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[h3]A fanatical chaser of speed records, Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record seven times in 10 years, and the land speed record once, before his boat Bluebird somersaulted into the air and crashed at 300MpH. Donald's body was never found.[/h3]

Sir Malcolm Cambell, Donald's father, was a British hero of the 1930s. An original speedking, he used his wealth, charm and grit, without compromise, to break his own land speed record again and again, and was adored by the nation.

The relationship between Sir Malcolm and Donald was complicated; the elder, typical of his era, gave little time to the son who worshipped him.

Donald was less lucky than his father and more determined. He crashed several times, the boat sunk, he fractured his skull, watched his adversaries die with frequency, yet he remained undaunted.

K4, his father's boat, took Donald on his first fights for the water speed record. He crashed at 170Mph crash in 1951. In the newly designed boat, the K7, he set his first record of 202Mph at Ullswater in 1955, then raised the record to 216mph at Lake Mead in 1955.

In a sequence of record raising runs at Coniston, Donald reached 248mph in 1958, then moved lakes to Dumbleyung in 1964, where he broke 276Mph. .

Donald then turned to cars. In 1964, at Lake Eyre, Australia, he set a new World Land Speed Record of 403.1Mph. He was the first, and so far only, man to hold both Water and Land Speed Records at the same time.

Desperate to get over 300Mph on water, Donald took the jet powered Bluebird to 297Mph on the first run at Coniston water in 1967. Impatient, Donald turned and without refuelling or waiting for his wake to settle, set off on a second attempt. At just over 300Mph, the boat lifted out of the water and disintegrated on landing on the surface.

The wrecked Bluebird was discovered by underwater cameras in 2000 and raised in 2001. The tail was undamaged but the cockpit was completely crushed.
Donald Campbell biography



Donald was intensely superstitious. No attempt after 1958 could start without Mr. Whoppit, the Merriweather teddy bear given to him that year by his manager, Peter Barker. He so hated the colour green that 1964 project manager Evan Green was known within the team as Evan Turquoise. He hated anyone wishing him 'Good Luck' after Goffy Thwaites, the boatman at Coniston, had said it prior to the 1951 accident with K4.
Donald Campbell biography




Donald Campbell biography




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