A fleeting glimpse of a stranded Fishing trawler from a train window on the south-east coast of England more than 20 years ago inspired an English merchant seaman to pursue his love affair with the sea and the age of sail. Kitt Woodward, 49, now of Burnett Heads near Bundaberg, had served a stint on Canadian container ships and was, at the time, a second mate in the British merchant navy. He was not looking forward to the thought of retirement from the sea he loved and was convinced that he would not be able to settle to any job ashore.

Then, one day in 1978, when he and his Bundaberg-born wife Robin, were living in England, Kitt was passing Harwich Harbour on a train when he spotted the wooden hull of a trawler on a mudflat.

Kitt takes up the story: "Its owner had brought it into harbour during a bad blow in the North Sea. The water backed up and up, and when the wind dropped, there came a surge that ran up the Thames estuary.

"Normally, the tidal range is about 14 ft (4.3 m), but on this occasion it rose 17 (5.2 m). So, it picked up the boat and blew it across the mudflat, nearly two miles inland across a bay. Arid that's where it sat until I hopped off the train."

Kitt was successful in obtaining possession of the pitch-pine-on-oak Rainbow Gypsy, but then faced the challenge of returning the trawler to the sea. With the aid of family and friends, working in sub-zero temperatures, he emptied the trawler completely and then turned it to face the sea.

The team dug out under the boat and set it on telegraph poles so that it could slide more easily, and then they waited for a repeat scenario of a huge gale in the North Sea to create a comparable tidal surge.

After 18 months, the boat was brought to the stage where a tug was able to pull i t across the marsh flats and refloat it. Masts were fitted and Kitt began sailing her almost straight away as a traditional gaff-rigged ketch.

While he continued working in the merchant navy, Kitt moved his family onto the boat, which became their home for the next 12 years. During this time, they cruised the Mediterranean, sailed to the West Indies and, eventually, returned to the Mediterranean.

Kitt sold the Rainbow Gypsy in 1987, then bought an 80 -|b ot (24 m) Polish sailing vessel, which he turned into a schooner and later sold in the Mediterranean. |:

The Woodward family settled in Australia in 1991 and, after periods in Townsville and Cloncurry, established their home in the Bundaberg-Burnett Heads area. But the years aboard the Rainbow Gypsy had left their mark, and Kitt decided to build a replica to sail the Queensland coast.

The keel of the new boat was laid on 19 September 1992 and, during the last eight years, more than 120 volunteers have helped Kitt realise his dream.

He said: "Because I go to sea for a living, it took a while. But we've got there. The closer I've come to completing the boat, the more volunteers have turned up wanting to exercise their skills in ropework, et cetera, and just to get involved. We spent something like 900 hours alone just doing the rigging in the 17th century manner. "

Kitt's expertise in all areas of sail has kept him in demand. For example, he was called on to help re-rig the replica of the Bounty in Sydney and also was enlisted as a crew member of the Endeavour during its journeys around the Australian coast.

Now that the Rainbow Gypsy is nearing full completion, with a 250-

horsepower turbocharged Lister diesel giving around 12 knots cruising speed, capacity for up to 25 passengers and modern electrical wiring, Kitt has revealed the extent of his cherished dream - the development of a full working boat.

"I envisage the new Rainbow Gypsy will become an official traditional sail-training vessel, as well as being available for charter for cruises locally and along the Great Barrier Reef, corporate days, weddings, bucks nights, races... the list goes on," he said.

And just what is the DPI Forestry connection? The masts, yards, booms and bowsprit, of course. Rainbow Gypsy is being fitted with a 24 m main mast and a 17 m mizzen mast of Queensland hoop pine grown in the Watalgan hoop pine plantation in the Monto district .

Kitt teamed up with Bundaberg forester John Verden to select the perfect trees for his project and this is where the story becomes fascinating — preserving the timber for its future marine service.

The trees for the masts were carefully selected for their characteristics and then felled. The branches then were trimmed along their length and the "wounds" sealed with pitch.

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Kitt uses a preservation technique revealed to him many years ago by a forester in England. A large truck tyre tube is positioned around the base of the fallen tree and the tube is then filled with up to 25 litres of the chemical preservative mixture. The tube is sealed and then left overnight.

The capillary action of the tree draws the liquid through the entire length of the timber, effectively applying the necessary preservative to the future masts.

The boat has been affectionately dubbed locally as "the pirate ship", after Kitt and his crew dressed as pirates on New Year's Eve and "raided" coastal settlements of Tin Can Bay.

Kitt has poured all of his capital into the project and has been as advancing the project through sponsorship from Timex watches, Inseltec paints, Koppers logs and Bartercard.

The saga of the Rainbow Gypsy is still unfolding and Kitt is about to next chapter. We wish him realising his dream.

Solid pedigree

The original Rainbow Gypsy was a 52-foot (15.8 m) round bilged, galleass-rigged, bawley-hulled trawler, built in 1897 at Anstruther in Scotland.

Purpose-built for the rigors of sailing and fishing in the North Sea, it was rescued by Kitt Woodward after a violent North Sea storm had left it stranded on mud flats at Harwich on the south-east coast of England.

Lovingly and painstakingly restored, the Rainbow Gypsy became home to Kitt, his wife Robin and children Jay and Krystal for the next 12 years as they cruised the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean as far afield as the West Indies.

At that time, the trawler had the distinction of being the second-oldest boat on the British register.

The replica, built in 1997, has a hull of 6 mm steel plate, with the two masts, yards, booms and bowsprit fashioned from Queensland timber.