MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

In a fit of Pique today, I decided to investigate the deck... a bit.

First impressions... grey deck paint, possibly with a coat of green underneath. An hour later I came to the conclusion the deck has been tarmaced!! Started gently, little bit of a going over with a belt sander. Anyone know where you can buy a new belt sander cheap?? So time to get tough. Angle grinder with a new flap wheel on, that lasted marginlly longer than the belt sander, and I'd still not seen any wood. so stick a proper grinding disk on. that went the journey quicker than the flap disk. Right, time for the big guns - Electric plane. lots of noise, the grey disappearing rapidly revealing what I am now convinced is green tarmac. With the blades on the plane fully extended and all my weight on it, I managed to remove about 1mm of the stuff when the thought of buying a new plane as well as a new sander caused a rethink.

Blowtorch then. So, fire it up and let rip, finally the stuff is yielding, well a bit, not enough to reveal any wood, but enough for the green goo to go critical and set itself on fire. Very wierd stuff. little lump the size of a 50p burning merrily blow it out and then....poof... in to flames again. Its Green, Its bloody hard, its full of what I guess are small beads of glass (or possibly kryptonite)

Ok so the deck is a hybrid made from tarmac and un-blow-out-able birthday candles. I had at this point though removed enough, in an area the size of a fag packet, to try attack it with a chisel and a mash hammer, and finally the stuff started to move. the good news is the wee bit of timber underneath looks sound as a pound. In places the 'tarmacandle' is nearly 10mm thick!!

Rather more depressing is the fact I estimate its going to take maybe 2-3 hours per square yard to remove. and another hour or 2 to clean and sand the planks and reseal. must be 50 square yards maybe. The whole new deck option is starting to look really attractive

Can you still buy Napalm I wonder?

Its all going on now! will get some pics taken this weekend of the before and after engine room, even got some of that paint stuff applied now. Not been without its unpleasantness though. Got down in the bilges and removed several buckets full of what can only be described as the contents of satan's arsehole from the bilges under the gearbox and engine, 6" deep in foul smelling, greasy, black silty unspeakableness

Although this wasn't entirely without its rewards either...... In recognition of the unpleasantness Pansy offered up a few rewards, possibly by way of thanks, along the way... a couple of screw drivers, a pair of mole grips, a tape measure, small socket set (boxed - Kamasa), a selection of sockets (unboxed - snap-on tools) several spanners (britool) various nuts and bolts (unboxed - rusty) and, IMHO the greatest treasure of all, one not so shiny penny - dated 1937.

laid there by the builders perhaps when they laid the keel?? Found it wedged between frame and plank right down on the hog, polished it, kissed it and put it back again!

The nappies worked a treat at soaking up the more fluid of the horrors, handful of sawdust helped bind up the remainder a bit, then an hour or 2 of elbow grease and you could even see wood down there once again. least its a job that I hope won't need to be repeated again for a long long time, and hopefully not by us anyway

the tools (apart from the tape measure and mole grips) are all in excellent condition, not much chance of rust when you're immersed in that oily mess.

So out with the paint. The back end of the engine room is now all shiny and clean with a coat of fresh paint, feels like real progress. Going to lay a new bit of 'flooring' over the back end this weekend then thats that bit finished

*Oi Oi*

I took the carpets up and found a patch of soot! Removed a bit of rubbish (got forearms like Popeye's the now!). Sourced a kettle (from the shop) and installed it between some "Futtocks" and a "Shoulder". It works great, makes the water really hot, I poured some over my neck to test it and it's left a brilliant red mark with some fantastic blistering. Also tried to replace three sections of board we'd taken up in the saloon (?) to get at some bizarre pipe work. The total number of possible combinations they could be in must be something like 3 to the power of 3, which is round about 30. Even if you factor in the possibilty of upsidedowness the final figure can't top 30 x 30 (more than 300 I reckon) I gave up after 16.35 minutes and started sweeping things up again. Next visit, boards were sorted - I think the skipper may have fettled them, I did see a bit of sawdust and the odd dint - mellhammer and a chainsaw, why didn't I think of that?

The poor old girl has been devoid of any recognition for years, so thought its about time to give her her name back properly.

No.2 had the foresight to scribble her name inside the bulwarks with a pen for the trip back to ward of sea serpents and the like, but apart from that, she's been anonymous to the passer by, so I set too and had a crack at carving some boards for her at the weekend, not bad for a first effort, carved the name based on a wee glimpse of it that can be seen on one of the older pics we've got, so tried to recreate something that was a reasonable facsimile of that, turned out ok, apart from a bit of a scrap between the different paints that were used, one reacted badly to the other, so it does have a rather aged look already, although I might take the sander to it and do it again

ok so she sets fire to herself and wets her pants a bit, thats old ladies for you. but a cure has to be, and I believe has been found.

Down in the hole there is an accumulation of 70 years of oil, grease, soot, dust, rusty bits, diesel, hydraulic oil, and very possibly fish and and past crew members breakfasts, and it all has to come out. So the time has come to boldly go where no cleaning products have gone before. The vile black sludge has to be removed. First job has been to remove what may well turn out to be mini torpedoes, we're still not sure, there's maybe 50 of em, all neatly stacked in the bilges under the engine and tanks. A couple or 3 feet long, 3 or 4" in diameter and of hernia inducing weight when your on your back partially upside down and trying not to breath whilst you're shifting them. But shifted they are, and seeing daylight for the first time this century, alongside some of the other mystery ironmongery we've removed (the big cheese shaped bits, the stripey bits etc)

So how to attack the filthy slurry that remains. the answer came to me in flash as I was stood in the queue in the post office on pension day next to one of tenna lady's best, but evidently least successful customers. Nappies!

So for those likewise infested with bilge blight, get yourself some nappies, open them out and press them down into the offending area and leave for a bit, all manner of nastiness soaks into them, then simply remove and dispose of. If you live in herne bay, I believe the correct procedure for disposal is to leave them on the beach

For those smaller harder to get at areas, sanitary towels (with or without wings) do a similar job.

The plan is, once the worst has been removed to throw some cat litter down there with a bit of sawdust to soak up whatever's left, then scrape that out, hope fully to reveal a nice clean bottom, ready for talc and paint (ok I made the talc bit up)

As a word of caution though. I have it on very good authority that if you leave the nappies down there too long they may well explode.

*No. 2 swings his good leg on board and leaves the spare on the pontoon*

Duck egg blue down below - very nice. How do I know? I spent 137 minutes down there yesterday with 4 elbows, (Elephants have 4 knees apparently) some grease and a laser beam. Managed to expose a postage stamp area of cleanliness ready to accept our lovely white bilge paint. Realised that using your teeth to tear bits off a roll of stockinette doesn't work so squeezed meself into a man sized portion and rolled around for a while to soak up some of the damage I'd done with "The Cleaning" (note to Skipper - there may be a stanley knife blade lurking around point upwards next to some of your "Thingmys"). It all looked quite good by the time I left but then the batteries were just about out which power the engine room lights and my headtorch actually makes things darker when you point it at things. May have to consider putting head torch on the other way round as I'm often startled by a strange white light behind me but everytime I turn around it's gone.

'Broons aall roond' as they are oft heard to say in Cowes week, the Panser now starts and runs off the key again, the rats nest, both burnt and unburnt flavours, has been attacked and vanquished. Spiffy new wiring, all neat and accessible, proper isolators, new relays, and emergency over rides all tickety boo (although the alternator is shagged as is the oil pressure sender from the wee bonfire). so we're back where we were as far as getting the girl running, and more importantly knowing where to start looking when she's not running and what to look for when she won't run. The alternator is a curious one, another bog standard Lucas job, model A376, which bizarrely for the 7 litre behemoth lehman engine, is the exact same alternator as fitted to an 1100cc ford fiesta, at least it'll be cheap, unless Ford made a special 'Marine' version of the Ford Fiesta that is!

Elsewhere, I've been researching a bit, about what the crack is with the big post that is sitting between the prop and the rudder, basically along the lines of should it or shouldn't it be there. It seems some Fifies had them, some didn't, and those that did each had there own design. In amongst all this are the various derogations of Fifie - Scaffies, Yawls, Skiff's, and my personally favourite, Baldies, named after the italian revolutionary Garibaldi, for reasons I'm yet to discover (answers on a postcard please). So I wonder if there's a Caribbean version of Fifie called a 'yardie'

*No. 2 awakens*

Our boat is a biscuit! Explains a lot. I've been held up at work a bit this week saving people's lives and creating things of beauty. The Skipper has done fantastically well without me being there - a testament to his quick learning, versatility and levels of energy bordering on "The Occult". I did get down for about 96 minutes, put me wellies on over my best trausers and had a look down below, took a while to get into the engine room as The Skipper had turned the ladders round so I went in upside down. First thing I noticed was how much I hadn't done in the last 143 minutes I spent down there, next thing I saw was some new stuff, wires in a kind of 1920's type of space suit for a very thin man's arm covering. I also saw some other wires and a piece of metal shaped like a fingmy which was a bit less grimy than the rest of the metal stuff down there. I think I might have shouted things like "Fantastic" "Topper" "Cush" "Bonzer" "Ech ma boab" then ran out of things to say. I stayed down there for quite a while to pretend I was sizing other things up, and spotted a few things I need to do - honest Skipper. THIS WEEKEND, I promise .....