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In the 1930s and 1940s, An English motorist John Rhodes Cobb smashed a number of land speed records. Cobb was three times holder of the World Land Speed Record, in 1938, 1939 and 1947, set at Bonneville Speedway in Utah, US. After achieving a world record speed of 394.19 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats and getting awarded the Segrave Trophy in 1947.
After the 1947 achievement, Cobb sets his mind on the water to set a new world water speed record. For designing a vehicle capable of setting a water speed record, Cobb turned to engineer Reid Railton, who had crafted the streamlined Railton Mobil Special which conquered Bonneville. With Cobb's financial support, Railton began exploring several concepts for a jet powered boat which would shoot across the surface on narrow outrigger floats. Initial small tests proved promising, and with a jet engine borrowed from the Ministry of Supply, the vehicle began to take shape in 1952.
Cobb labeled its Crusader. To allow the Crusader to hit their target speed of 200 miles per hour, Cobb and Railton needed to find a water body that was long and calm. After a long scouting, they settled on a deep, 23 mile long water loch of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands.
By summer 1952, the 31 foot watercraft Crusader, built of birch and an aluminum alloy, was deemed seaworthy and transported to the home of the legendary Nessie. Once there, Cobb and his team took the Crusader through a series of escalating speed trails, making adjustments and modifications as necessary. The water conditions proved worrisome. Winds could come storming across the loch with little warning, whipping the surface into fearsome whitecaps, and even the smallest boat wake could prove deadly to the Crusader at full speed.
On the morning of 29th September, the waters were flat calm, and Cobb decided to go for the record. The Crusader and two support boats went out to their positions, but had to postpone the attempt when the wind picked up. But after a couple hours, the wind dropped out again, and the lane was clear. A green flare was launched, and Cobb activated the Crusader’s jet engine. The craft accelerated smoothly and flawlessly, streaking across the surface and reaching a speed beyond 200 miles per hour (320 km/h).
The attempt seemed to be a triumph until the Crusader ran through a series of swells which had materialized seemingly out of nowhere. The Crusader began bucking up and down, rapidly destabilizing until its nose dipped below the surface and it decelerated so suddenly it disintegrated. Cobb’s body was thrown 50 yards beyond the wreckage, his body was swiftly recovered and subsequently conveyed back to his home county of Surrey, where it was buried in the graveyard of Christ Church, Esher. A memorial was subsequently erected on the Loch Ness shore to his memory by the townsfolk of Glenurquhart.
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