NO.120
event, which attracts 70,000 revellers, had
ruined the desert surface. An intense
survey threw up Hakskeen in South Africa
– a truly wonderful place with an eightmonth weather-window and at optimal
altitude. But there were problems: a road
on a causeway had been driven across the
desert and there were 21 million square
metres of surface stones. Not to be put off,
our partners the Northern Cape
government signed up the entire
population of the Meir district, who picked
up 15,800 tonnes of stones by hand – it
T H E T R U S T Y S E RVA N T
took 450 man-years. We aim to run
Bloodhound SSC there at 800mph in 2016
and 1,000mph in 2017, driven by Andy
Green (who also drove Thrust SSC), and
powered by the Eurofighter engine and
three Nammo rockets.
There is one last innovation, resulting
from direct input from teachers at the BET
education exhibition. Bloodhound is being
followed in 220 countries and the
unprecedented idea is to export 500
channels of live data for each of the 30
runs in 2016 and 2017, so that schools and
followers can receive the data live and
manipulate it to establish exactly how
Bloodhound is developing. This will be the
world’s first example of open big data.
Public support has been brilliant: 7,000
people have joined the 1K supporters club
and 30,000 followers have put their names
on the tail fin. Daily updates are available
on the Bloodhound website. Reports that
British engineering and innovation are
dead are greatly exaggerated!
■
Sliding Down the Slippery Slope –
the Cresta Run and its Inventor
Stephen Bartley (H, 61-66), Hon. Archivist
of the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club,
London, tells the tale:
Old Wykehamists have done many
extraordinary things in the past, perhaps
none more so than William Henry
Bulpett (G, 1869-74), who now lies in the
churchyard of St. Mary’s, Old Alresford.
His family were from local yeoman
farming stock in the neighbourhood and
his grandfather had invested in a local
bank in Winchester – Bulpett & Hall –
which was subsequently run by his uncle,
William Whitear Bulpett. After an
undistinguished academic career in Phil’s,
Bulpett, the youngest of three brothers,
entered the Army. He was commissioned
into the 3rd Royal Surrey Militia based in
Kingston, close to his parents’ home in
Chertsey.
Quite why he ended up in the Swiss
Alps one winter is unknown. Very likely,
he had gone there for health reasons, as
the dry air and altitude were considered
helpful for anyone suffering from a
respiratory illness, TB in particular.
Bulpett became devoted to alpine
pastimes, whether climbing, skating or
The First Grand National Race on the Cresta Run showing the winner Charles Austin round the 3rd Upper Bank
below the Church. Photo: Unknown; courtesy of the SMTC Archive, London
recreational tobogganing. In the winter of
1884/85 he joined a group of three British
sportsmen in St. Moritz, along with an
Australian, the famous cricketer George
Pringle Robertson, to build a toboggan
4
run for a timed race between competitors
from Davos and St. Moritz. Three years
previously, the Davosers had organised
the first timed toboggan race in
Switzerland, the International on the old