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

We are now moulding a GRP tender which we will put up for sale when it is completed to raise funds for both Chance and the Mai Star II restoration projects. Follow along as we mould this 8 ft tender. Which when complete will sold to give us more funds for the projects.  

One of the crew from the Chance Restoration team  looking to see if the coast is clear before we set sail at 06.00 hrs this morning  While on passage to Whitby an old RNLB Sailing motoring lifeboat on passage south towards Scarborough direction  As we got close to Whitby harbour the new Shannon class RNLB  came out to escort us in to the harbour along with the D Class RNLB  and the restored  rowing RNLB along with a flotilla of other small boats  In the distance you ca see the rowing RNLB holding station before we come along side and they lead the  flotilla  into Whitby harbour. Ex RNLB Amity alongside her ne berth in Whitby Harbour. From here Amity will be used by the Helen Wycherley Charity to raise funds to restore the Helen Wycherley and then both Boats can be used to help people with disabilities.   

  Long John Silver was on his travels in the north of England and while he was in Redcar met his wife to be Fran at the Redcar lifeboat shop. It was love at first sight.  After short engagement they decided to get married at another local Lifeboat station.  This time is was Scarborough Lifeboat Station.  At this point they roped in a couple of local Lifeboat mascots to act as Best Man and Bridesmaid. The Best man's name is James and the Bridesmaid name is Elizabeth.  Here is the lovely couple with their Best man and Bridesmaid having their wedding photos taken outside the Scarborough Lifeboat Station on a sunny spring afternoon. Now the couple are on their honeymoon. When they come back they will be put to work on helping Simon Tricia with Chance's ongoing restoration.    

Long John Silver out on his travels with his friends Albert(RNLB Helen Wycherley's owners) coffee mug. While his was at the Zetland Lifeboat museum, Long John Silver met his new wife to be Fran. Tricia acting as a chaperone  Then Simon the father of the groom had his photo taken to make it a family photo. The happy couple having their first photo together as  newly married couple The best man and the bridesmaid  The group photo of the wedding party at Scarborough Lifeboat station.   

The first two photos are of the condition of the starboard side locker fronts were before they were removed from Chance's main cabin at the beginning of the restoration when we were removing as much as possible to lighten Chance for her delivery home to Essex. You can see that the interior was in a tried condition and the varnish work had lost a lot of its shine. Fast forward three years and with a lot of pain-taking work and remaking broken or missing or rotten parts we have been able to rebuild much of what was lost over time. This bit was the hanging locker front at the aft end of the main cabin to hang your foul weather clothes.  Here is complete starboard side locker front now rebuild and ready for the restoration team to do their magic with the varnish brushes and give the complete frontage its many coat of varnish, so it will be ready to refi when the rest of the major hull repairs are done. This photo shows the hanging locker door sitting in the opening to show how much as ...

  These updates are of the restoration of Chance our James Silver Western Isles Motorsailer, now that we have Chance at Titchmarsh Marina in Walton on the Naze Essex. The restoration can and will be easier to do has Chance is now very close to my own workshop and small yard. Starting work on the forecabin starboard removing the ribs and showing round the new inspector round the restoration project which he is going to oversee. Titchmarsh Marina will be Chances' home for the next four to five years while we restore her to her former glory with the aid of our family and friends. Once we have her back afloat we hope to sail her back to the Silver's boatyard in 2028 which will be 80 years a since Chance was launched at the Boatyard.

Day 2 of finally working on Chance, as seen Simon start to remove a couple of rotten planks on the starboard bow. These had come to light when removing the paint on the inside of the hull in the forecabin. Simon also found that three of the ribs in the forecabin are also rotten and will have to be removed and renewed before any planks can go back in place. In order to do these ribs Simon is going to have to remove the foredeck covering board on the starboard bow section of Chance's foredeck. While Simon was looking at the the ribs he found that the beam shelf is rotten in that part of the boat and so the covering board is going to have to be removed as far back as the cockpit . So that will be Simon's next job, to remove the covering board and expose the beam shelf and also the tops of the ribs so that the new ribs can be put in from the top. So the fun is just starting and Simon is going to have his hands full for a few weeks to come.  

  After what feels like an eternity we are back at Chance once again and starting to make plans on what to tackle first and how best to make it happen.As you will see in the video the starboard side of the transom is well out of shape to the intact port side of the transom. So the best job to do first will be to tackle making patterns of the correct shaped port side and make up a set of frames to mirror the port side frames and then move the starboard side of the hull to the same correct shape as the port side as we know that the port side as never been messed about with in the same way the starboard side was over the years and a number of poorly done repairs have left the starboard side in once hell of a state to say the least which we are going to put right over the course of the summer and get the starboard side and the transom rebuild. .

Across the transom of Chance there are two holes which were for her second dinghy. The spacing would suggest that the dinghy which was on these davits was between 8 and 9 feet in length. There is a second pair of holes on the port side sidedeck which suggests that the other dinghy would be about 10 to 12 feet in length.  The aft cabin hatch base is in reasonable condition apart from a few broken edges which can be repaired and so make this hatch serviceable and will be used again once it is sanded back and the opening top refixed and the whole of the hatchis varnished an made good.   This hatch is like the other hatches on the boat screwed in position by long screws from underneath through the deck beams, so it is likely going to mean cutting through the screws to liftthis hatch off the deck beams and replacing the screws later. The deck around the hatch at sometime in the past as been removed a patched up and not with the same type of deck planking as before. they were r...