the world like a spot of mildly crossed wires. Seemed an innocent enough question that sparked off a bit of old history. Maybe try again as I'd like to see the pic in question but as I would rather stick pins in my eyes than venture near Facebollocks maybe someone could let me have a peek on here?

[quicksilver-wsr]

With respect, Bill, it can never be an innocent question when it comes from someone with a history of mindlessly berating our project. It is always going to be a loaded question when it comes from that idiot-mindset.

I am very reasonable with people who have genuine questions, or comments, along the lines of "Why's it taking so long?" or "Has the project stalled?" or whatever.

Here are the reasons I get angry ...

In this internet age, people who mindlessly criticise cause reputational damage that then creates the very circumstances they are criticising. They don't take time to check the true facts - it's too much bother for them - and so hurl half-facts and just plain made-up tosh about, which others then read and take as fact, which then results in making my job of bringing the project to fruition that much harder.

Getting down to specifics, I received an e-mail last night from one of our keen supporters - of which there are, thank heavens, a great many - telling me that there were ill-informed comments being made on the Bluebird Supporters' Club Facebook page. I have never looked at this site, as I've more important things to do than "support" Bluebird - I made my £100 donation to the cause years ago, and my mind is on the future, not the past - but I thought I'd take a look and it was the standard mixture of some positive comment, some negative, and most just not really knowing what they were talking about but well-meaning comment, which is fair enough.

So my focus was momentarily on what we might call "outside influences" when up on the BBP forum springs the gallant "Black Knight" - whoever he is: I would love to see his glittering CV - who clearly thought the photo of the boat he'd seen on the BBSC FB site was brand-new. In actual fact, that photo was taken back in May 2014. I'd never seen it before, myself, but I know the venue in Sheffield and I remember us exhibiting the boat there. The key point is this. A very similar photo, taken on exactly the same day in 2014, was displayed on the Home page of our website for all of three years and this idiot had clearly never taken the trouble to notice it, but of course he did have time during that time to take digs at us on other forums for our lack of progress.

What we displayed at Sheffield in 2014 - at three events at two different venues in the city - was, to use a current K7 quote, 90% the real thing.

We did display a mock-up for a few years, many years ago. Just like the Bloodhound folks do now and have been doing for years and years - with the notable exception that ours was an awful lot more imaginative than theirs, in that we actually had the real spaceframe, engine, fuel tank, instrument panel, fire-suppression system, on-board batteries, etc, etc - inside it, with Perspex set into the skin all over the place, and internal lighting, so people could see the whole boat partly in real-life at that stage in construction and partly as we hoped it might look when we'd finished it.

For reasons best known to himself, "Black" - or is it "Knight"?: I haven't got an Electoral Roll or phone book handy to look him up, and besides, he hides behind a dumb name on the internet so he doesn't have to be accountable for anything he says - has clearly assumed, ever since then, that Quicksilver is a mock-up.

There's more, but I'll cut it short for now. If he'd looked at the 'Current Work' page on our website any time over the past few weeks, he'd have seen and read that we are working away fairly happily on new stuff much of the time ...

http://www.quicksilver-wsr.com/current- ... struction/

It really doesn't take a lot of effort to find this stuff or pick up the phone and ring me or e-mail me for info - but that's just the point. Because, with even less effort, people like "Black" can simply slag something off, damaging its prospects of success in the process, and then turn back to their endless collection of books that say how Britain once held the World Water Speed Record.

Nigel

(Edited to correct a spelling error - and it'll be marked-up as edited twice now, because I've written this comment. For those who don't know, I'm dyslexic, so writing anything properly is a frustrating process).

[quicksilver-wsr]

I'd like to see the pic in question but as I would rather stick pins in my eyes than venture near Facebollocks maybe someone could let me have a peek on here?

It's not my pic, and I'd not seen it myself before last night. Someone else will have to post it, if they have a care to.

There is a similar shot here in the archives, which I'm sure will go on our website at some stage in the future - in which case I'll point it out - but it won't be soon.

It's just our boat, at that stage in the design-and-construction process: April 2014. It had some new bits on, being shown in public for the first time - such as the foredeck, which is a large sandwich panel made of multiple layers of carbonfibre laid-up top and bottom of an Airex structural foam core, and the intake hoop, which is a large fabrication in the upper-hull made from 6082 aluminium at T6.

To make the foredeck we had to get a pattern made first, and then a mould. To make the intake hoop, we had to do a lot of FEA first, to get the weight down, as it was prone to get heavy if we weren't very careful.

The sponsons shown in that pic are patterns - which, in spite of a lot of free skilled labour and CNC machining going into them - cost us a cool £10,000 in cash.

Various items, such as the jetpipe, were left off for the Sheffield events, because moving everything took a lot of time and effort, so we left a fair bit of kit back at base in Sleaford.

We displayed enough to make an impact and 'keep it real' - as we were billed as the main attraction, and did live up to that, I am quite confident - but that didn't stop the usual tossers from slagging us off online immediately afterwards.

Nigel

[longarmedgibbon]

What would potentially be quicksilvers max speed nigel? And would it need its max speed to get the record?. Ian lazenby

[quicksilver-wsr]

What would potentially be quicksilvers max speed nigel? And would it need its max speed to get the record?. Ian lazenby

Hi Ian,

Maximum design speed was one of those things that had to be decided upon early-days, when Ken (Norris) was in charge, and the figure he came up with was 400 mph. And that hasn't changed for us over time, however much the boat design itself has.

I read somewhere a while back someone saying "500 mph" and that's just plain wrong.

So 400 is the magical figure. In reality, though, we'd need a more-or-less unlimited length of water to do it, and perfect water conditions, and given the nature of record-breaking historically, we'd be unlikely to have such luck.

We say 400 mph is the theoretical maximum speed, but is unlikely to be accomplished in reality. On a lake the length of Coniston, we envisage a peak speed of 350 mph and a mean speed through the kilometer of 333-335 mph.

That's what the calcs say is possible. The only way to find out for real is to get a boat on the water and see how well the boffins have done their sums!

The ultimate test model is 1/1-scale.

Cheers,
Nigel

[longarmedgibbon]

They should rename the world water speed record the “brown trouser ride “

[quicksilver-wsr]

I had a friendly Jet Provost pilot fly me at 300 mph at zero feet on one occasion, just to see what it's like. A sand-quarry.

I'm inclined to agree.

Nigel

[Renegadenemo]

Nigel,

A perfectly well intentioned question for you. We all want to see you succeed. We have our boat on the water - in fact we now have to get half of Loch Fad back out of there again. The Warbys are warming their Orph' on a regular basis. We all want to see Quicksilver coming along so where exactly are you with the build? what parts have you spannered on lately? Can we see some pic's? It's what we all thrive on over here. You've been one of us for a long time, we want to see this so please share...