Battle over Donald Campbell’s Bluebird K7 rumbles on

At the end of February it seems that the trustees of the Ruskin Museum, a modest institution in the Lake District, ran out of patience.

In a post on their website they announced that they were to start legal action to regain possession of their most prized artefact: Bluebird K7, the hydroplane in which Donald Campbell died 56 years ago while attempting to break the World Water Speed Record.

The tone of the announcement hinted at the frustration the museum clearly feels about an ongoing wrangle which has rumbled on for years.

“It is with regret that we have had to take this action to gain physical possession of Donald Campbell’s record-breaking boat which was gifted to the museum by the Campbell family in 2006,” said deputy chairman of the museum Jeff Carroll.

“The Ruskin Museum would have preferred that this matter be resolved without the need to resort to litigation; however we have been left with no choice but to issue in order to find a resolution for all.”

“The dispute casts a shadow over one of our greatest heroes”

The move marks an escalation in the long-running dispute over the ownership of the craft which has cast a shadow over one of Britain’s most famous and evocative speed record stories as well as over the memory of one of our greatest heroes.

To recap on how we got here: the Bluebird K7 is the jet powered hydroplane in which Campbell set seven world speed records in the 1950s and 1960s. Campbell was killed in it at the age of 45, on January 4, 1967 when K7 flipped and broke in half while Campbell was attempting to push his existing record from 276mph to over 300mph on Coniston Water.

The wreckage of K7 remained 150ft below the surface until 2001 when it was retrieved by Bill Smith, an engineer and diver based in Newcastle, and his Bluebird Project team. It was subsequently given to the museum by Campbell’s family. And then things get murkier than Coniston itself.

It seems that Smith offered to restore the boat at no cost and pass it back to the museum on completion. Both parties then raised money to support the restoration and on the part of the museum to fund an additional wing where the boat would be put on display, at a cost of around £750,000. For a small museum in Cumbria which counts among its other exhibits Coniston copper mining as well as a gallery of watercolours and sketches by its Victorian founder and patron John Ruskin, it was a significant investment.

But then things went wrong, with various disagreements over terms between the two parties played out in the local press. At the centre of the dispute was the question of ownership.

The Bluebird Project claims that because of the investment and work it put in it owns all the newly fabricated parts which it added to the boat, and as a result has a share in the ownership of the completed K7. The museum contends that the work was undertaken in the knowledge that the completed boat would be handed over to the museum with no claim on ownership.

The disagreement got to the point two years ago where Smith offered a Solomon-like solution of dismembering the restored boat and returning the original components – the wreckage – while his team would keep the remainder of the vessel.

I called both Carroll and Smith about the latest legal development hoping to gauge if there is any hope of a sensible solution and it is clear there are hard feelings on either side, with both convinced they are in the right. Carroll is frustrated at what he sees as a simple case of someone reneging on an agreement.

Smith is adamant that he wants to come to an accommodation with the Ruskin Museum that honours the agreement as he remembers it. “I don’t know why we can’t find some common ground. It shouldn’t be difficult to sit in a room and come to an agreement.”

The final outcome will be decided by a judge – but not for probably at least a year. Experts say it could go either way: Phillip Sharpe, a partner at Wilmots Litigation, which specialises in disputes around classic cars, including ownership and authenticity, said the case was a one-off. “Ultimately it will turn on what the contract or contracts were and if there weren’t any then what was agreed at the time,” he says. “Only the people involved know that.” The problem is that as ever, recollections may vary.

Meanwhile, the future of an iconic piece of British engineering and speed record history remains in limbo.

In this issue we celebrate the 75th anniversary of Goodwood, a circuit indelibly linked to Sir Stirling Moss. So it is fitting that we also remember his wife Lady Susie who sadly died in March, almost three years to the month that her beloved husband died. Lady Susie was a friend of Motor Sport and we send our condolences to Susie’s son Elliot and daughter-in-law Helen, and to Sir Stirling’s daughter Allison.

Joe Dunn, editor
Follow Joe on Twitter @joedunn90

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