James Silver Western Isles Chance Restoration

Every year as a boat builder you collect old equipment you take off clients boat which for them is not the latest toy. There is often nothing wrong or faulty about equipment just that they wish to change it for some new that the chandlery salesperson  said will be better than the piece of equipment they have on their boat presently.  This keeps me happy as new equipment means more work.  However, you can start to fill the workshop shelves with old equipment which needs a new home and new owners. So over the course of a year I collect a fair amount of equipment of which fills my shelves.  So every spring in my local area of Essex there is a spring boat jumble where it is possible to sell the old equipment to new owners, that I have collected over the course of the pervious year.  This next spring the old equipment I have collected will go towards adding funds to the Chance restoration fund.  Also during the winter I will be making other boaty items which will be posted on my pateron pag

  Looking for volunteers to help us steam bend and fit new oak ribs in Chance. T.B.A. when I can get the time off from work repairing other peoples boats. So if anybody would like to come and help us get the first stage of the restoration underway and get the hull of Chance sound enough to move her before the winter. DM me through the forum. Thanks in advance Simon,Tricia and Michael The Life's a Gamble, so lets take a Chance team

One of the many jobs that have to be done, is the repairing of parts of the interior which can be undertaken in the workshop back in Essex. One of the jobs is to removing the rotten parts from the many cupboard doors from the interior of Chance which were taken off her earlier in the restoration. Many of the parts were very wet and now have had time to dry out. Now that the parts are dried out it can be seen what is rotten and what was just wet.  This galley cupboard door was one that was both wet and rotten and now as dried out we can see what is rotten and how to remove the parts that are rotten and keep the parts that have dried out and will only need sanding and staining and varnishing before they are refitted later on in the restoration. The first job we have to do is carefully dismantle the frame of the door off the  centre panel using a Squeezy clamp setup in reverse where the feet are set to push parts apart from each other rather than to clamp them together.  Once the first pa

  I have a busy time working on my day job looking after other peoples boats. Also trying to find a new to me works vehicle. A long hard look, however, finally got the right vehicle. Now I have to get the rib and planking materials together and then make my way up to Woodplumpton to start getting Chance set up correctly to refit the new ribs and then the first of the new planks after I have sorted out the twist and misshapenness in Chances' starboard aft quarter. Which if you look at the photos I have taken shows that the starboard has dropped and it shows that on the sheer line. So one of the first jobs is to release the transom framework so that the hull can move and push the sheer line back into position, so that when we refit the ribs the hull will be back in the correct position. The major work is to remove the beam shelf which is not fixed to anything at the moment and the deck beams and knees are floating in fresh air and will have to be replaced. So major work ahead on my n

After four to five months of fruitless searching for a replacement for my transit van, we have found a well suited replacement for the transit van.  It will do all the things we need it to do and more. I will even be able to tow small boats around and bring the boats to the yard to be repaired and then return to their owners. It will also be able to tow our large caravan around  with ease as it as a large engine and is four wheel drive and so will make towing our caravan a lot easier than before and also loading up our large trailer to move the materials we will be using to restore Chances' hull and ribs and frames. One proud new owner looking forward to getting to know our new addition to the family as we travel up and down the country restoring Chance before we bring Chance back home to Essex  

We have been looking for the past four to five months to find a 4x4 Pickup truck to make it easier for us to move our caravan and the materials to restore Chance. We finally were able to find the 4x4 truck we have been looking for, the only draw back it was in Dover in Kent.  So we had a road trip ahead us on a very warm day, The road trip down was uneventful and we got to the car dealership to see our new pickup.  It was better than the photos showed and after a test run and a long talk with the sales person we decided it was the pickup truck for us. So, now we have to wait for a week to let the garage get the Pickup ready for us to pick her up.  So now we can get on the work on Chance with a Pickup truck which will be up to the task ahead and give our family car a rest after all the sterling work she has done over the past year transporting the caravan from its storage compound to the Caravan site we use while we are up working on Chance. Also for the many trips with materials going