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Preface by the author, Kevin Desmond, to "Race
Against The Odds"
During 30 years of research into world powerboating history, two speedboats
have continued to intrigue me. Without doubt, Donald Campbell's legendary Bluebird
K7 jet-engined hydroplane remains a focal point for those who may know little
of this minority sport. But the very first article about powerboat history which
I managed to get accepted for publication was about Miss England II. This was
in April 1974, the first of a series called 'Yesterday' and I was an enthusiastic
24-year-old.
But why Miss England II? In terms of achievement, this powerboat only broke
the World Speed Record three times, lifting the speed by just 15 mph - as opposed
to Bluebird K7's total increase of 100 mph, and she failed to bring back the
coveted bronze trophy for which she had been most expensively built.
Nevertheless, the quest to find out more and more about her was, for me, to
become almost an obsession, but a fascinating one. Her fascination comes from
the fact that she was the symbol of an extraordinary epoch. When this elegant
projectile, representing the cream of the British Empire's technology and driven
by one of her most admired Speed Kings came to grief, it was regarded as a national
disaster. When she went to Argentina to lift the record, the Argentine Navy
turned out to dredge the local River Parana. When she went to Italy, she was
extravagantly fêted by Mussolini's arch rival, a poet called d'Annunzio.
When she overturned again during a race watched by 600,000 spectators in Detroit,
during the Prohibition era, a public accusation of trickery was made which has
since gone down as one of the major controversies of boating history. No one
boat indirectly promoted the presentation of two separate trophies or encouraged
the Spiritualist movement. No one speedboat has ever inspired a full-length
book.
My background reading was based on the fine biography of Sir Henry Segrave by
the late Cyril Posthumus, who always encouraged and advised me in my quest.
And, although my research concerned events which had taken place forty years
before, back in the early 1970s a number of players and eye-witnesses were still
living, although some were more ready to help than others.
Up at Windermere, I met George Pattinson, founder of the Windermere Steamboat
Museum. As a teenager, George was an eyewitness to this tragically successful
record-attempt. Indeed his father and uncle were Course Marshals. Like so many
other eyewitnesses, George told me of the eerie silence in the seconds following
the crash - eerie because there must have been almost one hundred spectator
craft on Windermere.
Michael J. Willcocks had supervised construction of the hydroplane at Cowes
and was her riding mechanic before - and very courageously after - the fatal
accident on Windermere. He was still living in Clevedon, Somerset, next to the
family engineering business, whence he applied for the task of riding mechanic
in the cockpit of what was to be Britain's most powerful and innovative speedboat
to-date. During the mid-1970s, I went down several times to interview "Wilkie"
on audio tape and received a succession of fascinating letters, punched out
on an old typewriter or in spindly barely readable handwriting, but giving detail
after detail about what had been the greatest adventure of his life. Wilkie
still had framed photos of speedboat aces Gar Wood and Betty Carstairs on the
walls of his office, as well as the wickerwork seat Sir Henry Segrave had sat
in on that fateful Friday 13th June 1930 when Miss England II hit a submerged
log at an unprecedented 120mph with fatal consequences. Willcocks was the sole
survivor. Appreciating my enthusiasm, Michael kindly gave me some unique and
unpublished photographs. You'll find them in this book.
While on the subject of rare photos, keen to find anything possible about motorboat
racing history, I placed an advertisement in a national daily newspaper. One
response offered to sell me a photo of Miss England II on Thursday, June 12th
1930, autographed by her entire team. The following day, two crew were dead
and the boat was on the lake bed. Although I bought this for the then princely
sum of £20, subsequent penury, albeit temporary, forced me to re-sell
it, for £30, to the Windermere Motor Boat Racing Club. (Twenty-five years
later, the Club has kindly given me permission to use it in these pages.)
I also received this touching offer from Grange-over-Sands:
Dear Mr Desmond, I have read your letter in "The Westmorland Gazette"
regarding motor-boat speed records. I have a large number of press cuttings
of the late Sir Henry Segrave, including press photographs, and graphic accounts
of the speed attempt which ended in tragedy….These cuttings are stuck in
a scrap-book and although perhaps somewhat childish, they are genuine, authentic
and collected by me from local newspapers 1929/1930…. As a young girl,
Sir Henry was a great hero of mine. I would like to think they could be of help
to someone.
Yours sincerely,
Miss V Foster Ring
As for the other riding mechanic, Victor Halliwell, who lost his life in the
record attempt, several years ago his son visited The Motorboat Museum at Basildon
and loaned us some very fine photographs in memory of a father whom he had lost
when only a child, but whose loss had forever after made him an over-cautious
person.
Dick Garner, who retired to Nantwich, Cheshire, invited me into his home and
told me about his tasks as riding mechanic in Miss England II when replacement
driver Kaye Don won the first heat of the Harmsworth Trophy race in September
1931 - but was then "tricked" over the starting line and Miss England
II crashed again, in one of the most controversial powerboat heats in the sport's
history. Garner well remembered Detroit during Prohibition. He also gave me
some splendid contemporary photos which he had brought home from the USA. Sadly,
Dick died of a heart attack soon after our meeting.
Although Kaye Don was still alive, he wrote me a terse reply that, as it was
his intention to write his own memoirs, he was unable to help me. He never did
write those memoirs.
As for the boat's designer, Fred Cooper, to this day I regret not having persisted
in trying to see him, even though he sent me this modest letter from Brading,
Isle of Wight:
May 6th, 1970.
Dear Sir, Thank you for your letter of the 2nd inst; and it will not be necessary
for me to answer your questionnaire, which I return herewith, as I refer you
to works by my great friend Uffa Fox.
Yours faithfully
Fred Cooper
When I later decided to try again, Cooper's widow told me that it had taken
her a whole week to get rid of his papers on the garden bonfire! On the other
hand, Mike Evans of the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust in Derby found me a fine
batch of photos of the Miss England II adventure.
As time passed, I found myself in the same places where the sweet drone of the
black-bottomed bombshell's twin Rolls-Royce R aero-units had once thrilled huge
crowds of spectators. In June 1980, I was out in Detroit. By this time, the
1931 Harmsworth defender, Miss America IX had been purchased and restored by
Harold Mistele. One afternoon, during the weekend races for the APBA Gold Cup,
Harold's son Chuck "took me for a spin" in Miss America IX around
the Detroit River course, watched by 400,000 spectators. Thus, I experienced
almost the same course as Miss England II had taken half a century before.
In May 1995, I was asked out to Lake Garda as a judge for a Classic Motorboat
Rally. Not only did organiser Angelo Vassena give me a ride across that Italian
lake where Miss England II had once lifted the World Water Speed Record, but
his brother also took me to Gabriele d'Annunzio's lakeside palazzo "Vittoriale".
Here, in the Room of the Leper, I saw Segrave's twisted steering wheel on display,
surrounded by statuettes of Buddhas, Hindu gods and Holy Icons - a strange contrast.
Kevin Desmond
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