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Recent news that some divers had discovered the remains of
the 'Bluebird', Donald Campbell's powerboat, at the bottom of Coniston
Water in Cumbria, part of Britain's Lake District, brought back poignant
memories.
Being out of touch with most of the media at the time,
the Azores being somewhat (delightfully) isolated from the mainstream of
world affairs, I can only imagine that everything that could be said on
the subject has been said and, doubtless, most eloquently, but the story reminded me of another,
earlier, dashing speedster.
John Rhodes Cobb, a British motor car and powerboat
racer, set world records for the fastest machines on land and water. He was born in 1899 in
Esher, Surrey, and was educated at Eton and Cambridge.
Cobb began racing after the first World War and became world famous on September 15th 1938 at Bonneville salt flats in Utah, when he set a new motor car World Speed Record of 563.6 kilometres per
hour (350.2 m.p.h.).
Just under a year later, on August 23rd 1939, again at Bonneville, he broke his own record by driving the car to 593.7 kilometres per
hour (368.9 m.p.h.).
During the second World War, Cobb served with the Royal
Air Force and also as a ferry pilot. After the war, he got back into racing cars and, later, motor boats.
On September 16th 1947, Cobb returned to Bonneville to set yet another motor car
World Speed Record. The official record is an average of two runs, in opposite directions, over a measured
mile.
Cobb achieved 634.69 kilometres per hour (394 m.p.h.) on his first run and 648.783 kilometres an
hour (403.135 m.p.h.) on his second run, thus making him the first person to have traveled at over 400 miles per hour on land.
On Loch Ness, in Scotland, on the 29th of September
1952, Cobb attempted to break the motorboat speed record of 287.263 kilometres an
hour (178 m.p.h.) in a jet propelled boat.
On the first run, he averaged 332.96 kilometres per hour (206.89 m.p.h.).
This was the first time 200 miles per hour had been exceeded on water.
Just after completing the run, and before the officially required return run could be
made, Cobbs' boat broke up and he was killed.
Donald Campbell seems all the braver when one considers
that he must have been aware, when he, too, attempted to push man's limits
of waterborne achievement still further, of the possibility that he might
share the same fate as John Cobb, which, ultimately, he did. Those of us
who watched his demise will never forget it, or him.
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