It is one of the most loved but least cared for relics of East Anglia's once great herring industry.The last drifter ever built - and the last boat to originate from the famous King's Lynn boatyard - has lain "mothballed" in a Lowestoft jetty for years.

It is one of the most loved but least cared for relics of East Anglia's once great herring industry.

The last drifter ever built - and the last boat to originate from the famous King's Lynn boatyard - has lain "mothballed" in a Lowestoft jetty for years.

But yesterday campaigners said that it was finally "full steam ahead" for £780,000 of restoration works.

And they said that within a year, decades of hard-work could finally have paid off with the drifter transformed into the region's latest maritime museum.

Last July trustees of the Lydia Eva were told that £780,000 of funding, mostly from the lottery, had been approved so that the rusting ship could be brought back to life.

With a short-term bridging loan set to be agreed by Yarmouth Borough Council next week the funding will finally be complete - and a European-wide search is set to begin for a boatyard to perform the essential repair works.

Yesterday, vice-chairman of the trust David Young told the EDP that the ship would then be overhauled and returned to the area by the end of 2007 or early 2008.

"We hope to begin work in January on a complete renovation of the Lydia Eva, using her original plans to bring her back to her original condition," he said.

"We want to bring her back as close as we can to her historic reality as we're seeking to make her into a floating museum celebrating her glorious past."

Work will include repairing the boiler so that the original engine can function, completely replanting the hull and restoring the beams, deck, crew quarters and fish storage bay.

"At the moment we're just doing basic maintenance, keeping her in mothballs," said Mr Young. "But once she's gone into the dry dock the work won't take all that long and we hope she'll be back with us in 2007 to 2008."

When complete the Lydia Eva will become a floating museum alternating seasons between Yarmouth and Lowestoft, complementing the Time and Tide Museum in the former and the Maritime Museum in the latter.

It will be the latest chapter in the 76-year history of the vessel, which started in 1930 after Yarmouth fisherman Henry Eastick commissioned the boat and named it after his 19-year-old daughter.

She then began fishing out of Yarmouth until 1938 when she was sold and moved to north Wales, acquired by the RAF in the war for salvaging crashed aircraft.

Afterwards she became part of the Maritime Trust fleet of historic boats, first returning to Yarmouth before sailing to London in 1978, where she was soon forgotten about.

People from Norfolk and Suffolk set up the Lydia Eva Charitable Trust in 1990 and bought the boat for £1, bringing her back home, displaying her before she became unsafe.

In 1999 she became one of just 58 ships put on the National Register of Historic Vessels, along with HMS Victory and the Cutty Sark, spurring the trust to launch fundraising campaigns to save her.

Last July the bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund was successful and the battle was almost won - two months after the death of Lydia Eva Cox, aged 95, in a Gorleston nursing home.

Superstition had prevented her ever boarding the boat in her name - but now her memory will live on as future generations get to tread the deck she never dared walk on.