MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

Oh Dear - its been a long time!

I'm convinced Pansy read my last blog post, the one where I declared her door sale to any insane person with a big heart, that is preferably already divorced, and has a huge pair of rose tinted spectacles

Convinced because the old girl must have had her feelings so badly hurt she decided to end it all and go submarine. Sunday morning - the call every boat owner dreads - 'Pansy has sunk'

Yes, 'tis true, she committed hari kiri over night saturday. Combination of factors. Pneumatic float switch on the bilge pumps full of shit so didn't trip the bilges, monster rainstorm wiped the mains out on the pontoons so the standmains pumps were useless, still a big void where the coach roof used to be and the starboard side is mostly uncaulked which don't help. So the inevitable happened.

All hands to the pumps on sunday. At least the gods gave us a nice low tide on sunday afternoon. low enough for the deck to just about show above water. The high tide mark we now have is at the top of the wheelhouse!

Big pump and lots of little pumps got her up a couple of feet, but the uncaulked planks were pissing water in as fast as all 5 pumps could take it back out. So there was nothing for it. up to my tits in water/oil/diesel and sludge, wading through a sea of things floating about and attempt to caulk the planks from the inside out to stem enough of the flow to give the pumps a chance to get ahead of the game. One positive is the caulking on the new planks port side was tight as a drum! No2 to give him credit was considering going for a swim and attempting the same from the outside. Still regret that I didn't let him. That would have cheered me up no end - until he dropped my precious caulking irons in the oggin obviously. I imposed a strict no pictures policy throughout... Although Lenny on Captain Carlsen opposite was having a blast snapping away - just waiting for the black mail letter to arrive!

At one point I ended up with my foot in the toilet, although the bog still being 3 foot under water that was no big deal. At one point the table floated past which was a handy place to stick the mallet irons and a bail of cotton.

Getting some cotton hammered home in just a few feet of plank was enough for the pumps to get a grip and she fair flew up the last 4 or 5 feet. Although I do wonder wether my muttered promise of getting her a shiny new Gardner or a restored Kelvin encourage the grumpy old cow to stop be silly and behave. Still a big puzzle though as once up and empty there's no obvious leaks.

definitely boaty suicide me thinks.

so that was sunday in a nutshell. power tools all written off, still got 500 gallons of fuel tanks with whatever is in them to deal with. So over tea and biscuits aboard 'Coral Diver' with brian (hereafter to be refered to as nice Brian) a plan was hatched. Monday morning, high tide 12ish tow her down river to the slip and get her dried out and get this soggy seam dealt with once and for all.

So monday. No3 was also called in to lend a hand. The plan was simple. Nice Brian and his lovely big Mitchell 31 would tow us the short way over the river to Friars Goose, arriving bang on high tide, dump us on the slip where we can lean against the wall dry out and get to work - what could possibly go wrong??

so, ropes were thrown, bridles rigged and Pansy hand balled into position for Nice Brian to take up the tow. Enter Brian number 2 - Marina owner, all round good good guy, but with a penchant for being a bit shouty under pressure (hereafter to be referred to as Shouty Brian)

Shouty Brian was initially aboard the marina rib as a back up and to do a bit of pushing and shoving by way of steerage as and when needed. Wasn't long before Shouty Brian took the initiative and lept aboard Nice Brian's boat intent on taking the helm and directing proceeding from that point forward

I swear at one point I heard someone shouting 'thats an act of piracy' but I was other wise occupied keeping a running total of the amount of potential damage that a 30 ton Pansy could inflict on lots of shiny plastic things that were showing off by being generally boaty (and afloat)

We did however avoid all of them and make it out into the river without hitting a single thing. Where upon the next task of loosing the tow and bridle to replace it with for/aft springers as Shouty Brian, aboard Nice Brians boat with Nice Brian as crew, can alongside Pansy stern quarter to take us into the slip. Confusion reigned for a while, No2 public admitting he did not understand a word that was being said to him when words like fore, aft, springer, take in etc were being issued by Shouty Brian.

I suspect a sentence like 'make fast a forward springer using the white rope' fell on no2's ears as 'blah blah blah blah blah rope'

Eventually everything was as it should be and a gentle bit of powered applied to get us over to the slip. This is where things went a bit more wonky. The slip, which from phonecalls the previous evening had I had been assured was empty and ready for us was now occupied. 2 russians had appeared from nowhere overnight, ran their boat up the slip dried it out and managed to whip the legs off while nobody notice - stealthy buggers these ruskies. This of course did nothing whatsoever for Shouty Brians temperament. So what to do? nothing for it but to tie pansy up on the waiting pontoon mid river and hope for the best overnight. If she had gone down again there overnight I would have changed my name by deed pole, possibly changed my gender as well and emigrated.

So monday night she had to be left there. I went home, drank my own body weight in Vodka, smoked 37Kgs of tobacco and kicked the cat repeatedly for the duration.

So Tuesday then. Me, No2 and No3, nobly assisted by the services of Steve from the marina - another great bloke, who has recently bought a rotten old wooden boat and might possibly just have been interested in seeing what he has really let himself in for! No3's better half was also in attendance. A true force to be reckoned with, and possibly only there to make sure that if I did kill her husband, I did it thoroughly so there could be no arguements when she got the life insurance claims in.

So, tuesdays plan, was, just as slack water was approaching to handball pansy down the waiting pontoon, negotiate a trot of chain moorings, over tot he quayside then around the corner and into the slip.

A great plan except..... the ruskies were still there. Shouty Brain was not in attendance. I therefore took on his role and did my bit for anglo soviet diplomatic relations. I may have even said a few bad words. This was the point at which ruskie number 1 had his shirt off and No2 spotted his tattoos which he still maintains meant that ruskie number 1 was special forces and capable of invading a small country armed only with drawing pins ad a fruit knife.

They ruskies were actually dead canny about it and have been subsequently apologised to. The stuff the holes where the recently removed legs were on the stern of there boat and set about trying to move it out of our way. As a brief aside to any potential boat owners thinking of buying a boat with outdrives - walk around any marina in any country anywhere on the planet and see how many boats you can spot with the legs in bits - I say no more!

Anyhoo. in order to complete the above set of maneuvers there was a point in the proceedings where I needed to get my self off the pontoon and onto pansy. timing her was critical as a big flying jump was needed. The time for this leap came and went unfortunately. There was nothing for it though but to just go for and attempt to walk on water. Which I kid yee not, for any observers watching the debacle unfold from the safety of terra firma I not only attempted to do, but succeeded.

The small trot of chain moorings have a securing line on the pontoon, by attaching a rope to this and letting the chain roll downstream a bit gave us room to sneak through. letting the chain run back pulled the very first buoy under water by a couple of inches. I could see this. no-one else could. and 8 foot leap from pontoon, one foot on buoy then another leap and I'm aboard - anyone that has watched total wipeout on tv and the big red balls will have some idea. So my brief moment of divinity aside, I gets aboard and starts barking instructions to No2. I had arranged ropes this time so he had control of 2 of different colours. thinking its going to be much easier to shout white rope there blue rope there. With white in one hand and blue in the other there was the obvious moment though when he looked at his hands and shouted back 'which one is the blue rope'!! but the boy done good. gently as you like 30 tons of pansy was slow roped over, not a thing was even grazed against and there she was ready to slip. HW had been and gone so the poor russians that had tried to make their boat water tight and shift needn't have bothered, so we shifted them back to were they were and muttered some apologies

So there you have it. Pansy sank, Pansy got raised, moved and is sat against the wall at the slip waiting for this weekends big tides to drag her higher up to dry out while the tides neap. Next springs a crane is being organised to lift her proper clear of the water, sat on the hard over winter so stuff can get properly finished and sorted for the first time in donkeys years. The ford Lehman is in a bad was as you expect from an engine thats been on the bottom for a tide, so there may well be a full how to rebuild a ford lehman marine engine type blog post at some point as well. Probably things I've forgotten so may add some more when the sedatives have worn off a bit.

Mucho Muchos thanks to Nick and (shouty!) Brian from St Peter's Marina (best marina on the Tyne IMHO), Steve (Nice) Brian, Coral Diver, Steve from Plessey and for Lenny from Captain Carlsen for not gratuitously taking the piss all day on sunday - although revving your engines to emphasis that yours work and you hadn't sunk didn't go un-noticed!! And in the spirit of Glasnost more humble apologies to the Russians - if you need to shoot someone as revenge shoot number 2 - he's fatter and it will hurt less

No Brians were injured during the making of this post by the way