MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

so, we're in peterhead, quick scrub up in the shower (the "Yacht Crispin" left a floater BTW), and off for some badly needed sustenance, a curry is what was needed so woke the security guard (sorry!) to ask him if he knew where might be good, he didn't, he usually sleeps in a security hut in Aberdeen apparently, but curry was found, eaten, then back to Pansy land for some sleep, tiptoeing quitely past the security gurad so as not to wake him a second time

monday dawned bright and clear, yesterdays sea, sea phlegm and lifejackets but a distant memory, the old girl is fired up, cast off, topped up with more diesel, clearance given from the Harbour master and were offski

out through the pier and away south... for a short while anyway, the next calamity was not long in coming, the newly fitted hydraulic pump, decided it didn't like us anymore an went on strike totally. no hydraulics = no steering. now this could be interesting! Another few hundred miles of the North Sea and no steering, fantastic.

so all hands on deck and round the back to see what can be achieved. Quite a lot actually. with what bits an pieces of junk that had remained on board from when we bought her, a makeshift tiller was quickly knocked together. Thank god for cable ties and gaffa tape.

but steering from behind the wheelhouse would be no fun at all. especially in the long dark hours ahead, something else was needed, so the Jury riggged tiller on this old MFV was extended. ropes were lashed to the 'tiller', various old blocks and shackles were rounded up, and the ropes fed around and into each door of the wheelhouse so now, by pulling a rope one way or another we could steer. Phenomenal achievement I reckon:

so we're still going south! Thought it worthwhile to give the coastguard a call, and let him know three madmen in a 70 year old boat with no steering were loose on their patch. At this point a big up to Aberdeen Coastguard! they were superb and couldn't have been more helpful, we discussed our options safe havens, other traffic and the like, and decided to press on. Every 2 hours they'd give us a shout, check out position, course speed etc and wish us well. so that was it. the next leg was another 27 hours non stop run, taking 2 hours shifts to pull the ropes and keep us on course. All was going swimmingly well till in the middle of night, whilst freezing our nuts off because we couldn't close the wheelhouse doors, first the radar then us spies something heading our way, so its pitchy black, we're 20 miles offshore, vaguely heading south ( the gps had gone the journey and this was done the old fashioned way -charts and compass) and steaming in an 'us' sort of direction is one of those modern monsters of the deep know as an Oil Tanker. Now there's some rules at sea at night about having bonny coloured lights so other vessels can work out who you are, what your doing and where you heading. this oil tanker must of been very tired though, because for the life of us, we still reckon he was making way using the 'lying down' method. his lights were all over the place, and non of us had a clue. We eve resorted to some of those things called books to see if that would help, it didn't.

All I can say is the lights got bigger, and bigger, until we were so close it was fairly obvious what direction they were heading, there may even have been someone on deck pointing as well, but collision narrowly averted, we steamed on, the lights of berwick starting to glimmer on the horizon, and the dull grey of dawn starting to show itself. it had been a long long night, with a bit of daylight and my shift over I decided to treat myself to some of that stuff they call sleep, and managed an hour or so, being awoken by our 2 hourly call from the coastguard and witnessing No2 put the microphone to his ear in order to hear what was being said. but the day dawned clear and bright, the seas flat and kind, and the rest of the journey being almost with incident, apart from a mile or so from the Tyne where we didn't really run out of Diesel