MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

where not much has been for quite some time, ok not quite as catchy as james tiberious kirk, but his ship wasn't a Pansy! Busy week coming up and just a wee bit nerve racking to boot. She coming out the water next weekend.

but first the 'to boldly go' bit. Went to the cash and carry and came out armed with a huge box of stuff, bilge cleaner, degreaser, rags, wipes, brushes mops and buckets. The plan is to launch a serious assault on the hole this week. stuffed right at the back of the engine room, there's a wee mountain of intriguing ballast to shift first. Intriguing because there's a lot of heavy duty plastic bags containing 'something' each sealed bag ways maybe 10Kg, and contains a grey, granular powdery stuff. No idea what it is, but it is a: heavy, and b: doesn't go rusty. might be lead, which is a result, might be some weird alien stuff that will consume the planet if try melt it, no idea yet, but will find out for sure in a day or 2 as I brought a small sample home to see what I can do with it.

Then on saturday morning at around 5am, to coincide with a nice high tide, we have an appointment with dry land. We've been offered the use of a little slipway in South Shields courtesy of wooden boat repair/building guru and all round good guy Fred Crowell. Now his slip is perfect, and is a little over 15' wide, which will be interesting, and somewhat snug as we are just under 15' wide, and have to squeeze ourselves in whilst at the mercy of whatever currents the River Tyne might care to throw past us. Should be interesting! So if we can ease ourselves in, make her lean gently to port, and make her fast, all we have to do is wait for the tide to go out so we can set to and see what awaits below. Its one of those, situations where you might not want to know the answer, but ever the optimist....

expect lots of pictures (about time I took some more), and hopefully not too much drama next weekend