By MARTIN HARRIS
IN January it's expected that Central Coast residents will be treated to a visit from Bundaberg by a former merchant seaman's pride and joy, Rainbow Gypsy, which he and his family and their many friends have taken eight years to build.
"It's been built by people for people /' Kitt Woodward told me in early November during a phonecall from his home on what he described as a cold and blustery day about 150 metres from where Rainbow Gypsy was tied up at the marina at Burnett Heads.
"Okay," said Kitt, "I'm going to enjoy the boat myself, and so's my family [wife Robin, son Jay and daughter Krystal], but other people too can enjoy this type of traditional sailing rather than jumping on a plastic yacht and sitting there. It's a people boat. I want to give as many people as much enjoyment as I can on it. Traditional sail training— that's what it's all about.
"We laid the keel on the 19th of the 9th, 1992. Because I go to sea for a living it took a while, •but we got there. And the closer I've come to completing the boat the more volunteers have turned up, wanting to exercise their skills in rope work and so on, and just to get involved— there've probably been more than 100 people working on it over the eight years. We spent something like 900 hours just doing the rigging in the 17th-century manner."
Kitt, who was born in 1951 in Maidstone, England, envisages that the boat will become an official sail-training institution.
"Definitely," he said. "Our name will be something along the lines of the Tall Ship Rainbow Gypsy Square-Rigged Sail-Training Vessel."
What was the inspiration for a former second mate in the merchant navy to build a replica of a traditionally rigged wooden trawler that was built in 1897?
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Thames estuary. Normally the tide range is about 14 feet, but this time it was up to 17 feet, so it picked the boat up and blew it across the mudflat, nearly two miles inland across a bay. And that's where it sat till I hopped off the train."
How long did it take Kitt and his family and friends to put that original pitch-pine-on-oak Rainbow Gypsy back in the water?
turned it around so that it was facing the ocean. Then we dug underneath it, and pushed telegraph poles under it so that we could slide it. I might add that this was all in minus-whatever temperatures. I think I still suffer from frostbite in my feet from doing those months of stomping about in the mud and the snow with all these cables and stuff. But after 18 months we got it to the stage where a tug could pull it across the marsh flat and refloat it. Then we put the masts on, and started enjoying it more or less straight away as a traditional gaff-rigged ketch." 
While he continued working in the merchant navy the family lived on that original Rainbow Gypsy for 12 years, during which time they cruised the Mediterranean, the West Indies and back to the Mediterranean.
Forward again to the new Rainbow Gypsy: it's now fully sailable, but is still being fitted out.
"The inside is still white-painted bulkheads," said Kitt. "The 14 bunks are in position, the galley is pretty well up and running, the lounge is okay, and the mess room is okay. Up in the wheelhouse there are a couple more seats to fit."
Mod cons?
"We carry two toilets: one in the laundry in the stern, and a traditional longdrop head in the wheelhouse. We've got a seven-day holding-tank, which is part of the regulations.
:j,|||i|| gggl <? Kitt Woodward's Rainbow
Gypsy tastes the sea just outside the navigation leads at Bundaberg Port in Queensland. The 52-foot round-bilged, galleasse-rigged, bawley-hulled trawler was built in 1997 as a steel replica of a wooden boat of the same name that was built in 1897 at Anstruther in Scotland and that Kitt rescued from , impending dereliction in 1978 at Harwich in England and thereafter owned and used for several years.
That original Rainbow Gypsy, which at the time that Kitt restored it was the second- oldest boat ' on the British register, is now working in the Mediterranean.
The whole boat—door openings and closings, vents, seal heights, even the height of the handrails and the safety rails—has been built to the uniform shipping laws, the USL code. You can draw the plans from them. .
"We've had the hull surveyed, and it's been passed. Machinery alignment and engine installation have been passed. Bilge-pumping arrangements have been passed. The boat has four double-bottom tanks, and five other watertight compartments, making nine watertight compartments.
"In one of the double-bottom tanks we have a ton and a half of diesel, and the other has the same volume of water, and we have other stuff in other tanks. The whole idea of this boat is maximum safety. Everywhere you go you'll find a handrail or some kind of safety equip-
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ment to keep people safe and on the boat. We don't have an accident book, because during the construction of the boat we've never had a serious accident."
What's the next big stage towards the boafs completion?
"The electrical installations. It's wired temporarily at the moment, because we wanted to see where everything went, but soon an electrician will take out our Mickey Mouse wiring and then run his wiring according to the plan. And then that'll get passed, and then we should slip into category-2C survey."
Has she been in any race yet?
"No. She's just done sea trials around Frazer Island, Lady Musgrave Island and Lady Elliot Island in the Great Barrier Reef, and she worked very well. We were booked in the 1998 Tall Ships Race, but we never made it—partly because we couldn't get the crew and partly because we weren't quite ready."
And how much of his own money has gone into the boat?
"Most of my own money has gone into it, from the sale of the original Rainbow Gypsy in the Mediterranean. I then bought a Polish 80-foot sailing-vessel, which I turned into a schooner, and I sold that in the Mediterranean. So with the proceeds of both of those boats, and with what Robin and I have earned (I deliver yachts, and Robin has a job), I've been building the new Rainbow Gypsy.
Ah, so Kitt also works for money.
"My company is called Yacht Deliveries GibKit Worldwide Service Australia. I've been to the Solomons and a few other places overseas this year, and up and down the coast. I'm wearing a furrow between Brisbane and Sydney and Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays."
Sponsors for the new Rainbow Gypsy 7
"Timex in Melbourne came up with finance, and with advertising materials such as T-shirts, hats and wallets." ,-.-. .
How did Timex get to know about Rainbow Gipsy ?"
We got to the stage when we were rapidly running out of money [laughter], so we started asking companies for sponsorship, and eventually Timex took up the challenge. And since then we've had the Timex logo on the topgallant sail, which we're proud to fly any time we can, especially coming into port."
Did Kitt build the replica Rainbow Gypsy as a moneymaking proposition?
"Yes. With it I can go to sea and earn some money and give people some of the joy of traditional sailing as well."
Will it do nothing but educational or adventure sailing? Or will it also do charter work for weddings and so on?
"Both. We intend to do some charter work:
twilight cruises, corporate lunches and stuff like that, and taking people out for a day's sail with a chicken dinner. We hope to be in survey for 25 people at a time.
"The whole emphasis of the boat is that ifs a replica, and all the ropework and the knots come from the 17th century. For instance the rigging is painted with blackjack —equal parts of Stockholm tar, bitumastic pitch, and varnish—which gives a high gloss. And the nine Duradon sails have been treated with tanbark, a preservative dye."
And the motor?
"It's a 250-horsepower turbocharged diesel Lister, which gives around 12 knots cruising speed."
Which skills did Kitt have to leam during the building of the boat?
"I'm an old wooden-boat sailor—I ' ve always been in wooden boats in England and around that area—so when I was building the hull the first thing I learned was welding.
"Jay and I had the plan of the boat drawn on the living-room floor, and we bought some 17-metre lengths of steel and bent them into the shape of a double-ended round-bilge boat. Then we got a 20-ton-capacity hydraulic lay-flat jack and started bending the 80-odd frames. And then we bent the 6-mil mild-steel plate. Once we'd stood all the frames up we got the plate and bent that around the shape that we'd created.
Has the galley been tested?
"Oh, yeah [laughter ]! It functioned really well the other day when we had 35 people on board for a little trip down the Burnett River to thank the people who'd helped build the boat.
"The cook, hired from Brisbane, said the galley was great, and Robin said it was a joy to work in. We've got a double sink and a double drainer, a microwave oven (we carry a 7kVA 240-volt generator), and a four-burner rotis-serie stove."
A group of Naval Reserve cadets from TS Hawkesbury at Point Clare is expected to join the new Rainbow Gypsy at Coffs Harbour and to sail with her to Sydney, where the boat will be among the spectator boats during the fireworks display on the harbour and where it will take part in the parade of sail on Australia Day, 26 January 2000.
"Yeah—that idea came from Swampy [TS Hawkesbury's OC, Pat Marsh ]. He's keen to get some of the cadets aboard for a sail. I've explained the boat to him, and he's quite happy with it."
Two days after Australia Day Rainbow Gypsy will head south in the Harris [as in coffee] Sydney-to-Hobart Classic Boat Cruise.
"Racing isn't really our thing," said Kitt, "basically because if we went into a race the organisers would have trouble working out our handicap—as a registered tall ship we work on a time-correction factor.
"But we do intend to enjoy the cruise. It's not really a race—it's not gung-ho bashing to windward—it's just people enjoying traditional square-rigged sailing again. It's run by Tony Richardson in Tasmania—he did it last year, and with some success.
"The first thing the organisers of the Harris cruise say on their leaflet is that if it's blowing they won't go to sea—which is fine by me, because I've got no great desire to take a heap of people to sea and make 'em sick [laughter ]. And we'll take 10 days, going into every bay and cove, and we'll probably anchor up at night, and just have fun.
And after Hobart?
"A couple of days later we'll start a 10-day World Heritage cruise to Port Davey and enjoy some of the wilderness of Tasmania. It's a family thing, but we'll take other people if they want to come—they'll probably have to pay for their food and so on. We'll also take on other crew."
What a story—and as far as The Masthead is concerned it's far from told. For instance the next edition will say more about Rainbow Gypsy and Kitt Woodward: mainly about his life, some details of the boat's rigging, and the adventure between Bundaberg and Port Davey.
Till then the moral for most of us is that if we want to build a replica of an old square-rigged trawler we should buy a kit.