Bluebird: Dismantling Donald Campbell's boat only remaining option

Bill Smith recovered Bluebird's wreckage in 2001

A museum has said dismantling Donald Campbell's Bluebird is the only option remaining now its deadline for the boat's return has passed.

The Ruskin Museum in Coniston, Cumbria, and the boat's restorer Bill Smith have argued over what should happen to it.

The museum said its lawyers had made a "final appeal" to Mr Smith to hand it over "in one piece" before 31 August.

Mr Smith, who recovered the wreckage in 2001, said he was not prepared to "go empty-handed after 15 years of work".

Mr Campbell was killed trying to break the water speed record with Bluebird on Coniston in 1967.

Mr Campbell's daughter Gina Campbell gifted the wreckage to the museum in 2006 on the understanding Mr Smith would restore it.

The rebuilt Bluebird underwent trials in Scotland in 2018

Mr Smith said his team has restored about "half a boat" while the other half was built "from scratch" in his North Shields workshop.

The museum maintains it was agreed it would be put on permanent display in a special wing and has repeatedly asked for it to be handed over. But Mr Smith and the restoration team want it to be run on the water as it was in Bute in 2018.

One of the museum's trustees, Jeff Carroll, said it was "not going to be held to ransom".

"The default situation would be that Bluebird would be dismantled to the point where the museum can get back what originally came out of the lake, and the Bluebird project retain what they see as their property, which they've added as part of the restoration," he said.

If this was the only way the museum could fulfil its obligation to put the boat on permanent show "then that's what needs to happen", he said.

Mr Carroll confirmed no new date had been set for the original parts to be given to the museum and its solicitors were again in discussions with Mr Smith.

An agreement still needed to be reached about which parts went where, he said.

Bill Smith has ben restoring Bluebird since 2007

In August the museum said it "had to take legal action to see K7 returned to her owners" but Mr Carroll admitted none of the agreements drawn up over the years allowed the museum to simply retrieve the boat from Mr Smith's premises.

Mr Campbell's daughter, Gina Campbell, said the work Mr Smith's team had done was "miraculous, but it doesn't give them title to the boat".

It "belongs to the Ruskin Museum, no ifs, no buts" and should be available "for the public to see, to marvel at what we did achieve, what my father achieved", she said.

"There is precious little, short of going to court which we all know is something that's not very desirable, to get this property returned," she said.

Mr Smith said the rear half was all that survived the crash and, if this was returned to the museum, the team would make replacement parts, produce a replica boat and would "do as we please with it".

"If they want their bits back then, very definitely, let's have a clean divorce, they can take their bits and do with [them] as they will," he said.

Mr Carroll said its offer in 2019 that Mr Smith could have control of Bluebird for up to 90 days a year was "rejected in under 24 hours".

But Mr Smith said the conditions attached and the requirement for him to have approval from the museum for any plans a year in advance made it unacceptable.