MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

Did some exploring in the bilges t'other day, as you do, and came upon a mystery white box. Aye aye, sez I, whats in here then??

lord lucan's missing millions?, some previous owners souvenirs from columbia and ecuador?.... neither I'm sad (and possibly a bit embarrassed) to say. there was some wires coming out of the box, traced these hither and thither and discovered, eventually, a switch on the end of them, well I say discovered, it was actually slap bang in the middle of the big fancy switch console.

so what's in the box... a bilge pump, right in the bit where we took all the water on the way back down, now if we'd spotted the switch earlier, we would have had dry bovril and clean pants in Peterhead. Thing is though the switch is labeled 'shower tray drain pump' as opposed to 'bilge pump' or 'sinking prevention activation' something sensible like that. I should of had me suspicions earlier though, Pansy hasn't got a shower!

No 2 has very brown hands today by all accounts, fumbling around in the bowels where that sun don't shine... The ballast from the forecabin, as yet untouched by the hand of 'trawler conversion', has been relocated apparently. All good stuff been itching to get this wee little hidey hole converted. The crew accommodation in a motor fifie was shoe horned in there originally so now its been cleared, be nice to get it converted into something useful, small brig for mutinous crew members perhaps, fetish room for the ships gimp maybe?? who knows. was just trying to recap in my head earlier where we are at since we got her here...... re-caulked the bits that were leaky on the starboard side, but still need to sort the port side bits out, drilled some drainage holes in the bottom(!) so if we do get out fishing and she takes a bit of water its not as big a problem as there's now clear ways through the frames for the water to get to the bilge pumps so we can keep on top of it. Seeing more and more MFV type boats coming on the market as the fishing industry collapses which is a bit sad, but hopefully might mean a few spare parts appearing from those that get scrapped, just little insignificant things that we may need soon, like a new gearbox, shaft, prop, fuel tanks, that sort of thing!