Now that the Tiger was officially owned by the council, the £188,000 conversion began in earnest, one of the first jobs to be done being the removal of the railings around the rescue zone doors on the starboard side.

"Anything You CAM do.." A view of the foredeck before the conversion work started. Note the rescue launches and davits on each side of the deck.

By the 7th September, the port side railings and both rescue launch cradles were removed. Work also started on this date of the removal of the boat davit platform on the port side. With an acetylene torch and crowbar, two fitters from main contractors Harris and Garrod set to work on the platform and within about 40 minutes, the pieces of the platform had joined the steadily growing pile of scrap metal on the starboard side.
Meanwhile, in the engine room, work had already begun on the stripping of asbestos lagging, installed originally when the Tiger was built but now deemed to be dangerous.

On the bright and sunny morning of Tuesday, the 11th of August, the hatch cover to the fore-peak tank was removed in order to check any water level. Surprisingly, there was very little.
In the engine room, an inspection was carried out by sub-contactors Loamar Marine, assisted by the Conversion overseer, Mr Steve Read of Harris and Garrod.
Up on the bridge, the once buzzing nerve centre of the ship was starkly quiet and bare. The removal, by Cam Shipping, of most of the equipment gave the bridge and adjoining Chart/Wireless Room an unreal quality.
By contrast, the skippers berth stood almost intact, unchanged largely since 1957.
Outside, on the boat-deck, non-original vents were being removed, the first of many that would have to be done.

By Sunday, the 16th of August, work on board the Tiger had gone according to schedule and she was ready for the next phase of the conversion. Accordingly, she was towed from the North Wall across to the slipping jetty ready for the following day.

Monday, the 17th, dawned bright and sunny, and at 9.2lam, work started to bring the 355 ton former trawler out of the water and up onto slipway No 9. The slip was alive with men working busily to prepare the cradle with the correct sized chocks-known as 'cods'-necessary to grip and hold the hull of the vessel and lift her out of the water.
Once prepared, the cradle began its slow journey down the slipway and into the water towards the still-moored Tiger. Finally, with only the tall, metal guide-posts visible above the water, the cradle came to a halt and at approximately 10.06, the Cam Tiger, now with only check-lines holding her to the jetty, began to move slowly forwards towards the waiting cradle.
At 10.15, after various checks on positioning, the Tiger was finally resting on the cradle and was being pulled forwards by the massive 4-inch diameter hawser attached to the cradle and, in turn, to the winch house at the head of the slip. By 10.34, only the keel of the Tiger was still in the water, the rest of her hull showing comparitively few barnacles.
At precisely 11.OOam, the Cam Tiger, secure on the cradle, came to a halt.
The 'dry phase' of the project could now begin.

In order to carry out the work required on the Tiger, the vessel needed to be on the slip for some time. For this reason, Tuesday the 18th of August saw the vessel being side-slipped. This process involves the entire section of the cradle holding the Tiger being moved steadily sideways on rails until she was over static concrete blocks which are augmented by suitable wooden chocks to hold the hull correctly. Properly positioned, the vessel is then gently lowered onto the blocks and the cradle is then moved back into position on the slipway.

Slipped up. The 'Dry Phase' under way with the Tiger side-slipped at Grimsby

With the Tiger now on her new perch, restoration work on her could now continue. Sub contractors Eastern Counties Scaffolding began to erect the staging which would be necessary for work on the hull, the first job to be done being the removal of the rudder and propeller. As the Tiger was to be a stationary, permanently moored vessel, propulsion and steerage were not needed.

On her fifth day on the slip, Eastern Counties had the scaffolding surrounding the Tiger up to one tier on the port side and up to two tiers on the starboard side. With the rudder now removed and laid on the slipway, work commenced to remove the propellor. Once done, a plate was welded over the stern tube to prevent any seepage of water into the vessel whilst at her moorings alongside the Heritage Centre.

Three days later, on the 24th of August, the scaffolding had climbed even higher, the bow section being almost complete. Building around the stern was held up until the following day when more scaffolding would arrive.
On the bridge verandah, a piece of angle-iron which had been welded across the starboard bridge door was removed, thus again allowing acess to and from the bridge from boat-deck level.

The following day, Tuesday, brought an Evening Telegraph photographer to the slipway who took photos of the Tiger and of the shot-blaster who, for the benefit of the camera, donned his equipment and demonstrated how this work would be carried out.
The arrival of more scaffolding allowed work in this area to continue and the bow section was built up sufficiently enough to allow the plastic sheeting, which would eventually surround the entire hull, to start being fixed in place to the scaffold poles. These plastic sheets, or 'skirts', would prevent the grit used in shot-blasting from flying all over, thereby minimising the risk of injury to others working near the Tiger on the slipway.
Starting on the port bow, the sheeting was extended around to the starboard side then, from the next lower level, back around the bow to the port side and so on in this fashion until the bow was fully covered. Whist this was being done, by three of the scaffolding team, two more men continued building up the midships and stern sections of the vessel, ready to be sheeted up.

Interior of the Tiger's Bridge. It would be meticulously stripped out during the conversion - and replaced seamlessly.

The original panelling, removed from the bridge, Chart/Wireless room and Skippers berth,was removed from the Tiger and taken by pick-up truck into safe storage until it would be replaced later. By the days end, all that could be seen of the Cam Tiger was her upperworks, her entire hull masked by her plastic 'skirts'

By Wednesday, the 2nd of September, the shot-blaster had done his work and the familiar orange-painted hull of Cam Shipping was now gone and the first coat of primer paint had been applied. Now the hull was ready to receive her final painting. Below the water-line, sub contractors Bird & Goddwin sprayed the hull with four coats of protective paint estimated to last for twenty years or more underwater whilst above the water line, smooth black paint and the white sheer-line returned the hull back to its original trawler livery.

Sunday, the 13th of September, saw the scaffolding start to be dismantled, whilst up on the deck, the evidence of much internal work was to be seen. Non-original vents, now removed, littered the fore-deck amidst pipes and valves stripped from the engine room.
Piles of wood panelling, pieces of metal bulkheads-cut for access- all bore silent witness to the hive of activity that the Tiger had been these past weeks.
But the work was far from over.

On the 21st of September, a clean-up operation started as the paint-laden grit used in the shot-blasting was cleared from the slipway surrounding the Tiger by a fork lift and a team of shovel-weilding men.

Perhaps the most dramatic operation of the entire project was started on this date as work commenced on the cutting of the bridge casing. At this time, the entire bridge, chart/wireless room and skippers berth was just a shell, the interior having been removed prior to the cutting.
Meanwhile, on the whale-back, work had started to remove the windlass, anchor cable stop and spare anchor, whilst on the bridge verandah, the ladder to the bridge top was removed. The remaining sections of scaffolding around the stern were dismantled and taken down, affording unrestricted access all around the vessel, which would be needed the following day.

How high the moon?

September the 22nd dawned cold and misty but this didn't deter Evening Telegraph reporter Magnus Gardham and photographer Ray Corke from visiting the slipway to report on the work so far. And there was plenty to see.
The small fore-mast, added by Cam to the whale-back was cut away and laid on the slipway, now only good for scrap value. The anchor, and the anchor cable were removed and the cable was 'flaked' on the slip, by the bow of the Tiger.
A scaffolding tower was then hoisted aboard the vessel to enable work to start on the cutting of the bridge, which started on the starboard side.
The smaller fittings, which had been removed previously, were removed from the deck in metal skips, several lifts being necessary to remove all of the pieces.
The windlass, now cut free of its mountings, was lifted from the whale-back onto the fore-deck, as far forward as the crane jib would allow where it would be kept until replaced later.

By the 27th September, almost all of the 'dry phase' work was completed and everything was right on schedule, the operation thus far having gone exactly to plan. Accordingly, the Tiger had by now been side-slipped again, back onto slip No9, awaiting her return to the environment for which she was built. Before this could happen though, there was still some work to be done on the hull below the water-line where the chocks had been whilst on the side-slip.
These patches had not, obviously, been able to be either sand- blasted nor painted and so this had to be done by hand before the Tiger could be launched back into the water.

This work now completed, and to the accompaniment of the pouring rain, the Tiger slowly re-entered the water in the dock on September the 30th and was berthed on the end of No2 jetty.