Bring Bluebird home: Bid launched to relocate Donald Campbell's record-breaking boat

Bluebird sank to the bottom, and in the decades that followed, the Campbell family asked people not to disturb the crash site, as they wanted it to act as the final resting place for both Donald and his boat.

However, over 30 years later, Gina Campbell – the only child of Donald – was contacted by diver, Bill Smith. He told her he was planning on diving down to locate Bluebird, and if he was able to find it, did she “want a piece?”

Speaking recently, Gina said she was “absolutely horrified” at this prospect.

She said she told Bill: “How dare you even dream about taking pieces off it! That boat belongs to the Campbell family – don’t you touch it.”

However, after realising that the site had become increasingly more vulnerable to other divers looking to ‘take a piece’, and that one day there would potentially be nothing left, Gina had a change of heart. She told Bill to recover Bluebird, and if possible, her father’s body. She said: “find my Dad so I can put him somewhere warm”.

In 2001, the main section of Bluebird’s hull was brought back to the surface, and later that year, Donald Campbell’s body was also recovered. He was then buried in Coniston Cemetery, just a few hundred metres from the shore of the lake that had claimed his life.

After that, The Bluebird Project was established. Led by Bill Smith, restoration work on Bluebird K7 began to bring it back to the vessel it once was.

Once work was complete, that’s when legal issues began to arise.

Back in 2006, Gina Campbell formally gifted Bluebird K7 to the Ruskin Museum in Coniston. They had a purpose-built wing constructed, and this opened four years later, ready for Bluebird to, as the museum says, “come home.” And yet, that has not happened.

Bill Smith argues that “Gina gifted, and I quote from the gift, ‘the recovered wreckage'.” As for the additions that came as part of the restoration, Bill says those have “had to be sourced, created, fabricated, bought, stolen, borrowed” by other means.

Now their work has been completed, Bill suggests the museum wants to: “kick us out without a bean”. He said: “Nowhere is it written down that The Bluebird Project would be thrown out empty handed.”

As it stands, all parties agree that, in 2019, a draft agreement was put forward that would have seen The Bluebird Project have access to the boat for three months of the year, and for the other nine months, it would be housed in The Ruskin Museum.

Speaking on this, Bill Smith said: “That was a good deal, we liked that. The only problem with it was… when the first draft agreement arrived, it included this three-way steering committee that had to approve every move we ever made.”

Ultimately, that deal failed, and there have been no formal negotiations ever since.

In February of this year, The Ruskin Museum issued legal papers to Bill Smith and The Bluebird Project. Speaking on this, Jeff Carroll – the museum’s vice-chair of trustees – said: “We want to resolve the situation… but, at the same time, we had an agreement, we haven’t gone back on it…the goal posts have been moved by Mr Smith and The Bluebird Project, not The Ruskin Museum.”