Aft Deck

Another view from the gantry, you can see Edward in shadow perched on it.

Deck

View from the wheelhouse gantry,at the moment work is slowly progressing on caulking the deck ,and stripping and painting the Bulwarks.

Nice solid wheelhouse

I have been away for a couple of weeks in Italy , so I shall just add on a few extra pics.

My First Door

I am feeling very pleased with myself, this is my first cabin door and the first door I have ever made.All properly tongued and grooved.

The timber Ihave used is Red Meranti which is supposed to be more eco friendy than some of the traditional mahoganies with the added benefit of being a lot cheaper.

the purpose of making just one is to check out the proportions before making any more,so I keep sitting looking at it thinking it is to small or to narrow or not tall enough etc.etc and trying to imagine walking through it. Basically thinking about it to much( A bit sad really)

A bit of woodwork

I have started cutting my first bits of wood ,the bits leaning against the wall should become my first cabin door !! I thought I would make one to check that the size is about right .After this I shall make up some cabin bulkheads to see how these look as well. I have been drawing up all the new bulkheads and cabin layouts for weeks so it is good to make something for a change.

Here is another converted Trawler alongside the Strathspey , She is an older boat that has been very well converted and of Scandinavian origins.

I must also mention the "40+ Fishing Boat Association who do a fantastic job in keeping an eye on what is going on in the fishing industry and it's rich history of the boats and all the people connected with it. If you become a member at very reasonable cost (Pretty cheap at £ 10 quid a year)and will receive an excellent High quality quarterly magazine . they have a web site at www.homepages.mcb.net/40fba Give it a go !!

Fisherman may be very good at their jobs ,but when it comes to re-upholstery they haven't got much of a sense of it!!! I think I might throw this in a skip.

Here is a before and after as Tim knows it takes a lot of work to get to this stage, 37 years of paint ( they just put paint on paint/rust and anything else) it took two of us four days just to do one side.And rust dust is somthing else!! it seems to be attracted to humans. I still think needle guns are wonderful pieces of equipment.

Here is my large and very powerful anchor winch it is powered by a twin cylinder Lister diesel which is very easy to start.I found it on the "Boats and Outboards " site it came with two huge anchors and a couple of tons of chain.

One thing I keep agonising over is whether I should put some portholes in the hull,for me this is a difficult decision due to originality.I have seen some truly dreadful trawler conversions some with large equally spaced portholes with polished brass rings .If I put them in to give me something to look out of I need them to look almost if they should be there in a discreet sort of way. What does anyone think?

Builders Plate

This is the original builders plate and bell ,the bell is engraved with the Strathspeys original name "Orcades".Local opinion is that she should remain the Strathspey rather than revert to an Orkney name !!!!

The Builders plates in Buckie were apparently made by the local coffin plate maker ,I do not know if this is true ?

The underside of the whaleback has come up incredibly well ,I thought this was terminal as the corrosion was so heavy

It looks a bit like a crime scene

And this is our very silly dog Daisy,she is ten and very demanding and greedy but quite lovable

Two of our four cats ,the one on the left is Lucy she's the mum of Hattie on the right

I don't know what I am looking for but the romper suit looks good !!

The steel deck beams have come up well thanks agai to the needle gun and some Latvian tenacity.

The wonders of the needle gun ,the wheelhouse has come up a treat after 37 years of paint and rust have been cleaned away and given plenty of coats of red oxide, nearly already for undercoat and topcoat.Work has also started on the deck.

This French trawler was one of the many foreign boats that use Lochinver to land their catch,which is then shipped back to France by lorry.Most of the fish coming in here goes abroad as all the large boats seem to be either Spanish or French.All the local boats are small and mainly catch shrimp and are very few in number.Fish quotas and decommissioning have done for the rest

July 7 th.We made the thirteen hour drive from Oxford to Lochinver ,and once into Scotland the drive North of Glasgow is one of the best I have ever had,fantastic scenery , roads , lack of traffic,sunshine and not a speck of rubbish to be seen any were.Also we had five days of Sunshine although I spent most of the time in the hold of the"Strathspey" covered in rust dust.

I have bought this watermaker ,it needs a new ro membrane ( about £ 100 )but otherwise works fine .It is quite an old model and looks quite well made . It is 110v so with a 240v system I could use a stepper as used ind the building trade for 110v power tools. it is a 6 gph but if you use two ro membranes this would double to 12

This is my paper plan ,I still have to do things the old way ,paper and pencil.