James Silver Western Isles Chance Restoration

The stack of doors to work through, a lot of scraping and sanding until we get back to the original colour of the Mahogany and then a lot of varnishing This about half of the panels that are taken off the boat, the rest are still at the boat ready for collection next time I am up at the boat to bring back to the workshop  The doors come in a lot of different shapes and sizes  A couple of the drawers which are in need of a lot of TLC and in some cases rebuilding  The main cabin door on the wheelhouse side which is breached, however after a few minutes of sanding with a bit course sandpaper and a bit of elbow grease as come up well.  Now a lot more of this to come. A small start, however, it is a good start and you can see the difference straight away.   

At present Chance is undergoing a full restoration by Simon Papendick and his family and friends over the next 5 years to bring Chance back to her former glory and once more able to be used as a vessel. Chance is a memorial to a change in boat design, so that vessel would not just rely on their motors to propel them; Chance was designed to be equally sailed as well. This is why Chance was ketch rigged with good height masts to have enough sail area to propel it at a good speed under sail as well as when Chance was being motored with her diesel engines. Chance’s symbolic value is that she was a move away from motor boats that James Silver built before 1938 and after 1948 as she was a vessel that could be used using sails as a form of propulsion and not to rely on motors alone. There is a James Silver association that I follow and get feedback from through their Facebook site and from other James Silver owners and other boatyards who do restorations on other James Silvers over the

This is the history of Chance from her launching to the present day as far as it is possible to track down at this present time. Chance was built in 1948 by James Silver at Rosneath Boatyard, Argyll & Bute. Scotland. She was designed by John Bain, his first true Motor Sailer design for James Silver. The design was called Western Isles – Chance was one of two vessels of this design. The whereabouts of the other Western Isles is unknown at present, although research is ongoing to track it down if the vessel still exists to this day. 1948-1950 Built by James Silver of Rosneath, Argyll and Bute, Scotland for Lovat Crosley Lovat Crosley was a tenor chorister with D'Oyly Carte Repertory Opera Company from some point in 1914 until February 1916, and again for the July 1916-June 1917 season. 1950 -1955 Lloyds Register; Chance has her name changed to Token when she was owned by Captain (S) S.J. Read mm, CBE, R.D, R.N.R port of Southampton, Little is known of this owner at th

  With all lay off's from doing work on the any project you do. It is keeping your mind on the bigger picture and not getting bogged down with jobs you have no control over. Jobs like stripping out the inside of the boat when you are at one end of the country and your project boat is at the other end and you have no way of getting to work on the boat because your own van or car is of the road in the local garage getting repairs done.  Then people stockpiling fuel and creating a shortage when there is not one. Because they are short sighted. This on top of having emergency surgery. It is enough to get you to loose focus.  So, in order to keep some focus on the project I make lists and then more lists of jobs and then rewrite them until I get a list I am happy with and then plan the way forward.  At the moment the biggest jobs on Chance are finishing off the last two areas apart from the engine room so that the hull is completely exposed and then tackle the engine room once the wheel

  Next time I am up at Chance, my first job will  be to continue on removing these butterfly hatches and bring them back to my workshop so that I can rebuild and restore these beautiful hatches back to their original condition and complete with their original fittings back on the opening. So far I have cut through the screws holding down the hatches to the deck. However, the butterfly hatches are not fitted on top of the deck planking, they are screwed up through to the deck beams and through their own carlins that are set into the deck beams. So the next job will be to clean out the deck caulking around the four sides of the hatch upstands to release the sides from the deck planking and the seam compound. Then hopefully with the aid of some small oak wedges lift the hatches off of the  deck beams and carlins and then off the boat. Then cover the hole that is left with a piece of plywood until it is time to refit the hatches back in their positions.  This fore cabin hatch is past being

It is amazing how your life can change in a matter of days and your view on life can change and your priorities  shift.  This time, last week I had a quiet Saturday after a busy week at work doing a number of jobs on my clients boats over the course of the week and was looking forward to a quiet weekend at home with the family and planning our next trip up to Chance to continue with her restoration.  Over the month or so my family with the help of my brother John had been getting on well with dismantling the furniture on the inside of Chance. Having cleaned much of the aft cabin and forecabin back to the hull  apart from the main bulkheads between the cabins which keep Chance in her correct shape.  Much of the galley area had also been removed and so had much of the aft heads and the engineering room. Also 3/4 of the internal pig iron ballast had been removed at this point in time.  This left just the remains of the locker in the galley area and the small amount cabinet work in the aft

  Because of my van problems and the fact, I am unable to get to Chance for a couple of weeks. My day job taking priority, that is repairing other peoples;s boats before my own fine vessel. I will put aside some time after work to sort out the parts of Chance's interior woodwork I have already got at my own boatyard.  Most of it is in fair condition, however, it will all need re-vanishing after all the old varnish is removed and the bare wood is sanded back to the original grain and colour. A long job, but a necessary job to bring back the colour of the original colour of the wood when Chance was originally build in 1948.   It appears  that Chance was build using South American Mahogany and not like a number of other James Silver boats build around the same time which were build using Teak.  May be the original owner did not wish to have her build of Teak or it was not available when she was being build. I will have to do some more research in to why this was the case. It may be ju

  What a day, today has been travelling across the country from one side to the other side. Starting on the east side of the country and driving over the Pennines to the west coast.  Yesterday after a very tiring day driving up the country from my home in the south east of the country in North East Essex. Because of a car crash on the one of the major north to south roads in the country I was using to get to my brother's home and the fact the crash was between the  two slip roads  I could use to take a different route to my brother's home. That Life,  Having had a good nights rest I set off to Chance to get a few things sorted and clean up round the boat.  Namely cover up the cooker and the toilet which were  not covered up properly when I had to leave last time because of the problems with my Transit van. The clutch problem which was to be repair this last week. It was repaired but then failed after a short while and now back to renting a car to keep working.  However, that is