Last Monday was a big day for the story of Bluebird – the iconic water speed record jet engined boat returned to Consiton Water to be re-floated there for the first time since the fateful 1967 crash that killed Donald Cambell.
Laetitia and I thought we’d make the trip to Coniston to witness this small bit of history…
The published plan for the week-long celebration of Bluebird’s return said that they hoped, weather permitting, to run Bluebird every day between 10am and 5pm. And that they hoped to achieve speeds of up to 150mph.
We arrived about 1pm. To our surprise Bluebird was just being towed to the water for its first trip out on the water. I’ve no idea why it’d taken until 1pm to get to this point. But our luck was in as this was clearly a big milestone! Many thousands of excited fans were surrounding the boat, the slipway, and the jetties trying to get their own glimpse and photos.
I was lucky enough to grab a spot right at the front as they cleared the jetty next to the slipway! 😉 Which meant I managed to grab a few nice shots of this important moment. It was in fact a little emotional to see. 🙂
I understand that sponsorship might be a necessary evil to make an event like possible. However, after promoting the event widely and successfully getting many thousands of fans to attend, is it right that the sponsor’s advertising hoardings on the starting pontoon should have almost completely obscured the public view of Bluebird from the official viewing areas on the beach? All we could see was a bit of the tail fin…
It took another two hours after Bluebird was launched on Coniston Water for her to be started up. It was gone 3.30pm now. Then somewhat underwhelmingly Bluebird then made two laps of the pontoon where it was started at less than walking pace. 🙁
Apparently it had always been the plan for a number of familiarisation runs to undertaken. And it turns out, this was the first time ever that the pilot, Dave Warby, had sat in the boat. Couldn’t some of that familiarisation have taken place ahead of this enormous and historically important public event? There was certainly no mention on the festival website of any of this familiarisation. Just that they hoped to run the boat, weather permitting, from 10am to 5pm each day at speeds of up to 150mph.
It was awesome though to hear that jet engine start up! 🙂 And it was amazing to see her on Coniston Water! 🙂
We bumped in to Andy & Alison on the beach. Some good company and banter about the glacially-paced event – that surely should have been a fast-paced event fitting for this iconic water speed record jet engined boat’s return to Consiton Water.
Anyhow, after Bluebird returned to shore we relocated ourselves to Coniston for the only refreshment that seemed apt – a pint of Bluebird Bitter! 🙂
