Life's a Gamble, so lets take a Chance Restoration Project

Inspecting the wheelhouse hatch, it is in need of a fair bit of work. The front panel needs repairing or replacing depending on how easily is going to be to make a good repair to the panel.  The top as a bit of rot in this corner. As with other parts of the wheelhouse roof, it will need to be replaced as the rest of the wheelhouse which is going to be redesigned as it needs to by removable to refit the engines when it is time to put them back in place. Also it will be helpful toi put the fuel and water tank in while the roof is off. The hatch has a handle on it, however, there was not a handle on the opposite  side of the wheelhouse roof which appears to be a bit of an oversight. However, the covering over the wheelhouse roof at present appears not to be the original and when the plywood is removed it may give us the answers we need to know about what as changed over the years.  The inside of the hatch is different to the rest of the wheelhouse roof in that there is no si...

The two pieces which make up the corner part of the galley unit now screwed back together. The new pieces glued on to the edges which were rotten are a good match to the original as the new pieces are the similar mahogany to the original. The inside face shows the piece let in is not seen from the outside, however, it is a just what was needed to make it possible to screw the two pieces back together. The worktop is now temporarily screwed to the corner pieces in order to see how much of the rest of the unit is missing and how much will have to be re-made to make the completed unit. The original door for the galley unit which is in need of a bit of TLC to repair the split in the centre panel in the door. This is possible cursed by the fact the door panel as dried out and the wood as split. The pieces which are missing are the top and bottom rails from the door opening and the side where the hinges are fixed too.  

The highlighted parts are of the two Western Isles that were build by James A Silver.  One was called Jetta and the other was Chance. The only different between the two vessels was that ~Jetta was 48 feet 6 inches long and was built in 1939.  The second list shows Chance and was listed as 37feet 6 inches long. However, when we have measured her Chance is 40 feet long. So there is a difference in who measured her then and complied the register.  Both Jetta nd Chance have had changes in Name before being called their original names again during their life times. These are photos from the outside of Chance/Token when she was under going a restoration in the past. These are photos of how Chance was before we started to strip her back to a bare hull so that we could get to her hull planking and the frames and ribs so that we could assess the work we needed to do to rebuild her structure.  

  Chance Reborn 2025. Giving Chance a Second Chance New Just now As many of our followers know, Simon, his wife Tricia and their son Michael with the aid of Simon's brother John, have over the past 4 years has done a vast amount of work on getting Chance stripped down to a bare hull apart from Chance's main bulkheads and removing Chance's transom and much of the starboard side deck from the transom to the wheelhouse. To the point where Chance can start to be re-build. Much of the early work has been back breaking and difficult at times has Chance was in Woodplumpton near Preston in Lancashire and we live in North Essex near Colchester. Also the fact that when we became Chance's latest owners and guardians it was in the height of the Covid Pandemic so we could not work on Chance at first until we were able to move freely and purchased a large caravan to use as a base of operations while we worked on Chance at very chance we had to get to Chance while Chance was in Woodpl...

These are the surviving parts apart from the door which is on the shelf in the workshop. The parts need a bit of work to get them back together. The work involves fixing the places where each of the parts fix together. They were taken apart without out much care. which is a pain. however, there a few places where the edges in places needs the small areas of rotten wood replacing before it is put back together again.  This is the hanging locker front at the bottom of the companionway steps into the main cabin. We will  have to make a few new parts, as a few of them are broken and have pieces missing. The missing part is the top rail in this photo just to the right of the sash clamp, the other part that needs replacing is the rail which is taped together with a bit of blue masking tape.  The main parts of this hanging locker front are made from large pieces of mahogany and are mortise and tenon jointed together  The whole of this hanging locker front is made up of a nu...

The two parts that make up the corner as you go forward into the galley area in Chance. There is a fair bit of oil that as got into the bottom edge of the galley front panels we are hoping to get rid of as much of this through cleaning with degreaser. One of the panels that was up against the main cabin to galley bulkhead is rotten along part o its length the rest of the panel is ok so we are going to glue a new piece on this edge from the mahogany we have been able to source that is a good colour match to the original. A bit of damage to the corner that will be sorted by letting in a piece along this edge before screwing the two halves together once the repairs are done to both halves. The inside of the panels will be getting a fresh coat of white gloss before it is refitted in the boat in the galley. The worktop is original and shows the marks of long usage over the years. We intend to continue to use this top as it is part of the character of the boat.   The underside which...

The starboard hand side galley unit now reconstructed again with the rotten corner repaired to match the rest of the galley front. The top left hand corner now repaired and the bracing on the back now glued in position it is time to look at giving the whole of the galley front a quick sanding and make up some wooden plugs to go in the screw holes so as to hide the fixings once more. Now that the galley front is together again in one piece it is going to be easier to router out the area where the two holes are in the right hand side which were where a pair of modern taps were fitted and which are not in keeping with the return to how the galley was originally made or used. I now have to get the gallet doors from the pile of doors and refix them in place and then in time varnish the whole of the galley front.  

After we removed the old rotten ends of the two pieces that were affected it was time to cut the ends and glue new pieces on the ends. Thankfully the amount of rotten wood was small and just two small pieces of Mahogany were needed to be found from the pile of old mahogany which was of the similar age to the original mahogany used in the construction of the galley front. Clamping in two directions will help keep the new pieces in the correct position while the glue cures and we are able to remove the clamps and plane and sand the new pieces to match the original parts. These two holes are going to be interesting to cover. A diamond shaped grating piece over the two holes and then a good planing and sanding an a small amount of mahogany staining and this will be as good as new.   

Having remove the varnish off the face side of the galley  front where the sink was originally fitted. It is time to sort out fitting the four parts together so that they can be fitted back in the galley area in one part and not four parts. There is going to be a bit of re-working of some parts such as the top corner where it is a bit rotten. The top rail will be removed and a new rail fitted and the mahogany on the face will have a piece fitted to replace the rotten top corner, apart from this small piece the rest of the galley front is in good condition and will only need a good painting on the back face and the front will need several coats of varnish.  Another bit of re-working will be these two holes which will have to have grading pieces fitted to get rid of these holes and a pump fitted in keeping with the time of the boat was build in 1948.