A SAILING enthusiast has built an eight-foot long barbecue ‘tanker’ to celebrate his 70th birthday. Monty Waight built the behemoth in one week using soft wood and MDF.

The tanker contains three barbecues and a meat storage container, with an air venting system that stops the wood burning.

The 70-year-old, a retired design and technology school teacher from Newhaven, said: “I built a bar for my daughter’s wedding reception last year and we had the party in the same place so I didn’t want to use that again, I thought a tanker would be a good idea for a bar because it’s flat but the design was a better fit for a barbecue.”

Guests at his party in Stone Cross were surprised by the barbecue with some refusing to believe that he had built it in one week.

Despite being made out of flammable materials, the barbecue was in action all night and did not lose a lick of paint.

Mr Waight first made himself a garden shed when he retired and is open to the idea of making more tanker barbecues.