By Jo Fraser
International yacht delivery skipper Kitt Woodward and his family spent 12 years living aboard antique vessel Rainbow Gypsy, cruising the Mediterranean and even crossing the Atlantic in her to play in the West Indies.
When maintenance on the 1890s double-ender got too much, the Woodwards sold her, but today Kitt is building a replica of the beloved vessel at his present home near Bundaberg.
Many years ago, Kitt had found the original pitch-pine-on-oak Rainbow Gypsy on a marsh in the "bleak little country" where he lived, restored her and sailed her for 12 years, over 40,000 miles of ocean. Kitt worked for huge international transport firm Canadian Pacific and every two or three months would return to sail with the family throughout lower Europe and the West Indies.Rainbow Gypsy was the second oldest boat on the British register (Sunbeam was the oldest) and carried a name unusual for its time. Kitt said fishermen were a bit eccentric about naming their boats - often it was after their wife or daughter or both.
"By contrast, the Scottish firm who built the original Rainbow Gypsy was different - it had Rainbow Runner, Rainbow Encounter, Rainbow Fisher, and so on in their fleet.""I've spent many years building this replica. I decided to build it eight years ago when I lived in Gibraltar and an architect there drew up the plans. We came to Australia and four years ago I laid the keel on 19-9-92. So we've just had an anniversary. It's reaching a more enjoyable stage now. I can walk around on the deck and plan what is to go where. People say I'm a bit blinkered about the project, and I suppose I am in a way."
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As a constant prompt to ensure thoroughness Kitt keeps a plaque hanging above the site of his bed: the master's cabin reading;
"Ships are safe in harbour but ships aren't built for harbours."
Kitt learned his welding skills while constructing the Nova Rainbow Gypsy, with its 52 ' waterline and 16 ' beam, 6mm plate steel around the hull.
"The mill scale is a razorblade's thickness of bluing on the surface and you have to let it rust off. "Generally there's a third beam-length ratio, so the proportions of mine mean stability rather than speed.
"Hull speed is 8.6 knots - not bad for a 30 tonne boat. (We have a 250hboats are chined, with flat sheets. This design is based on a Bawley design; the double ended rch 10 to 11 knots in a good blow).
"Some of the original designers wanted them faster, so made them narrower; long straight keel, workensland by C.R.J.K. Woodward Design: Bawley Fife cross
Hull construction: Steel, 6mm below, 4.5 above L.W.L.
LOA: 15.30m (50.90ft) LWL 14.00m (45,93ft) Length includdrag', so the idea of the double end is to get the stern out of the : 4.75m (16.08ft) Draft: 1.90m (6.23ft)
Displacement: 30,660.8kg (67,5951bs) Ballast: 9,072kg (20 . 000.01bs) Plain scale: 25tol
DBT TK capacity: 7 2 0gals, 2x360gals TK WT BH4, WT compartment: 9 M/E Lister JWS C 6M 250 this boat is thhyd box Prop: 34 inch by 32 inch pitch 4 blade bronze Timbers: Hoop pine masts, yards bowsprit, bumpkin and boom
Sail cloth: Duradon, tan bark in colour of various weight
Sail maker: Hood of Sydney • Kitt Woodward has worked in a variety of roles on ships such as the Endeavour (replica) that is now sailing to England. Aboard her, he retraced Cook's 1770 Endeavour voyage along the Queensland coast from Southport to Cooktown.
When Queensland Crews and Boats visited Kitt's j workshop in late October, he had just came off the Bounty and had recently been sail master aboard South Passage for an extended period.
"Europe has many more traditional boats. On this coast we have the Solway Lass, the Bounty and a handful of others. There aren't a lot of young people involved with the old 18th century mariners' ] skills.
"They all love going to sea but there's very little character and class for practicing these skills. It's different with the square riggers - the wooden boat, the smell of pitch... the feeling of going on deck just before dawn.
"you can't teach the romance of the sea. They have to get into the flow themselves."
