......The hull was holed, the cabin flooded and, in the season of tropical storms, there was every chance the famous craft would be pounded to pieces.
Captain Burt Kleijwegt, a salvage expert and Gipsy Moth devotee, called to offer help. "A mechanical digger drove out on to the reef like something out of Dr No," Mr Gelder said. "It lifted the boat." Sixty islanders placed sandbags beneath the boat and helped to build a slipway of planks to the edge of the reef. The hull was patched up. But the team still needed a towboat.
Then, in a stroke of diplomacy almost unheard of in British maritime history, the French navy saved the day by lending a tug.
After six days on the reef, Gipsy Moth IV was hauled off and bobbed upright. She will be carried by a cargo ship to Auckland for repairs before sailing for Sydney and a rendezvous with the Princess Royal in Sydney on July 12.......
