Strictly Anorak

The reverse four-pointer "Quicksilver" concept.

Welcome to the inaugural installment of Strictly Anorak – the Quicksilver project’s way of letting you know the inside story.

This kick-off edition is intended only to serve as an introduction – to let you taste the flavour, so to speak, of the feast of facts to come.

So what will be on the menu? Please read on …

The dramatic image above shows the concept that became the nearest the Quicksilver project ever got to finalising a boat design during the 12-year period that Ken Norris was directing the design effort. Would it have worked as intended, if built? We will never know.

One thing that's certain is that this craft concept has been the subject of a tad of controversy down the years, based entirely upon misinformation distributed by a small but vociferous gaggle of troublemakers. Of these, one man in particular - John Ackroyd - has the honour of being the worst culprit, as he went so far as to commit lies to the printed page in a book, the publication of which meant that we have no alternative but to dissolve this idiocy once and for all by putting the record straight in the public domain.

Strictly Anorak has the full story behind this elegant beauty that died young and somehow lives on in a shroud of myth and mystery, and that story will unfold in this entertaining and informative new section of the Quicksilver website over the coming months, so keep an eye out.

By way of an introduction, here are some salient facts ...

This speed-record project of ours, which came to be known as Quicksilver in 1991, was begun in late 1988 with the specific intention of building a boat to the design of Ken Norris, who had previously co-designed Donald Campbell's legendary Bluebird K7 boat and Bluebird CN7 car. But, most regretably, Ken proved unable to finalise a new design in those 12 frustrating years of trying.

Ken's first Quicksilver concept, the "flying-wing boat," as it came to be known - which he had first conceived back the days when Donald Campbell was still alive and had nurtured as a possible successor to Bluebird K7 for Donald's use - proved in our windtunnel tests to be a flop. To cover-up this unpalatable fact, some people have tried to pretend that somehow this boat concept never existed. Or that, even if it did, Ken Norris had nothing to do with it.

So we started publishing pictures on this site late last year of Ken Norris in the windtunnel with a model of this boat, during the extensive tests he oversaw of his design. The people who had denied the truth suddenly became rather withdrawn. Fact: the design was Ken Norris's, and his alone. Fact: it flopped, and Ken himself decided that any further work on this concept was pointless and it should be abandoned.

The people who have attempted to rewrite history weren't there to witness what happened. We were. There was a pitiful lack of clear-cut focus. The Quicksilver project was almost ten years in before Ken finally settled upon the engine-type he would like to power his new craft.

It's mighty difficult to advance a project when the chief designer displays such uncertainty.

The case of the reverse four-pointer craft seen above was by far the most striking example of the difficulties being faced. This craft was but one of several other concepts, after the "flying-wing boat" was abandoned, that was put forward by Ken as a basis for a new Quicksilver during what extended into years of continual design revision. But no manufacturing drawings were ever issued by Ken during the seven years that he was directing the work on this concept, despite thousands of hours being expended by a small army of dedicated and highly-skilled Quicksilver team volunteers and fourth-year engineering undergraduates making and testing an armada of water-tank, windtunnel and other test models at Ken’s behest, and the amassing of a huge amount of aerodynamic, hydrodynamic and structural data, much of it done by Ken himself.

Only two drawings were ever issued for manufacture – both hand-drawn; the product of John Ackroyd, who had been employed by Quicksilver to come in to help break what was becoming an increasingly frustrating chain of indecision. The whole venture was in danger of becoming an open-ended design exercise, with no clear conclusion or result. But even Ackroyd's two drawings left a lot to be desired.

And so, only one component – which was the jet engine exhaust pipe, or jet-pipe – was ever made for this sleek Quicksilver-in-waiting … and waiting … and waiting ...

We let John Ackroyd go after just a few weeks, and he was never to return - not to Quicksilver, at least - and in all honesty he was not missed. The idea that his presence could shift the balance away from Ken's endless design revision, in favour of actually getting a design agreed for a boat to be built, was clearly a forlorn one. Ackroyd's participation had only added to the problems.

But what were the ideas behind this fine-looking boat? And why were only two manufacturing drawings issued in seven long years - and, even then, neither of them drawn by Ken Norris, who was in the role of chief designer? Was it a waste of everybody’s time? And what part did it play in the Quicksilver project as a whole, which in the end went on without either Norris or Ackroyd and finally achieved the desired design breakthrough?

Watch this space and we'll answer these and many more questions.

In the meanwhile, putting it in a nutshell, we will say that the truth is that we built a fund of knowledge working with Ken Norris - but we did not build a boat. And nor could we, for there was no design for which Ken would say, "Let's build this". He let the opportunity slip away. Twelve years was long enough.

Knowledge and experience was gained, yes. So it was not a total waste of time. But neither was it by any stretch of the imagination a good or viable way to go about breaking a record. Taking something positive from it, important lessons were learned ...

The most important of which was that even legends lose their touch.

Hot Air!

In a book review like no other, John Ackroyd’s offering to posterity – Jet Blast – gets held up to the cold light of fact. It will be an uncomfortable exposure, for Ackroyd's presentation of bile in book form was never intended to be questioned, only swallowed in diplomatic silence.

But - sorry, John - we're not that diplomatic. So now the public is getting our side of the story for the first time and learning what really happened.

Our diplomatic silence, relied upon too heavily and for too long by those who sought to cast blame in the wrong direction, is at an end.

Ackroyd's four-page chapter on Quicksilver is a bizarre work of fiction. But, as with all entertaining reads, there is a surprising twist in the tale.

The twist? Well, a tiny fraction of what he has written is actually true!

But you have to search hard for the fact - buried, as it is, knee-deep in the fiction. For example, Ackroyd says of Ken Norris, "In 1998, he became the chief designer". Thus, the ten years of procrastination from 1988 to 1998, during which Ken was chief designer throughout, are conveniently written-out of this particular history book. But we have photographs which prove beyond all doubt that Ackroyd was well aware of Ken Norris having started work - in the capacity of chief designer from the very outset - many, many years previously, and we will publish those photos on this website shortly.

We will also publish photos of Ken Norris with a windtunnel model of his first design concept for Quicksilver - the "flying-wing boat" - taken in Norris's own office almost a decade before the date which Ackroyd states Norris became chief designer, just to make it absolutely as clear as day that we are telling the truth and Ackroyd is telling blatant porkies which only serve his own twisted portrayal of events and pay no heed to either fact or reason.

The flow of disinformation spews from the pages unabated. Ackroyd refers to the Quicksilver project having, "lost momentum," and states that Ken Norris, "came up with a revival plan," in January 2001. He fails to engage with the question of precisely why the project might have required such a revival plan. It has escaped his attention that such a plan would not have been necessary if Ken had done what he was supposed to have done in the first place, across all of the many years beforehand, and come up with a viable design concept for the boat.

The title of John Ackroyd's book, Jet Blast, would be more appropriate if it had been Hot Air!

More of the facts later, folks.

Detail of "Quicksilver" jet-pipe.

Art ... "Beauty is truth and truth beauty"

Speaking of hot air, how’s this! An arty close-up shot, taken years ago, of the jet engine exhaust pipe, or jet-pipe, referred to in our first item – the only part ever built for the stillborn Quicksilver reverse four-pointer craft in that ill-starred Norris/Ackroyd era.

Look at the falling arc of graceful curves, the intricate details … the play of shadow, reflection and illumination. The legendary name embossed there, picked out in highlight and shade.

There is beauty in the beast? Oh, yes – you bet! Even the entrails of a jet-powered boat can look beautiful if the light glances at a sympathetic angle.

Are you ready to find beauty in ugliness? If so, you’re half-way to “getting it” where this new column in the Quicksilver website is concerned.

Because, you see …

Beauty is truth and truth beauty
That is all you know on earth
And all you need to know

William Blake (1757-1827)

That’s it for this "taster” edition of Strictly Anorak. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading it and seeing pictures never shown before.

We’ll be back soon with another helping ...