New month, new beginnings and a way ahead on the restoration project.

 Now the Christmas is a faded memory in the back of my mind and the year ahead is waiting to be explored. It is time to put behind us the problems that beset us over the last year with Covid and vehicle problems and plan the year ahead with renewed fire in our hearts to get on and make major headway with the restoration of Chance which over the past year as seen us make headway and then problem put hurdles in our way.

This year my wife retires from her job that she has been doing for the past 38 years so that she can spend more time on her hobbies and help me more with my hobby the restoration of Chance our James Silver "Western Isles" Motor sailer we are currently restoring together and with the help of other family members and friends. 

Much of the work last year was spend dismantling the interior making sure to take lots of photos of the parts of the interior that were original  and also the parts that have been altered over the years. Some of which will not be going back in as we hope to replace as much of the original fabric of the interior to the way Chance was originally built in 1948. The major hurdle that we have at the present time is the fact Chance appears to be the only one of her type as there are no records of a second Western Isles ever being build at James Silvers' Boatyard in Scotland.

Although there are James Silver's of a similar length to Chance there are no vessel exactly like her to gauge her original interior. There are places on Chance that do show where the interior has been changed over the years when she became a liveaboard vessel for a number of years and using this as a basis to return the interior to the way it was originally laid out.

So this month it is going to be a month to get the last of the interior stripped out and get the fuel and water tanks out of the engine bay along with the engine drip trays so that the major areas will be exposed so that these areas can be worked on and the planking repairs can get underway in earnest. 

 

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