6th March 2008

It’s great to have people asking all the time, when will Bluebird be finished? Those who smugly predicted we’d never do it have either changed sides or shut up (not sure which I like best).
The building work on the museum has gone to tender backed by all the funding it needs to put the roof on and we’ve been invited to all kinds of high-level meetings with regard to getting K7 back on the lake but there’s still so much to think about that we need to start preparing now.
For example, there’s the question of how to mount the boat in the museum display and how to move her around. We have to solve the logistics of not only taking her home but how to move her to and from the water because she’s to be a living exhibit rather than the museologically-preferred, dead machine on a plinth.
We winged all this stuff last time because many thought us amateurish but having nurtured our project to full respectability we must now demonstrate appropriate professionalism for K7’s homecoming.
How did we move the boat last time? I seem to recall…

*

Remember the eco-warrior thing? Well, I said a sad goodbye to that mission and my Greenie mates to immediately join the crew of a pair-trawler out of a small fishing port called Eyemouth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyemouth) on the Northumberland coast to assess a completely different issue.
Pair-trawling involves two boats pulling a single net between them so while one crew sort the catch between four-hour hauls the other can rest and vice-versa.

The Greenies will tell you how mid-water trawlers are driving dolphins to near-extinction by drowning them in their nets. Whilst common sense suggests that the most hydrodynamically efficient creature on the planet equipped with an acoustic positioning system signed off by millions of years of evolution is hardly likely to be fooled by a couple of lumbering boats dragging a shopping bag between them.
Yet the trawlermen will confess that occasionally they do entrap a dolphin or a seal but their kids love these animals as much as any other kids so daddy invariably risks life and limb on a rescue mission if for no other reason than marine mammals are commercially useless and a PR disaster in a fishing net.
But other creatures of equal innocence don’t fare so well.
If you happen to be a ten-legged, forty-four-eyed blob of jelly and the net slurps you up then chances are you’ll be hauled heavenwards to a hell where seabirds eat you before you can think about how to breathe.

The sad thing about trawling is that when you’re caught you’ve had it. Be you undersize mackerel or record-size halibut you’re going to die… But nature can cope with such destructive practice as long as its scale is kept down amongst the locals.

Once upon a time our inshore waters were alive with tough men in small boats who cast-off each morning to pit their wits against the elements and their quarry but commerce and greed inevitably tipped such a delicate balance and mostly stripped the seas of both fish and the traditional men who made it their living.
And why am I rabbiting on about sea creatures? You may well ask…
It’s because I drove through a police speed trap a few days ago. And at this point you may be excused for being completely flummoxed.
You see, what happened was that by the roadside waited a cunningly concealed van firing lasers from the sharp end of an organisation hell-bent on extracting sixty quid from each and every one of us – the policing equivalent of a factory trawler – an emotionless box of digital electronics mercilessly harvesting everything within its beams.
The spotty, apprentice plumber racing his mate in a car that would normally be your mum’s shopping trolley were it not for all the crap he’s bought to make it look like a Christmas tree could be considered a juicy haddock if I’m to expand on my fishing analogy.
You may also see in your mirror a fully-grown codfish driving a white van six inches from your bumper, or a prize halibut in a yellow Porsche bullying for position on the M6.
But your dad, who’s just collected your mum’s prescription, and who is now hurrying to collect his grandkids from school, is no more than an undersize mackerel caught in the net.
You can eat him but it’s not fair…
I therefore thought, whilst serenely cruising past this rapacious, fiscal-extraction machine, that unlike the shameful laser operators of today our roads were once patrolled by friendly coppers, not unlike the traditional trawlermen whom you could respect, as they formed part of the glue that bound the community.
I remember being pulled over in my road-going youth by real police officers who understood the balancing act they were paid to perform. They knew exactly which horror stories from their years in the job to tell a seventeen year-old Nigel Mansell (Lewis Hamilton for the under 40’s- Al) wannabe to keep him from killing himself horribly in a car crash. They also knew when to show compassion – and when to punish. You can’t hide in the back of a van and earn respect from 1000m away…
Continuing with this reasoning I began to think back to better times and came full circle to the problem of moving K7 because late March 2001 was the last time being able to negotiate with a policeman proved decisive in escaping one of my many indiscretions.
We’d lifted Bluebird then hidden the wreck in a local car body repair facility on Tyneside where we hoped the press wouldn’t think to look.
But our temporary landlord couldn’t put up with twenty-odd feet of sodden scrap in his premises indefinitely so after a week to let the media circus find another town we thought of how best to shift her to what would ultimately become the BBP assembly shop.
Bluebird was at that time still on the rig we used to get her ashore. We’d built a cradle a foot high and bolted it to the deck of a dodgy car trailer, which made the whole affair over eleven feet tall, ten foot six inches wide across the main spar, and so lengthy that it ought to have sported a ‘long vehicle’ placard on the rear. Factor in that it weighed over two tons if you included the water we brought home from Coniston so pulling it with my elderly, Daihatsu Fourtrak wasn’t to be recommended.
Recommended or otherwise that’s exactly what we gambled on because sanctuary lay only about three miles distant and we reasoned we’d probably get away with it.
With light snow melting on the windscreen and our cargo swathed in a heavy tarpaulin, Bluebird filled the road far more than envisaged and soon proved our plan about as workable as having a museologist perform conjuring tricks at your kid’s birthday party. I just knew the inevitable would happen.
The patrol car and its wide-eyed copper slipped behind us (neither was such an endangered species back in those days) as we crawled down the high street and it was only a question of time before the blue strobes fired.
Sure enough, they weren’t long in coming.
Alain opened the passenger door before we ground to a standstill, hurried around to the driver’s side and slipped smoothly into an oft-practiced routine from our diving days as the officer shot from his jam sandwich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam_sandwich) and demanded an answer to his opening question…
“You told me you’d fitted the trailer-board,” I snapped angrily at Alain who’d deftly pitched the problem my way as though we’d never rehearsed such a thing in our lives.
“It’s your turn,” he shrugged. “Thought you’d done it...”
The policemen glanced between us. I glared daggers at Alain.
“It’s not my bloody turn,” I said furiously. “You say that every time. You’re just ******g lazy!”
Alain shrugged…
“I only say it every time because you do the same stupid thing every time,” he offered calmly. I swelled with indignation and launched into the next round.
The cop obviously hadn’t seen the likes of this before and chose to watch and learn for a moment but we were winning – he was buying an act we’d perfected over the years as a defence against avoiding the nuisanceful (witness the birth of a new word) task of affixing our lights and number plate to the back of our boat trailer because we’d normally make it ashore with only five minutes to catch last orders at the seaside pub. We’d not mounted it this time for a different reason. The cable wasn’t long enough and our boat trailer was 22ft long!.
Eventually, faced with an escalating conflict, the policeman stepped in with an enough-is-enough sort of gesture and took charge.
“Never mind the trailer board,” he said authoritatively; and pointing at the wheeled mountain by the roadside, he asked, “What is that thing?”
Alain and I paused for breath then gulped at the outrageous scale of K7 under her tarpaulin.
“Perhaps you’d like to take a look, Officer,” I suggested calmly. Alain carried on being grumpy to keep up the pretence
The policeman eyed us suspiciously then, probably deciding that we’d no chance of escape (at least not with the ridiculous item we’d dared to wheel onto his patch), he ducked under the tarpaulin only to pop out seconds later looking like he’d discovered his scantily clad mother-in-law on a road-going chaise longue beneath the tarpaulin.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asked amazedly (presumably not his mum-in-law). “I’ve seen this on the telly.”
He vanished again and rummaged under the cover awhile longer but when he reappeared he looked very stern indeed.
Uh-oh, thought I, here it comes.
“This is all very interesting,” said our previously affable copper, he’d switched to severe policeman mode this time so we played our part too and danced the naughty schoolboy shuffle for him.
“What made you imagine you could move this on the public highway?” he demanded with all the authority vested in him. “It’s a moving violation!”
(I treasure his summation to this day – ‘a moving violation’ – what a glorious description of K7)
We knew this already, as it happened, so we added a pinch of mock guilt to our routine as I urgently wondered what to do.
“Yes, Officer, you’re absolutely right,” I offered as I tried to organise in my mind the desperate gamble that had just occurred to me, “and we’re very sorry but we’re not going far and we were going really, really slowly…”
His eyes widened and then narrowed worryingly as I allowed such feeble excuses to take whatever effect they may before I hit him with the big one.
“What we really ought to have, Officer, is a police escort...”
He gaped at the pair of us...
“How much further were you planning on going?” he asked disbelievingly as though our daring to suggest continuing at all deserved a jail sentence.
“Only as far as my factory,” I said with everything to play for. “It’s right next to the police station so you can tell your mates you just pulled Campbell’s boat over as soon as we’re safely off the road… I bet no one else ever did…”
He stared at us a bit longer until, bless him, his eyes twinkled with the mischief of it all and he demonstrated an attribute no software engineer will ever design into a laser gun – the ability to be human.
“OK,” he said with a grin. “Come on.”
And so we completed our journey behind a patrol car with blue flashing lights through what became a snowstorm before our friendly cop took his leave with a cheery wave. He was a great bloke, a policeman blessed with both humanity and professionalism – possibly the last of his breed. And if he happens to read this I’d like him to call us up so I can buy him a pint. Alain will get the next round in. (And I’d love to know what stories he told the boys in blue back at the nick)

Our ‘moving violation’ off its trailer and safely in the workshop, March 01.
I think, perhaps, we’ll hire a professional company of movers next time.

*

Seven years on and we’re realising a dream. K7 is going back together but sometimes it just doesn’t happen the way you want it to.
Take, for example, the spar root-fairings. I mean, they’re stupid little pieces of tinwork that ought to have taken an afternoon yet they’ve turned into a project in themselves. This is why I invariably reply, “she’ll be finished when she’s finished”, when people push for a completion date. How were we to know how much work would ultimately have to go into the damn things?
As we left things last time, the top and back faces of the right-hand example were in place to which we then added the original back cover for the spar. Both back covers were recovered, still attached and in almost mint condition so they were a given a quick cleanup and put back.
Here’s the right-hand cover being removed.

And now in position once more – minus its paint and with the root-fairing returned to where it came from. The front, D-shaped cover is original on this side too.

Back to business, the aft vertical section of the right-hand root-fairing was used as a template to recreate the missing other side so we know that’s correct too.

That shiny, new vertical in the corner where the spar meets the nose is welded into the original top section of the fairing (the flat bit that lies atop the spar and fans out onto the foredeck). But even this part took some serious work because it came up in two pieces and had to be welded back together.
It led us into some extreme conserveering.
Remember how Alan ‘Doddy’ Dodds bashed up the front fairing for the left-hand side.

Well it fitted a treat but left us with a small problem.

Here it’s in its rough state with the welds unfinished and a few gaps here and there but what shape ought it to really be? We could eye it in from photographs and get away with it but a tiny scrap of salvaged aluminium refused to end its days in the LOOF box and begged its pardon by providing a wealth of historical accuracy.
You may have to spend some time going through the following images in order to properly interpret what’s being shown but there’s a point to this so no apologies.
You see, we have to spend hours with the real pieces of metal in our hands learning where they came from, how they were affected in the accident, what material properties then had back then and what they can teach us today so it’s only fair that you do likewise.
Each piece may take several weeks to interpret before a suitable treatment is devised for it then put into practice so if the following confuses you at the first reading then go back and do it again. That’s what we do…
Here it is still wet on Predator’s deck about this time in 2007.

What you’re actually looking at is two pieces of scrap atop the engine cover. A sponson former to the right, which has no blue paint because it came from inside the sponson top, and a chunk of Bluebird’s original nose extending from the very bottom right of the wreckage to where it’s poking into the orange basket top right – this is the bit were interested in. You can see an area of blue paint divided horizontally by a dark line.
Here it is again on the workshop floor.

Start at bottom right and move up that side until you see two patches of blue with a dividing, horizontal line through them.
And again…

This picture is inverted for ease of interpretation but now it’s possible to see that the horizontal line is where one panel overlaps the other and the reason there’s no blue paint there is that filler was used to smooth over the join and it’s now in smashed fragments forty-two metres down.
Notice also that top-right there’s a curved edge. There’s a piece missing from that corner so take a look below.

You’re looking down on the foredeck with our piece on the right as usual, the front of the boat would be at the bottom of the picture were she complete and the cockpit opening would begin about where the top edge of the picture is. Part of the rail where the canopy used to run remains in the centre where the panels are unzipped and on the right can be seen our two divided pieces of shrapnel plus its missing, upper right corner. If you look very closely you can see the missing piece still attached to the wrecked foredeck with its edges bordered in brown rust from the steel screws and captive nuts that held it in place.  We took it off and below you can see it straightened and ready for welding back in gripped by a pair of G-clamps.

OK, you’ve hopefully worked out what’s what so here’s what we did with it.

Remember the two pieces of tin separated by a dark line; well here they are reunited in-situ with the paint removed where the lower one turns out to be a chunk of the front fairing. The only example to come out of the lake.
Making sense yet?
To straighten bent metal, the museologists arrogantly informed us, was to destroy history, but we disagree. Taking a piece of history, namely the new fairings built by ‘Doddy’ in 2008, and blending them with parts made in 1955 that crashed in 1967– we reckon that history has gained more than it’s lost.

We overlaid old on top of new then grafted it in.

There you go – all the salvaged material reincorporated. It needs tidying up but there’s more to this than simply salvaging bits of scrap. Every fragment not only increases the amount of original tin in the finished boat but also adds to her authenticity in other ways. For example, we now know exactly what the hole spacings were, how far they were from the edge of the fairing, where the welds were, etc. The rebuilt K7 is meticulously authentic because of such small things.

Here’s another case we’ve tackled recently. Take a look at the corrosion damage to the front spar fairing on the opposite side.

We popped the blue towing lug on there just to check which holes it used but if you look forward of it you can see that the corner of the front spar cover has rotted away and with it has gone several bolt and rivet holes that we’ll need during reassembly.
It was singled out for surgery with the incision line drawn in black ink.

Incidentally, I had an operation for varicose veins performed on my right leg some years ago as they were a thrombosis risk for deep diving – gas coming out of solution in a meandering backwater and forming clots is the problem – and, because the surgeons make an incision at the top of your leg through which they strip the vein, let me tell you that the singularly most painful part of the procedure is the application of a spirit marker-pen to the scrotum!
But we digress… a suitable graft was shaped and trimmed by Rob who spent several hours getting it perfect.

His work was then welded in and dressed.

But it took about five hours of TLC all-told to get that corner back.
Investing another five hours, on the other hand, using only new material, we knocked up the formers…

…then clashed the rear spar fairings into position.

They were simple by comparison. Notice all the left-hand side outriggers in position forming the hull shape and ready to accept a new outer skin. Coming soon…
Then we continued with the front spar root-fairings. They’re done now – at least as far as we can go with them. The trouble is that you end up with so many partially fastened parts that are not necessarily in their final position that it’s pointless to make all the tiny adjustments until the underlying structure is nailed down.
We considered putting the canopy runner into the foredeck but you can bet that something will need to be shuffled a millimetre here or there in the final build, which will leave the runner misaligned. We’ll do it when the foredeck has stopped fidgeting about.

The right-hand side (above)… The only part of the entire spar fairing that’s non-original here is the front and underside of the root-fairing where the spar meets the nose. Everything else, the back and front covers, and most of the root-fairing survived the 67 crash to fight another day.
And the left…

Not quite so much genuine K7 over here because the D-section nose was missing along with most of its fairings but it does have the only surviving piece of the forward root-fairing to compensate.
Glad that’s over with! We’ll need to fettle those fairings later when the spar is fastened in and the nose screwed down but at least they’re on the shelf for when the time comes and the hard work is done.
Speaking of hard work – Novie came back and tackled the opposite flute with the same bloody determination he used on the first one.

Apart from some minor dissimilar metal corrosion where the outriggers were riveted inside with a shortage of jointing compound it’s mint from front to back in terms of its condition. There’s some crash damage to fix but we’ll cover that shortly.
Alan ‘Doddy’ Dodds flagged down the Novie taxi again came over too to bash some replacement sections for the rear spar root-fairings. Notice also how, using a few G-clamps and bits of wood, K7’s frame has been made into an effective tin-bashing bench.

We have most of the original fairings for the rear spar because they remained with the boat but some repair pieces are needed so Alan put them in the stores for us. He sent this pic too, which really sums up what tin bashing is all about sometimes.

And so we’re nearing another milestone. The worst of rebuilding Bluebird’s nose section from F-15 where the frame failed is behind us. The side skins and rear spar fairings need sorting but the rebuilt nose is 9/10ths complete. I reckon we’ll have a few beers when it’s done
We’re going to dry-build the sides of the hull next then flip her upside down to do the floors. The job is unrelenting but our enthusiasm and determination only gets stronger the more the old girl starts to resemble her former self.
Back soon…