MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

Dark nights & cold days are upon us, so, until we get the 'spacher working, its getting a tad chilly on the old girl, although a dozen litres of diesel engine purring away for a while does make the engine room nice n toasty, which is where most of the 'doing' type stuff has been done of late. So now is the time to reflect a little and plan ahead to what is, what will come to pass and what shall never be.

Looking around the ol' t'interweb for ideas and inspiration, there are lots and lots of these delightful old trawlers, MFV's, seiners, drifters and what have you out there, but sad to see that most have been sacrificed on the alter of live aboard conversion. Why oh why oh why do people do it. It seems to me there are 2 basic ways that a lot of people attack the problem of converting an old fishing boat. the 'shed' method' or the 'caravan' method

The 'Shed' Method of trawler conversion

The 'Caravan' method of Fishing boat conversion

As many boats have got the chop as part of the EU's stupid and completely wasteful decommissioning policy, the odd few have apparently been 'rescued' or god forbid, some even say 'preserved' only to suffer the indignity of having what can only be described as a shed stuck on deck. Luckily, ours, whilst not original is far more sympathetic to the boat than most

Why do they do it? If you want a floating shed, buy a shed that, err... floats I guess. If you want a floating caravan buy a caravan that doesn't float, and go to sleep in it at low tide somewhere remote!

so, the next few months are going to be spent plotting and conniving, (yes some of it will be done in a shed - thats a wooden structure in a garden BTW) with a bit of graft chucked in the mix just for good measure. Hopefully at the end of it, we'll be heading in the right direction to get her looking proper again.

Meantime No 2 has done some stuff & drank several gallons of bovril in the process. Bovril filters have now been placed on the mugs to help him along. More paint has been sloshed on unsloshed bits in the hole, plans are a foot for new fuel tanks in the making, Can you use feet as fuel? if so keep it quiet as HMRC will slap a recreational foot use duty on them sharpish no doubt, although they may allow us to keep 40% of our feet for domestic use and be exempt from general foot duty (general foot duty?? didn't he fight along side wellington??)

This week should see the last of the refitty type stuff refitted in the hole; storage lockers to put stuff in so we can't find it again, newly mounted and re-wired 'spacher; shiny things here and there to attract spiders, that sort of thing. I may also drink bovril unattended, smoke a few fags and gossip with our nautical neighbours. Any pairs of hands at a loose end have been invited to come join the fun, Left answer phone messages for Jonathan Ross & Russell Brand, as I'm led to believe they might have an opening available. Toyed with the idea of cobbling together a radio transmitter and anchoring 6 miles off shore so they can keep in practice till january, just to piss the daily mail and it readers off as much as anything. Barack Obama has been invited also, as despite the fact he won the election, he's got to sit through another couple of months of retardisation before he can start picking up the pieces, and Clarkson has asked if he can come and hide from the lorryists for a while

ho hum, onward and sideways

/*** UPDATE ***/

just a little footnote here, based on the fact that this particular post seems to come up a lot in peoples search's for trawler and MFV plans and drawings. I do have in my grubby mits a few different sets of drawings for the various designs of these old fishing boats, among others I've got some Fifie Plans, Ringer Plans, 65' MFV plans and 50' trawler plans and drawings

if anyone wants a copy for reference or model making drop me a line