Donald Campbell's ill-fated speedboat Bluebird has embarked on its first journey after being raised from the depths of Coniston Water, where it sank in 1967.

The wreckage of the jet-powered craft was being transported 100 miles by road to a workshop in Newcastle for restoration.

Any hopes of finding Campbell's body inside Bluebird disappeared after police confirmed that no remains were found when the boat was brought ashore.

But the confirmation means work can begin immediately on restoring the craft to its original condition.

Bill Smith, the engineer who led the diving expedition team which raised Bluebird from the lake-bed 34 years after the fatal crash, said it would take two or three days to carefully clean the mud and silt from the outside of the boat.

It would then be dried and waxed before being wrapped in protective polythene and kept under lock and key until the adventurer's family made a decision about its future.

The rear of Bluebird has stayed relatively intact, despite lying on a bed of silt and weeds 150ft below the lake's surface. The cockpit of the craft disintegrated on impact.

The man who designed Bluebird, Ken Norris, who is now in his seventies, said he would examine the craft to try to complete the jigsaw of how the accident happened.

Mr Norris said yesterday: "At the time I never realised how Donald came to crash. It is only over the last few weeks that I have gone through it all again."

On Thursday Donald Campbell's widow, Tonia Bern-Campbell, and close friends, saw for the first time the horrific damage to the front of the jet-powered craft as divers slowly lifted it from the lake.

It is thought that Mrs Campbell, his daughter Gina and the diving team, want Bluebird to be eventually returned to Coniston where it can be viewed in a museum