One more week on Chance where she is now and four weeks time she should be coming home to Essex

Just one more weeks work up at Woodplumpton on Chance to get some new steamed oak ribs in her before she is loaded on to transport and moved down to Essex to her new home and then the restoration project can gain speed and the work to get her Hull and decks and superstructure water and weathertight can begin a pace .Chance It is a large project and no mistaking that, however,broken down into smaller parts it is not so daunting a task. That is how I look at Chances' restoration. Get the Hull Deck and Superstructure water and weather tight. Which is the largest task ahead in the short term. then tackle each cabin one stage at a time until we can get her afloat once more.. It is going to take 4 to 6 years, Not the flexible 2 years that Leo Sampson keeps saying it is going to take him to get Tally Hoo done. The big difference between us is that he is starting from knowing a small amount of what takes to restore a vessel of Tally Hoo's size and his miscalculation on the time it is going to take given his inexperience and me who has been doing this work for over 45 years and knows many of the pitfalls he has had over the time he as been restoring or should I say rebuilding off plan.

So far my project is self funded out of my own pocket and a couple of patrons thorough their small donations and my family are helping me with the dismantling of Chance.
Also Chance is at one end of the country to me. A round trip of 620 miles each time I go to work on Chance, so we have to make every trip count with getting as much done as possible in each trip.We do not mind doing the miles and staying in a caravan on site to get the work done , as we as a family believe Chance deserves a second Chance to get back on the seas and be sailing them once more.
However,the travelling will soon come to an end as I am now in a position to move Chance very close to my home base and very close to my own workshop in Essex. At which point I will and my family be able to work on her more.

I am happy with our progress so far however, there should be more speed now that Chance will be getting moved in the near future.
So counting down the days before Chance is home with us in Essex.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A year to remember and also forget.

 This past year as been one of many turns and changes along the way. We had plans to get the restoration of Chance underway in a major way. however this was not to be the case. As the following paragraph will show you. Having moved Chance from Woodplumpton in the previous November to Walton on the Naze in Essex, we set about making plans to start doing the restoration in the spring of this year.  However, this was derailed by the passing of my wife's mother after a long illness, this event happened and so the project was put on hold for most of the year apart from doing the odd bit here and there either on Chance or in the workshop doing small jobs while we rebuild our lives once more,  So has the months when on during 2023 without the heart to move the project along the project ground to a slow halt and in the end it stop with a cover being put over the boat and all work stopped on the boat itself.  So we both when about our daily working lives while we came to terms with the pass
Read more

Chance Autumn update

As many of you will have seen from the lack of updates there as been little work done on Chance over the summer. This as been due a lack of time and more over a lack of funds to do major task done on Chance. especially the removal of the middle and aft section of the starboard beam shelf and reconstructing the transom and its framework which holds it in position.   However, all is not doom and gloom, has I have been able to take on an apprentice to help me during the working week on my clients boats and leave myself and wife time to get on with working on Chances repairs.  So hopefully over the coming week's we should be able to make a start on getting the beam shelf removed and replaced with a new correctly fitted beam shelf which will bring the hull back into position  along with the ribs and frames which have to be replaced at the same time to get the hull back into its correct position once more.  There is going to be a lot of shoring up of the starboard side until it is seen t
Read more

It is now 6 months since I become the owner of Chance.

Over the past six months a lot has gone on with Chance. The first few trips to Woodplumpton were to make a start with clearing out the inside of the boat and taking stock of what we had on the boat and what is missing.  It appears that along the way all the deck fittings have gone missing, which is a great inconvicetion as I will have to get the deck fittings remade using patterns from other James Silver boats that are still around. The other James Silver's that are close to where I live are close in size to my James Silver and so I will be able to get the parts remade easily. Harbour Marine Services has restored a number of James Silver's over the years and the owner now  owns Davey & Co so parts are not going to be a problem to source when the time comes to start doing that part of the restoration. The part of the first six months as been the removal of the old furniture and other items in the inside of the boat so it is going to be easier to get to the planking and make
Read more