MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

I've found my niche and it is fire! Maybe we should have bought a disused cornfield and tried to convert that into a boat! Over the last three weeks I have managed to burn off at least 473 square units of paint with this gun type thing. I thought the fact that it it burst into flames every 40 seconds was some kind of safety device to stop a man working too hard, I've since found out that it was due to the blowtorch being "knacked", skipper fixed that with some tape soaked in Polar Bear tears. The whole process has been great as the area I have been working on requires me to either -

a. Sit on the pontoon with my little bare trotters in the water, happily burning and 'a stripping or ..........

b. Actually lying down and getting the job done or ........

c. Do a bit of kneeling, but I've got my special forces knee pads to make sure no-one shoots my patellas off or I get hard skin on an area of my body as yet untouched by blemishes, liver spots or mange.

I've been wearing gloves as well which are great, although I still haven't got used to them properly, as previously mentioned the torch still explodes into a fire ball every now and again and I've learned that blowing furiously at it doesn't work. I was always taught that blowing on fire puts it out! I have a routine now, turn off the knob thing, take glove off, get lighter out of pocket, put glove back on, remember lighter is still in hand, take glove off again and put lighter in other hand, put glove back on, try lighter which doesn't work, take glove off, shake lighter, put glove back on, realise lighter is in glove, repeat above and fire up the torch. I'm learning soo much working on The Panser that I feel it's only a matter of time before I know everything in the world.

The most satisfying thing is seeing Skippy's fatherly reactions to my naive fumblings. The way he tuts and rips little bits of hair from under his berry is very encouraging, he hasn't punched me in the mouth yet which means I'm great. (Deck beams, gear box change and deck relaying may tip the lad over the edge though)