The Story of a Stornoway Fishing Boat

This is the story of a Stornoway fishing boat - the Franlizchar. My partner Ian recently bought her as a long-term project. He doesn't have plans to take her commercially fishing, but as a pleasure boat.

The Franlizchar is a French-built Brittany style fishing boat, built in 1971. She is built of oak planks on oak frames - it's almost torpedo proof! She's had a hard life, but the oak hull has stood the test of time. She was last worked two years ago, but sadly due to poor prices at the markets for prawns, her previous owner could not longer afford to work her as the running and repair costs were higher than what was being taken in.

Renovations

Be sure to check back on these pages for the ongoing story on the continuing renovations of the boat. We don't know how long it will take to fix her up, but it certainly won't be by the end of this year!

The first stage was to clean her up as she'd been sitting tied up for two years in Stornoway Harbour. This didn't take too long, just a sunny day in March. There was quite a bit of rubbish to remove and the deck to scrub. The gilson derrick was burnt off with a propane gas axe and removed. The trawl wire was removed from the winch, though the winch is still currently on the deck. The batteries have been removed to get recharged and the bilges have been pumped out.

There are a few decisions to make about the boat: what to do about the wheelhouse, whether to get the engines going first and take her round Point into Broadbay and berth her at Brevig Pier or tow her there, whether to remove the winch and gallows.

The Next Stage

We've entered into the next phase, decisions have been made! The boat was at first pulled round the pier at Stornoway and beached at the head where the Creed flows into the bay. This was to check the condition underneath and scrape away any barnacles. The keel and rudder was completely covered in not only barnacles, but mussels, sea slugs and other unsavory looking sea slimes. Once the detritus was power washed and scraped, it was discovered there was a sort of worm that had gotten into the wood. For this reason, as well as we nearly lost the boat when at low tide, the boat leaned against the pier at nearly 90 degrees and started filling up with water - it was decided to get the boat towed to Brevig Pier in Vatisker, Back to do essential repairs. The boat was craned out of the water by the Peel's (John MacIver and Sons) and onto dry dock to get further repairs to the hull.

Now it's on dry dock up on the pier. The capping on the gunwhales have been removed as the oak was worn out and rotten. The interior of the deck was power washed and then scraped and primed. The deck itself has been primed and part of it has been painted with anti-slip paint - grey paint that has sand in it. The hull has been scraped, holes filled and a primer applied. The keel planks have been removed as they were so rotten. The aluminium siding has been removed. The wheelhouse will be removed once other hull repairs have been made. The wood replacing the rotten oak will be larch - it's as hardy a wood but a lot cheaper. Oak has gone up phenomenally in price recently due to the demand for solid wood flooring thus making it far too expensive for our needs.

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