ELEVEN female welders will soon be getting the job done in a traditionally male bastion on the North Vancouver waterfront.

Painter said she gets a different reaction from men and women when she tells them what she does for a living. Women say, "Wow, that's really cool. Men generally say, 'Oh really'."

"Then they want to test you to see if you're lying. I find their responses pretty funny," she said.

Painter agreed that men at new work sites initially wonder if she can do the job. "When they see you're not useless they warm up to you a bit more," Painter added.

There's nothing traditional about the welding being done on the fast ferries. The boats require skills in aluminum welding, a new skill for most in B.C. shipyards. So when it comes to welding work for the project, men and women are starting from the same blocks.