MORE than eight years after Burnett Heads resident Kitt Woodward laid the keel of his square-rigged trawler Rainbow Gypsy, the craft is almost ready to start work.
The trawler is a replica of the origina l Rainbow Gypsy which was built in 1897 at Anstruther in Scotland and rescued by Mr Woodward from a mudflat near Harwich, England.
Mr Woodward, a member of the British Merchant Navy for 27 years, moved on to the vessel with his wife and two children, and cruised the world for 12 years before selling it.
The new Rainbow Gypsy, the only one of its kind in Australia, is a bawley-hulled double-ended round-bilged square-rigged sailing vessel.
But Mr Woodward, who has done most of the work on the trawler himself, said it was a lot more than a pleasure boat.
He and his wife Robin, who works as a nurse, have sold practically everything they owned, including a vintage Harley-Davidson motorcycle, to finance the vessel, and managed to get sponsorship from Timex in Melbourne.
Mr Woodward had to learn a whole new set of skills, such as welding, to complete the job.
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"There's a tonne and a half of welding rods in this boat," he said.
And now it's time for the Rainbow Gypsy to start paying something back.
As soon as it has passed the necessary inspections the ship will be turned into a training vessel for anyone who wants to learn the skills of square-rigged sailing.
"There's a lot of demand from people who want to learn to sail this sort of ship," Mr Woodward said.
The Rainbow Gypsy sleeps 12 and has two toilets, and is almost ready to handle its first intake of would-be square rig sailors.
