I have been looking at my crystal balls and this is what I see: I see the originally recovered parts of K7 removed, not to the Ruskin Museum, but to a facility elsewhere. I see a former cabbage salesman waving a chequebook on behalf of the CFHT. I see K7, not restored faithfully to original specifications but cobbled together into an engineless, visually approximate replica. I hear the Ruskin Museum asking: “May we display her now?”. I hear the reply: “Not until you agree to amend the deed of gift, because half the boat is ours now”. I see K7 spending six months a year in the Ruskin Museum and six months on tour, in the company of an old teddy bear. I see two cousins counting their Ill-gotten gains. I hear much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the town of Coniston, along with cries of “oh deary!”. Disclaimer: None of this could possibly be true, because I am not a clairvoyant and my balls aren’t made of crystal.

@Lesley Edkins I, for one, donated to the project, but on the basis that K7 would be not only restored to, but maintained in, working order and run periodically. Nobody is better qualified (or indeed, qualified at all), to do this than the team who recovered and restored her. I too would love to see K7 displayed in the Ruskin Museum but it is abundantly clear that the museum lacks both the will and the skill to run the boat ever again. If the BBP had agreed to hand over K7 and then be excluded from her future, I would have been demanding my money back. From the Ruskin Museum.

Damned if I know what the f*@& this has got to do with Brian Eastham anyway, but here’s a thought, albeit a ghastly one: Just supposing that Mr. Eastham just happens to have been in contact with somebody who just happens to own an otherwise useless craft that just happens to be fitted with an Orpheus engine, as well as intakes, canopy and sponsons that bear a vague resemblance to those fitted to K7. Might not that possibly give him some misplaced confidence in the prospects for a speedy rebuild?