MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

they're spikey, you can hit em really hard with a hammer and they hold stuff together, and in our case seem to be everlasting. The deck saga is on going, and one surprise, despite the non-woody consistency of some of the wood, the nails are in remarkable condition, especially given their OAP status, so much so that the majority will be getting mashed back in again, saving a few bob given the price of boat nails theses days

bit of surface rust, but given where they've been living, they are in remarkably good fettle

the added bonus of the wood having the consistency of old tea bags in places means a lot of them pulled out as straight as they went in.

So there was this plan, wait till summer, rip the deck off, be nice and settled and all that. A good plan except I chose wimbledon fortnight to start, during which, as everyone knows it will lash down in tropical monsoon proportions at the drop of a hat - not the best time to have an open decked trawler conversion. Boats are in their boaty nature a bit sorta funnel shaped. The net result is, they are very good at catching lots of the wet stuff and channeling it to one particular location, that being inside the boat at present. Got there this morning to discover No 2's wellies floating around the... well, can't really use the word 'saloon' anymore... floating around the bit that has less ex-boat stored in it than the rest of the thing

Oops! took the bilge pumps 4 hours to clear it! Have treble tarped the hole tonight though to be on the safe side, and fitted float switches to everything including the kettle. So back to the job in hand, the deck. A wee while, and many many posts ago, I boldly predicted, just a scarfe in one beam and jobs done. Had to revise that to: just replace every beam, several frame heads, most of the knees, large sections of beamshelf, most of the covering boards and almost all the deck.

the deck ironically is in pretty good condition mostly, but rather than try de-nail the boards, lift them clean them re-dress the edges and put them down again its probably less painful to just stick new boards down, as bits of the deck have been removed it became pretty clear that best bet is to get rid of everything thats a bit iffy, and the beam ends are definitely a bit iffy, so iffy in fact its only the super dooper everlasting nails through the deck boards that have been supporting them at all

Once I'd cut through the deck either side of the beam it all sort of fell down, the beam ends have the look and feel of old soggy teabags

back to nails though, the whole thing is held together with "Uber Nails" More javelin than nail, the biggest are 14" long and over half an inch thick, and driven diagonally through the knee, through the beam end and into the frame, and despite the rotten beams, these lads took some serious welly to get em out

Last couple of days had my chum Mark along for the punishment, for both his joinery skills and comedy input as he discovered the week spot in the unsupported deck and fell through, which is not all bad though, as its a bit less timber to saw through

Note: new escape hatch formed at the bottom as Mark (not me, the other one, no not No 3, the 'New' other one - keep up!) crashed faster than an MP's credibility

so there we go, 3 of the biggest deckbeams in, the fourth and final one is cut and waiting to be dropped in once the 'escape hatch' has been extended!

some big slabs of oak sat ready for the knees to be cut, although, killed one chainsaw chain and one circular saw blade so far, replacements needed first, then its back on with the deck, which might even be enjoyable