Australia's last remaining pilot cutter vessel appears to have been saved from the scrap heap after thousands of dollars in donations were made in the past week.
Owners of the former Australian Maritime College training boat the MV Wyuna have been trying to raise $12,000 to move the boat back to Melbourne before it was due to be seized by Tasmanian authorities.
The 64-year-old cutter has been stranded in the Tamar River at Launceston for more than a decade after various owners, including Clive Palmer, failed to follow through on business plans to move it.
Now more than 60 people have donated to the cause, with the final significant donation made on Wednesday morning by the Fraser family, whose father Roderick Alexander Fraser captained the boat in the 1960s when it was housing maritime pilots in Victoria's Port Phillip Bay.
Mr Fraser's daughter Morag said it was important for her and her two brothers Roderick and John to help preserve an important piece of Australia's maritime history.
"They brought passengers in, they brought goods in, they brought oil in and all of the things that made Melbourne as a port to prosper," she said.
"That's what that boat did, for the risk of people's lives and also with the guarantee you were saving lives too.
"It's just part of the history that I think we should know about and the Wyuna is a symbol of that."
The Wyuna was originally used to house maritime pilots off Port Phillip Bay who would then help other vessels navigate through the difficult waters.
In 1979 it was sold to the Australian Maritime College in Tasmania and to teach thousands of students.
Beyond the classroom Wyuna was used as a support boat in Australia's 1987 America's Cup defence in Western Australia, and in four Sydney to Hobart yacht races.
Groom tested by pre-wedding voyage
Ms Fraser spent plenty of time on the boat herself when she was younger but her most vivid memory of the Wyuna is a week-long trip her father and her future husband made a month before their wedding.
"If you want an initiation for an aspiring husband, I can't think of a more difficult one," she laughed.
"He survived, I think he got sick for most of the time.
"I know by the time we walked down the aisle he had his land legs back again, so he had stopped feeling sick on land."
Melbourne berth yet to be secured
The boat's owners, the Western Port Oberon Association, had been told the boat would be seized if it was not moved by last Tuesday but Governor Ian Heraud said communication with local authorities since raising the funds had been positive.
"I've instructed our solicitor to write to the authorities in Tasmania and to explain that this time we really are going to move her," he said.
"I'm confident that we will not face any likely problem from seizure."
Mr Heraud said a plan was being put in place to shift the ship by the end of the year, with there still a need to secure a berth for the boat in Melbourne.
"I would hope within two weeks," he said.
"We need to do a couple of things internally and we certainly want to at the very least steam her around Bell Bay to make sure she is all seaworthy and ready for the journey."
Tasmania's Director of Public Prosecutions would not comment on whether they were looking at laying charges against owners if it was not moved.
TasPorts previously stated they were working with the Western Port Oberon Association to shift the vessel from its current location.
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