Catalina will fly if restaurant gets punt

[Kyt]

This story is a couple of weeks old. Andy, had you heard about this? Any updates?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...-23349,00.html

A FORMER restaurant at Sydney's Rose Bay may provide a significant boost to plans to bring a historic Catalina flying boat from Portugal.

The Rose Bay Afloat restaurant could soon find a new mooring and fetch up to $95,000 - if it escapes removal and dismantling by NSW Maritime.

The government authority recently served a final notice to the vessel's owners and threatened to seize the Sydney landmark by the end of last month.

But the restaurant remained moored at Rose Bay yesterday and NSW Maritime said it still had to finalise its removal.

"The owners will be provided as much time as possible to sell the vessel, as it is appreciated they have a very important goal in mind," a NSW Maritime spokesperson said.

The restaurant's owner, Catalina Flying Memorial Ltd, will use the proceeds from the sale to bring an original PBY6 Catalina flying boat from Portugal to aplanned permanent Cats exhibition at Rathmines, near Newcastle.

Original plans to transform the floating structure into a museum were knocked back, to the disappointment of the Catalina Association's Philip Dulhunty, who had hoped to commemorate the site's historic value.

Mr Dulhunty said the charity had already bought the amphibious plane in Portugal and was raising the money for its transfer to Australia.

"We'd like to get a major sponsor," he said yesterday.

"We're looking at $250,000 to get it ferried over."

Mr Dulhunty put the total cost of the plane's purchase, transfer and restoration at $1 million.

The PBY6 Catalina is a slightly modified version of the PBY5 used in World War II and started its life in New Orleans, shortly before the end of the war.

It was subsequently transformed into a waterbomber and moved between the US, Chile, Canada and, finally, the Sierra Mountains of Portugal.

Its proposed new home, the Rathmines RAAF seaplane base, is undergoing assessment for a national heritage listing.

If approved, a new hangar-like museum to house the operational seaplane at Lake Macquarie near Newcastle could be built in a matter of months. Provided Rose Bay Afloat sold before Christmas and the extra money was raised, Mr Dulhunty said it would be realistic to complete the project within two years.

[Antipodean Andy]

Yep, I did know about it but only in passing. I knew there were plans to acquire one of the Portuguese 'boats but didn't know they had managed to buy one or about the restaurant link. There's been some comment down here about the Oz airshow scene not being able to "handle" two Cats but to those people I, and a few other people, say "get stuffed"!

To have one flying from Rathmines again will be great. I'm not sure if the HARS Cat is seaworthy yet but I think they were planning on making her so. The likelihood of having two Cats land at Rathmines for something like a splash-in is rather exciting!