I'm glad I'm not on Twitter. I can only encourage some people to look at their life clock and ask themselves what they can do in their remaining time to make the world - including their own - a little better.

@Renegadenemo >>> We didn't move heaven and earth to build a fully working machine to let it fall into disrepair so we'll continue our work and you never know, the next letter from the RM may contain something a little more positive next time. <<< Amen. Such open letters are simply irrelevant. The current trustees have proven that they don't live up to decisions or agreements made by former members, they even denigrate former members. Thus they proved anything they just say or write becomes completely irrelevant, because they may change their mind again when the members change next time. The only thing that matters in dealing with them are signed contracts or court orders. I find this an exhilarating realization: they can swear like washerwomen or sing and dance in circles holding hands - none of it matters.

I have to admit that I had the same reflex when these RM rants started, but the above is not a good idea for (at least) 2 reasons. a) The legacy reason: dismantling K7 would completely destroy K7's integrity as she is today, almost like she was in the morning of the 4th of January in 1967 - probably even in better shape. Nobody wants this. So just because there's a guy at the RM who suffers from brain farts, you can't destroy this icon. So the BBP is right to fight for the integrity of K7, for the legacy of K7 and DC and also for their part in history. b) The legal reason: until the entire dispute is resolved in court, it is unclear who's the current owner of K7. It is highly unlikely that the court will follow the RM's view that K7 belongs solely to them, but until the final court decision is made, BBP cannot decide on their own to dismantle K7 without risking trouble. The BBP shall not dismantle K7 even if someone from the RM asks them in writing to do so. At least I wouldn't risk it unless there is a signed contract to do so. Because one thing must be clear by now: you cannot trust the RM or the CFHT concerning anything they say or write. From now on there are only signed contracts - even for the use of the toilet. Again, if I were the BBP I would not sign an agreement with the RM do destroy K7, see point a). Conclusion: Talk to a lawyer and ignore the RM's rants because they are irrelevant as long as they don't take the case to court.

To me the future plans for K7 are a secondary point in this letter. As many others I highly doubt the RM has the plan - and even if they have - the capabilities, to ever run K7 again, even if they say now they want to. But again, this is secondary. The primary point is to obtain sole ownership of K7, which means they want to kick the BBP and especially Bill out - as if they never existed in the history of K7. The RM admints that ownership is still an unclear point and they also claim it's an ongoing process with the court, see point 5. and 6. They think they can win this suit and get a court decision which says that the BBP and Bill own nothing, it's all RM property and the BBP has no rights to run, maintain or even touch K7. What the letter basically says is: until ownership has been cleared by court nobody shall even have a look at K7, let alone touching. So a complete stop. Only a lawyer can tell you if it's a good idea to ignore this claim - or - only follow it in case a court tells you to do so. This same lawyer can probably also tell you if there is a case opened at a court at all. Because according to what is known to the public, all letters are so far just ranting and were never followed by legal actions.

Ok, this statement makes it very clear. The RM (and the CFHT) want to keep K7 alive and running - just not with Bill. They want the boat, all the parts, all the work, they want to do all the things Bill wants to do - but just kick Bill out? That's not going to happen that way. They should have thought about that before they had K7 restored by Bill and his volunteers. So it will come down to the 3rd option: K7 will linger unfinished in Northumberland until a judge makes a decision. That decision one of the sides will not accept, will appeal. How many judicial instances are there in the UK? How long is this going to take? Sorry, rarely read such stubbornness. Very disappointing.

>>> Whilst the Deed of Gift does not include Bill Smith, it does limit the ability of the Ruskin Museum to act. <<< This is how the RM puts it, but after reading the Deed of Gift this is not correct. What limits the RM is not the Deed of Gift, but the contracts the RM made afterwards to get money. Considering the triple alliance, did CFHT and Bill and his volunteers agree to these contracts? Imagine if Bill had accepted sponsorships on the condition that Bluebird be painted red or have a large sponsor logo? I think one would rightly expect that such, external contracts would not be signed. In particular, such external contracts do not create facts within the triple alliance unless all partners have agreed to it. Leaving aside the personal resentments that obviously exist, the whole situation really breaks down to the question of when the idea came up to keep K7 alive as a drivable icon, i.e., to drive K7 at least once a year, and who then agreed to that. As far as I can tell, that is - apart from personal resentments - apparently the only substantively contentious issue. CFHT and RM want to drive K7 only once and then let her die in the museum. Bill and the volunteers want to keep K7 as a living icon and drive it at least once a year. Or am I wrong here and CFHT and RM also want to keep K7 alive - just not with Bill as a partner?

@Geoff Love >>> There are a lot of people on this forum that believe Bill Smith and the Bluebird project has a right of involvement moving forward, but I can't see where the legal obligation for that comes from.<<< I don't know the legal situation in the UK in detail, but in Germany, where I live, verbal agreements or handshake contracts are also valid. With written contracts, it is of course much easier to understand who is obligated to do what or what rights a party has acquired, but they are not mandatory for the basic conclusion of a contract. Verbal agreements are therefore just as binding as written contracts - even if it is much more difficult to define the exact content of the agreement. Of course, I don't know what exactly was verbally agreed upon between the parties CFHT, RM, and Bill Smith during the years 2000 to 2006, but it is reasonable to assume that Bill's statement "the volunteers and I will take care of K7" is mutually agreed upon in the understanding that the care to preserve K7 does not end when K7 is displayed in the Ruskin Museum. I think you have to look at this from the perspective that the original BlueBird Project was a collaboration of three equal parties to restore, preserve, and exhibit K7. That's also what the statements of the persons in the Magneto video indicate, as well as what's under "A Timeline" on the RM home page. As I see it, a) CFHT and RM can't just kick Bill and his volunteers out of this alliance, and b) CFHT remains part of the alliance as well, even though they formally transferred ownership of K7's remains to the Ruskin Museum in 2006. Or how else do you explain why the CFHT was at the table in the conversation? >>> Bill has the most to lose from this. Bill continues to suggest that The Ruskin need to come to him with an offer. ... Either way Bill becomes a small footnote in the history of the project. <<< I see this differently, in several ways. 1) Bill and the volunteers made a proposal to the RM back in 2013 to transfer ownership of the added new parts to the RM in exchange for continuing to maintain K7 and operate K7 during demonstration runs. If the RM does not agree to this proposal, then it is now up to them to make a counter proposal. In the spirit of the idea of an alliance of the 3 parties, the proposal to simply hand over the completly restored K7 unconditionally cannot be considered a reasonable counter-proposal. So the ball is now in RM's (and CFHT's) court. 2) It would certainly hurt Bill and the other volunteers to have to dismantle K7. BTW, I do not see handing over K7 in its entirety as a possible outcome of a court order. In case of a court order I think it's more likely that K7 will remain in Northumberland forever, because the Triple Alliance never fixed a date for completion of the restoration - so the promised restoration is still underway. If it does come to a court ordered dismantling of K7, then I'm sure Bill could build a replica of K7 with the team of volunteers sooner than anyone else would even be able to come up with a plan to rebuild the original remains of K7. As I understand it, the restoration of K7 also took so much time because there were no drawings of the condition of K7 in 1966/67: these had to be painstakingly worked out first. Ok, you can make the missing parts as a non-functional mock-up that somehow looks like K7, but what a step backwards that would be? I hope this is not the plan! So either there will be a sponsor who will invest a lot of money - an I really mean a lot - to pay for a restoration of K7 somewhere in a professional rebuild workshop (if there are any), it will be a bad mock-up or it will take another 10-15 years until K7 can be launched again. But who will then still be interrested in K7? To be honest, I personally don't think this will ever happen should K7 be cut appart. So in the end everyone loses in this case - and I mean the Campbell family, the RM and the general public a lot more than Bill. 3) Well, aren't we all just tiny footnotes in history? I'm pretty sure neither Bill nor any of the volunteers worked on K7 to be a footnote in her history. They did it for fun and out of love or respect for K7 as a historical icon. In the end I think the position of Bill and the volunteers is much better than what's been told by the lawyer of the RM. If this case goes to court, then the likeliness of seeing a well restored K7 in the Ruskin Museum within a foreseeable future is much, much lower than if the CFHT and the RM would come up with a reasonabe suggestion of how to work together with Bill and the volunteers again. My feelings are that this is just prohibited by personal resentments.

Does anyone know what the plan is? Are there more of such meetings planned?

It might start with the general understanding that the Bluebird Project was - and must again be - a joint alliance of the CFHT, RM and Bill Smith (and friends) to ensure the future of K7. I mean, they should just take a look at where they stand today: what has been achieved is surely much more than they had dreamed in their wildest dreams 20 years ago. The project is practically finished: there is a museum wing, K7 is almost completely restored and has even been driven again. For God's sake - what else do you wish for? To make this clear - I'm with probably 90%+ of the K7 enthusiast who want to see K7 alive on the water once per year or maybe even every 2-3 years - but she should be cept alive and should not just sit dead in the museum. K7 should always wear a perfume of kerosene and oil.

I watched the video last night and some days ago I came across the PDF of the Deep of Gift on the RM websitze - and now things become a lot more clear me. First of all my hats off to Geoff and Neil to make this meeting happen - well done. It was also a very good idea let everyone explain the situation from their view. That was all very comprehensible and sounded reasonable to me. Until that lawyer in the video tried to make it sound simple. But he is overlooking something significantly and that's probably the reason why he is a laywer and not a judge. I will explain. Someone in the video said the "Blue Bird Project" was initially a trilateral alliance between: a) the Campbell family - as the legal heirs of the remaining parts and the heritage of K7 b) the Ruskin Museum and the people of Coniston - as the institution which was assigned to host K7 for public view c) Bill Smith and friends - as the ones who raised K7 and finally volunteered to rebuild K7 This alliance makes perfectly sense and I think it needs all 3 of them, they just made one big mistake: they never set up a written contract between all 3 of them, a contract which notes down who is going to do or provide what and what each party will gain in rights doing so. Unfortunately this was all either a verbal agreements - or to some extend most likely not even discussed. If I understand the story correctly then the only written contract that was ever signed in the whole process was this Deed of Gift in 2006, as the RM required ownership of K7 to to apply for subsidies. BUT, 1. The Deed of Gift was only a contract between a) and b). Party c) was mentioned in the contract, but was not supposed to sign and thus didn't. So whatever is written in the Deed of Gift concerning the role of party c) is not binding for party c). To make things binding for party c) there must be a written contract which directly involves party c)! 2. Even if we assume the Deed of Gift would be binding for party c), then the wording is "party c) will rebuild K7 at no cost to party b)". Ok, this is exactly how the rebuild was done so far - all costs (money) of the restoration were raised or borne by party c). But the big missunderstanding of the parties a) and b) (and their lawyer) is: "at no cost" doesn't mean "without gaining any rights". It must have been clear to everyone involved that if party c) does the restoration work free of charge and even covers all cost involved, than party c) gains the right to be involved in future decissions about the subject - here K7. Conclusion: The whole situation is not as simple and clear as the lawyer in the video tried to make it look. If things go to court then it's not clear what the outcome will be - well, maybe except that everyone involved will lose. Again, if this goes to court, then all parties involved will lose - including us supporters and fans of the K7 and its history. Solution: What has been missed 20 years ago must be done now: parties a), b) and c) must sit down and agree to a written contract which notes down all rights and duties of each party. I mean, what so difficult about it? Neither the Campball family nor Bill and his team want to own K7 - everyone involved says the owner of the fully restored K7 shall be the Ruskin Museum. As said above by many others, the only thing the Campball family and the Ruskin Museum needs to agree to is that Bill and his team will maintain K7 for as long as they can (and want to) do it. Heck, why should anyone other than the team who rebuild K7 maintain it in the future? Again, the contract and the decission that Bill and his team will maintain K7, is the key. For how long K7 needs to be maintained per year and if K7 is allowed to be absent to run or be displayed anywhere else than on Coniston Waters is a secondary decission - a decission which should be covered by the contract too, but just in a way how this will be decided, e.g. each party thas the right to take out K7 for so many days per year. E.g. ideally all 3 parties agree to display K7 at the Goodwood Festival, then attend and have fun together.

Read the statement of the RM dated 24th of Sept. - Maybe the supporters of the BBP should make very clear that we have no interrest in working with the RM or even viewing what they did with K7 once they forced the BBP out!

A wise decision. Not sure if it works out, but unless a judge orders dismantling and returning the pieces belonging to the RM the BBP team should try to keep things together as they are and should fight for a positive outcome. Both K7 and the BBP deserve this. So, whoever came up with this idea: thank you!

My guess is if K7 is dismantled now, then she will never ever run on water again. What a shame! I'm so glad I made it to Bute, saw K7 run and have met the BBP team. Joerg (Germany)

Thanks for correcting the citation, yes, it was 'crusty old museum'. Doesn't make it better though. Who is this person who changed Ms. Campbells mind? Why would he do this? Why did she change her mind? That doesn't make any sense to me. To the below. 'Name calling' is in general unprofessional. It also never helped anywhere. Everyone needs to keep at least some respect for the other side, at least in public. I'm still hoping this all will come to a good end.

I thought I may have dreamt it, but I do remember a TV interview of a very happy Ms Campbell, who, after the first team trail runs on Bute, told everyone that a) only Bill could have achievd this and b) that she felt K7 was to young to rot in a museum. I found at least the first part: Bluebird: The Afterlife - YouTube go to 9:20 Only if everyone involved (RM, CFHT,...) understands and respects this (again), there will be a solution. Otherwise things will stay in a deadlock forever - and remember: the BBP team is mostly younger than you. Involving Bill and the BBP team into the life of K7 made the BBP a significant part of the history of K7. These people worked their butt off (for free!) to restore K7 and it took them longer than DC ever owned K7 or Leo Villa worked on her - keep this in mind. Noone, any I really mean noone, including DC if he'd be alive, has any legal and especially moral right to ask the BBP to return K7 - as is - or even worse - stripped down - and then pi** off. I can only encourage the people behind the RM and the CFHT to ask themselves if they ever want to see K7 within their lifetime again. In case the answer is yes, then find an agreement with the BBP. There is no other solution than this. Cheers.