It all started with an ad on eBay: buy a 90-foot trawler and "live a bit." It did not take long before the old fishing boat had me hooked.

When I first saw Lady Jane close up and personal, all I could see was the life I could have. The fact that she was completely covered in rust, right through in several obvious places, did not even enter the equation.

After 20 years in the computer industry, I wanted a more balanced life and had embarked on a spree of hiking, climbing, skiing, flying and diving. The boating life, it seemed, would be perfect.

It was surprisingly easy to put together the money I needed–about 50,000 pounds, or $90,000–and even easier to hand it over to the owners. I looked at the year-old survey, of course, but it hardly mattered. I was only looking at what I wanted to see, thinking with my heart and noTIM NOLANJane riding high on a low tide.t my head. I had bought a boat–a big one.

The problem was that I had no idea what to do or how to do it.

REALITY CHECK

Until I purchased Lady Jane I had never actually piloted any kind of boat. Now, I had a huge trawler, built for fishing in the North Sea.

To give you a sense of scale, Lady Jane is twice the length of my house. She is divided by five watertight bulkheads into six classic trawler compartments: the steering room; galley with crew's quarters; engine room with battery room and wheelhouse; the fish hold; the forward locker; and the net locker. The stern is rounded to take on heavy seas. She draws nine feet.

In terms of accommodations, Lady Jane was built to sleep seven. There is generous crew space within the crew's quarters, complete with six "coffin" bunks designed to prevent crew members from falling out of their beds in heavy seas. There is also a bunk in the wheelhouse for the skipper.

When I took possession, Lady Jane was moored in the middle of the River Itchen, in Southampton, England. It is about 45 miles from my home. Forget my lack of boating smarts, I didn't even have transportation to get myself from shore to ship and back again.

Stuart, the first of what has become many boating friends, loaned me one of his HBI's (the British equivalent of a RIB, or rigid inflatable boat) to come and go as I pleased. A brave and generous man, he did this knowing that I was clueless about boats, including how to skipper a small one. I realized that I needed to get my own tender, and opted for a small inflatable, which perfectly suited a little 4 HP engine.

WHERE TO START?

I was blissfully unaware of just how much I had taken on and, although aware of some of the difficulties I faced, I had a new toy and was starting to enjoy the lifestyle. That feeling of being on deck in the evening when all is calm is one that needs to be experienced to really appreciate.

Still, with a massive project like Jane, you have to begin somewhere.

I had many offers of help but, frustratingly, no way to actually do anything. This great idea was starting to seem a bit out of my league. I slowly got to know people and quickly discovered that everyone had ideas about what I should be doing. All too often, it felt like some people had their hands in my pockets feeling for cash while dispensing advice. I listened to them, thought about it all and decided what to do for myself.

TIM NOLANStuart cuts back the rust.I decided it would be with the creature comforts. The boat had no running water and the galley's little gas cooker was nothing short of dangerous. Perhaps most concerning was the wheelhouse where the roof leaked–right over my bunk–making it a priority repair.

Running water was a relatively straightforward fix, requiring a new pressure switch. But this lead to another interesting problem. I sort of knew what I wanted, but had no idea where to get it. Lady Jane is really a small ship and much of the "stuff" on board is heavy duty or domestic–not the type of thing that a regular chandlery carries. Forced to buy things on a large scale–such as ballast by the ton–I found new places to shop.

The cooker presented different problems because it needed a safety certificate and required an authorized technician to handle the installation. I decided to buy new appliances.

Delivery of these new amenities was the first real challenge. I had measured the space and purchased the appropriate stove and refrigerator for the boat. The problem was getting the big stuff out to Lady Jane. As it happened, Jan, a tug owner, happened along and offered to help.

This was when I learned another all-important lesson: Measure the size of the doors before bringing anything aboard. After the delivery I was left on deck alone, freezing cold in a howling wind, with a fridge too big to fit through the watertight door. In the end the appliance had to be dismantled to fit inside.

TIM NOLANTim proudly displays the last of the big flakes of rust.Suffice it to say that it's staying in its new spot for good.

WINNING THE RUST WAR

Having running water led to the realization that the shower room was in a desperate state. What I had was a rusty steel box with a rusty door, a rusted-through vent on the ceiling, some rusty pipes leading to the shower and a worn out wash basin. There's simply no point in taking a shower if you come out dirtier than when you went in. This launched a long crash course in rust busting. Of course, I had no power tools. And power tools would require power.

I had just seen a small, quiet Honda generator at the Southampton boat show, and soon I made a nervous trip in the inflatable with a new, expensive generator nestled in the forward end. With the generator on board, my options expanded. I could add an angle grinder and a wire brush attachment.

Rust is to Lady Jane as sand is to Iraq. After a lot of experimentation and time, I won the war, but not before chipping off the big flakes by hand; eliminating tough scale using an air hammer and a light concrete breaker; digging at the remaining bits with a needle gun; cleaning the surface with an angle grinder; skimming over difficult spots with flap disks; applying a rust converter (I use Rustroy); priming and then–finally–painting.

The process seemed interminable.

Like most tasks on Lady Jane, the wheelhouse leak proved to be a bigger challenge than I had expected. That's because I needed a welder. It was through Jan that I met Robin. On his first visit he quickly determined that I had plenty of 110-volt DC power.

But what he needed to weld was AC power.

THE FIRST VOYAGE

Robin mentioned he could get a berth for Lady Jane in a town called Fareham, just north of Portsmouth, where he could weld using shore power. This would have the added advantage of putting the boat in port, where I could take care of other tasks.

But how was I going to get Lady Jane to Fareham? At 90 feet, with an untried engine and rudimentary controls, the task seemed impossible.

Lady Jane's main engine–a six-cylinder, 550 HP 6D6 Industrie turbo diesel–stands taller than I do. Her tanks hold more than 6,000 gallons of fuel. A Kuypers hydraulic gear box, which is a massive affair with one forward and one reverse gear, drives a bronze, four-bladed prop six feet in diameter.

TIM NOLANJane's compliment of onboard batteries.There is much to Lady Jane's machinery, but the highlights include a 110-volt DC compressor with two large compressed air bottles; several generators; and a 25 HP, air-cooled, hand-crank, two-cylinder, noisy, smoky, dirty Lister donkey engine.

Starting the beast is a little more complex than turning a key. To give you an idea, here is the checklist to start the engine I was given by the previous owner:

• Open Chimney
• Open sweet water header tank valve
• Check sweet water level
• If level low, open valve to water supply
• Close when level sufficient
• Position 110 & 24V breakers for charging
• Fill and adjust bottom air tank
• Turn oil filter wiper
• Open raw water sea cocks
• Check gear in neutral
• Prime engine oil
• Prime crankshaft
• Oil valves & pillar bearings
• Open day tank valve
• Open fuel filter
• Check fuel supply
• Set throttle half turn
• Check governer in run position
• Start with air

That last bit, "Start with air," is literally true. One of the compressed air bottles gives the engine the initial kick it needs to get started.

TIM NOLANDisappearing holes: Repairing the bulwarks.Remember, I had never skippered anything. But within days I met John, who skippers the local harbormaster's patrol boat. He came on board for a look about and announced: "Any time you'd like me to skipper her, just let me know."

As soon as the tides were right we were off to Fareham on what would be one of the most exciting days of my life and Lady Jane's first time to sea in three years. We set off down the river Itchen at a slow 5.5 knots, followed by a plume of smoke as years worth of accumulated oil burned off the exhaust. The engine behaved beautifully, although we never pushed her to perform.

I was a bit nervous about setting off in winds that topped 20 knots, but Lady Jane's voyage to Fareham was largely uneventful. In fact it was extremely gratifying to be cutting through the waves while all the other small boats around us bobbed about. My decision six months earlier to buy the old rust bucket suddenly didn't seem to be so bad after all.

Of course, the heavy work was still ahead.

HULL AND BACK

With Lady Jane safely alongside the dock the welding could finally begin. It started on deck, where the big winches had previously been removed. It was their removal that caused a hole to be punched right through the thin, rusted steel that covered the hold below.

Welding is easy; anyone can do it. Welding well, however, is a skill that is amazingly difficult to master. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but I'm becoming more able. Despite my growing skills, I remained in shock at just how poor a state Lady Jane was in.

During a big cleanup effort in the crew quarters, we discovered the hull, supposedly 10 millimeters thick, had rusted right through below the waterline. All that was keeping Lady Jane afloat was a plug of rust. What an experience it was fighting the clock as I cut a man-sized hole in the hull and welded a new piece back in–all while the tide was out.

I have been able to cut costs by doing some of the welding myself, though I use a professional welder to do the tough structural jobs. There are places where the steel is so thin that I'll have to go back and replace it later, when I have the time and money.

I have two welding rigs now. The first is a big clunky transformer welder, which was temperamental during big welding jobs. I finally succumbed and bought a small, lightweight inverter welder. That tool, and a proper light-reactive mask, have transformed my welding abilities from poor to mediocre.

Of course, Lady Jane gives me plenty to opportunities to practice and improve my skills. And I'm certainly not the first to be charged with her care.

The fishing trawler Judith - some time before her conversion to Lady Jane.THE DISTANT PAST

Lady Jane was first launched in Ostend, Belgium on April 27, 1963, and was assigned to work the brutal North Sea. She has been around for more than 40 years, and like her new owner, she's had a diverse life.

Lady Jane was originally known as Z.431 Judith, named after St. Jude, a statue of who remains on board to this day. Judith was first launched as one of a handful of fishing trawlers. When she finished her fishing career, she was used as a standoff for oil rigs. Judith was later moved to Ireland where she went unused for a few years. It was there that she had various items removed, including her portholes.

Judith was purchased in 2000 and brought to England to be used as a survey vessel and re-named Lady Jane. New owners later began work converting her from a fishing vessel to a live aboard. When Lady Jane was lifted out of the water she weighed 182 tons. After her fishing gear was removed and the fish hold was stripped, she weighed-in at a svelte 155 tons.

On her maiden voyage under my watch, the bow rode high and I have since fitted her with several tons of additional iron ballast.

FULL CIRCLE

It is probably fitting that I came to land on this project. My childhood years were dominated by an interest in all things mechanical. I always seemed to have one machine or another scattered in pieces around me. My folks must have given up hope of ever using the garage again once I graduated to dismantling and re-assembling motorbikes.

I embarked on a mechanical engineering diploma but got lured away by the fascination of computers, which kept me preoccupied for more than 20 years. Lady Jane is a project that fills my weekends and odd days off. I still need a paying job to help finance this expensive hobby. It stands to reason that the pace of repairs is dictated by how much money I have on hand.

But these days, I've got a big – and expensive – engineering challenge.

A musty smell down below, in what was once the crew quarters, has turned out to be a damp patch, caused by a leaking drainpipe from the shower room above. After much deliberation, I decided to remove the whole thing. I reasoned that the bunks were damaged beyond any reasonable hope of repair and I had a sense that all was not well behind the wooden façade.

The leaking shower room pipe, though less serious than the near hull breach, proved to be a bigger problem. In the end, the concrete floor had to be dug out and the entire rusted shower room floor had to be replaced, creating a mess in the galley, the engine room and the stern accommodation.

Lady Jane is back in the River Itchen, moored where I first met her. The move to Fareham maxed out my credit cards. To date I've spent about 40,000 pounds (more than $80,000) on repairs, with many more costs on the horizon. The previous owner was overly optimistic when he estimated what it would take to get the boat "up and running."

Talk about blood, sweat and tears. I've given all of those to Lady Jane plus a load of cash as well.

I still have a depressingly-long "to do" list: Fit out the crew quarters; clean-up and paint the engine room; refurbish the galley and wheelhouse; convert the fish hold to cabins; rust bust, paint and fit-out the forward peak; finish rust-busing and painting the hull; install central heating; and add a black and grey water system.

I tell myself it will all get done. One day.