Hi Bill,

I have no idea what the current Bluebird Museum/owners have in mind for Bluebird K7 in the future, but the incredible amount of interest it managed to generate over a full week of testing must have some caused some surprise?

People were being charged £25 a day, just to park on the roads around the lake, so a considerable amount of income would have been generated from this alone.

I hope some of this income goes back into the Bluebird project and that it does not all end up in local government funds.

Keeping Bluebird K7 in working condition will be a very expensive operation, and for it to be run again in the future, good strong financial support will be needed.

Let’s hope the income generated (from all sources) during the week long Bluebird Festival will be enough not only to preserve this historic history maker, but to encourage the caretakers to repeat the experience with another Bluebird Festival at some point in the future.

Bob.

Thanks Bob. Even 100mph on the water is eye watering. Some fine that K7 was the subject of a public festival. Will she now be relegated to dry docking or is there a floating museum planned?

Bill

Hi Chum,

Bluebird K7 was cruised at 100 mph on Saturday 16th May 2026, but this speed was never exceeded. On some days the water conditions were considered to be too dangerous to run K7 at speed.

The 70 year old rebuilt hull was being run with new engines and on Coniston Waters for the first time since its loss in 1967 and needed several small “settling-in” issues to be resolves during the weeks test running.

The organisers of the “test runs” that were done in public over a 7 day period named them The Bluebird Festival and was considered to be a huge success.

Some of those that went to see Bluebird run on Coniston Waters were disappointed that she did not go any faster, but this would have been an unrealistic expectation.

Hopefully Bluebird will be run again, and it was good to see this priceless museum piece on the same waters that claimed it all those years ago.

Bob.

Bob, will you have access to the speeds accomplished for the day? If so please post them. Is there a website one can follow for the runs?

That looks like it is the perfect scale for an authentic Bluebird K7 Gary 😂

Bob.

A rather nice looking K7 Bluebird.

@GaryLC Steven, you are a gentle man and a scholar, Thankyou, IT was never one of my strong points, or old dog new tricks syndrome?

Hi Gary,

Donald Campbell's Bluebird will be running every day this week (10 - 17th May 2026) and will be increasing its speed each day if everything goes well.

The local weather here today ( 13/05/26) is not good (but better than forecast) so hopefully the runs will be able to continue today as planned.

Bob.

@GaryLC Sorry can't post any photos, comes up as invalid file.

Admin: I have fixed this - webp files now accepted 👍