MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

Well, after yesterdays little tussle with a few fixtures and fittings, we're still debating the relative merits of converting the conversion. Whilst whats there has been mostly well built, the layout doesn't make the most of the space. Looked at dozens and dozens of pictures of other converted MFV's, trawlers, Fifies Zulu's the lot, and think we can make it much more attractive and much more practical to boot. Back to the drawing board time.

We did have a little explore of 2 beautifully restored and partially converted MFV's that are moored alongside us last week... so thats what a clean dry boat looks like!

Before all that happens though we're getting her out of the water for the first time, which will be fun, there's a small slip we've been invited to use further down the tyne, and boy will that be fun, its just over 15' wide and we're just under 15' wide, so not a lot of room for error, and just to make it even more fun, anything other than slack water and it will get the full force of the tide running across it, so it's going to be interesting. 2nd of august at high tide around 5am is the chosen time, so watch this space

I did have a little peak behind the seating on the port side of the saloon, and discovered a fabulous bulkhead of diagonal mahogany planking hidden behind it,, if there's more of that elsewhere, it'll make the decision to pull everything out and start over much easier to make.

more ballast to shift first though, back end of the engine room this time. bit poky and cramped in there so sore necks all around struggling to drag it all out and up the ladder. No 2 made an exploratory investigation of the state of the timbers and paintwork down in the hole yesterday as well, few minutes with a wire brush and a rag and lo and behold its in pretty damn good nick, so another wee plus for the old girl, 2 or 3 hours scrubbing between us and she'll be shiny shiny shiny