MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

Try as we might, we've not as yet, managed to kill anyone. Christ knows we've tried hard enough, after a few hopping around comedy moments with a piece of wood nailed to me foot, miscellaneous electrocutions and grinder incidents and the finger caper, thought we'd finally cracked it and despatched one of our dwindling number of friends.

After the not sinking episode the stairs were hastily removed. The stairs were later re-instated (a bit), not at there full height, and not wedged into there snug little home, just sorta leaning there, one foot on the remains of the floor boards, the other hovering over the watery chasm known as the bilges. Enter one very capable and willing volunteer for the day. One foot on boat, then another... so far so good. Quick scramble over the obstacle course formerly know as the wheelhouse, dodge the pointy thing dangling precariously hither and thither, easy, made it on board safely. Place left foot on top of stairs..... that's where things started to go a bit wrong. Lulled into a false sense of security, the rest of the bits attached to the said foot duly followed. At which point,the stairs thought gotcha and did a dissappearing act, gravity took over from here on in and the foot and all its attached body parts duly followed. I'm not convinced that the foot and its attached body parts didn't actually overtake the stairs and land in the void first, thus allowing an extra bit of pain to be inflicted on the victim by the stairs then landing on top of him

Our solicitors have advised that the victim is best remaining nameless, so all I can say is we're really really sorry, the death trap is getting a make over, and bar a few man traps and alligators in the bilges will be safer than Gordon Browns good eye on national poke someone in the eye with a stick day

get well soon, I'm making some knees tomorrow for the panser so can knock you an extra one up if you like, nailing it on might sting a bit though

So, near death experiences aside, I've moved things along a bit, the little beamshelf repair got ripped out again. When doing that one, I poked along the old beamshelf till I found good wood, and fastened it in all lovely. What I should of done is poke along the beamshelf a bit further though. 8" past the good wood it was worse than the bit I'd cut out to repair, so the foot or so of repair has become 10 foot or so.

Bugger to bend though is this seasoned oak, especially done without some steamy hotness to help things along, but by a variety of cunning and contrivance it's in and firmly nailed to all the new frame heads, which now number several or more (lost count to be honest)

Quite chuffed with me bit self really, solo effort, luckily had my johnny rockets boots jet powered rocket boots on to help lift the stupidly heavy beams out of the way whilst standing on absolutely nothing worth standing on, and pin them up using the scabby bit of wood and big nail technique to keep them out of the way

Might have to make the clamps at the forward scarfe a permanent fixture as I now have somewhere to put a saw where I can find it again. In case the blue tinge to the picture is causing concern, Pansy is now camping under a natty blue tarp slung over a bit or rope running from the stem to the wheelhouse. we really do look like Pikeys Afloat now!

The neighbours must love us to bits! Paint almost all stripped off, piles or rotting wood and a few gas bottle lying around, lots of noise, old tyres and a big flappy blue tarp. Proper posh you know, this waterside living

Anyhoo...

just need to notch the beamshelf and beams, drop em in, cut some knees and bally well fasten the blighters together, then the deck can go down....

The shiney new oak looking a bit grubby now, but nothing a bit sandpaper and elbow grease won't put right, Beamshelf an inch and a half thick and bent to shape without steaming.

well, I say the deck can go down there's the small matter of the biggest deckbeam to resolve. Its cracked and is currently supporting the weight of everything else above deck (which probably includes a fair bit of sky), and is in turn supported by a bit of wood that happened to be lying around, which was sort of the right length, and was sort of bashed in to place (a bit), and seems to be holding it up as long you don't go too near it or breath too loudly

Now what was that about cleaning up the death trap??