John Murray was a relieved man when the truck rolled into Carrington on Sunday morning after an almost two-day journey from Tweed Heads.
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On board was the 80-foot World War II ambulance ship Krawarree, a vessel the newly named Hunter Anzac Memorial group plans to "rescue" over the next two years inside a storage shed next to the harbour.
The group acquired the boat from two private owners in northern NSW and hopes to restore it then send it around Australia to support the mental health of Diggers, emergency service workers and youth groups.
"This boat was built to save wounded Diggers. She now needs a hand herself," Mr Murray, the group's executive director, said on Sunday.
"We want to try to do our best to help this boat which was made to help others continue to do its job."
The Krawarree was built in Tasmania with a hull of Huon pine and launched in Launceston in 1945. It is the only surviving Army sea ambulance of five that were made for the role.
"It was heading up the east coast towards the Top End. It was abeam Newcastle when victory in the Pacific was declared," Mr Murray said.
"It kept going north. It was picking up Diggers, because there was a lot of work, a lot of people had to be repatriated from islands to bigger boats, but it never saw war."
The timber hull was covered in fibreglass some time ago before the boat was used as a movie prop.
It was a tourist boat in the Whitsundays and open to visitors while moored at Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast for a while.
The Krawarree is missing its superstructure, guns and Hercules motors, but Hunter Anzac Memorial has found two National Maritime Museum-trained shipwrights to restore it as close to original condition as possible.
The group hopes the vessel's first voyage will be to the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart in early 2023.
"I can't tell you how relieved I am. It came through some pretty heavy weather," Mr Murray said after the boat reached its destination in one piece on Sunday.