Bluebird restoration halted over legal dispute

Border
Cumbria
Tuesday 28 January 2020 at 12:04pm

The team restoring Donald Campbell's Bluebird speedboat says it has stopped all work on the project for the forseeable future.

Bill Smith and a team of volunteers spent years rebuilding the jet-powered hydroplane after recovering it from Coniston Water in 2001.

The vessel crashed in 1967 killing Donald Campbell while he was attempting a new water speed record.

In 2018 the restored Bluebird made her first powered runs on Loch Fad in Scotland.

But the team, which wants to tour the vessel around the world with it only exhibited in Coniston for a limited period, is in legal dispute with Coniston's Ruskin Museum over ownership of Bluebird.

The wreckage of Bluebird is removed from Coniston in 2001 Credit: ITV Border