Simon working on some of Chances' hatches especially the lids and other work he has around his workshop

 We were going to go down to Chance this morning, however, the weather is against us working on Chance itself today as it is very damp and wet on the boat especially the decks, which are like an ice staking rink as it would be not good to work on even if it was dried later on in the day. 

So it was decided to do some work around the workshop instead. Since we had been working on the deck of Chance removing the butterfly hatch lids  and the aft hatch lid and bring them back to the workshop. Simon has had a chance to dismantle the butterfly hatch lids and remove the glass out of the hatches and start to sand down the hatches removing the moss and other discolouration on the outside faces of the hatches to get back to the clean teak under the discolouration on the surface of the lids and remove all the old putty and sealant holding in the glass into the frames. 

The butterfly hatch lids are in good condition given the fact they have been neglected for the past 20 years without any maintenance or teak oil or varnish to protect them from the elements. This is not going to be the case from now on when they will be given a lot of TLC. The aft hatch is in a bit of a poorer condition as it as been messed about with over the years and at some point repaired without checking what it was made from before repairing the hatch. As you can see from the video the base of the lid and the covering boards of the hatch are both teak, however, the repair is made out of mahogany which when sanded down is a completely different coloured wood. The hatch itself has broken apart at the joints as it was not glued in any way and just relayed on tight  dovetail joints and dowel pegs to load it together. All these joints and pegs and the biscuit joints on the repair have now given up the ghost and Simon will now rebuild the hatch and recut the biscuit joints and clean and glue the dovetail joint and then re-assemble the hatch lid frame using modern glue and also new biscuits and teak dowels to ensure the hatch is going to be strong and fit for its job once it is back fitted to the base part of the hatch. 

All the bases of the hatches have yet to be removed from the boats' decks which is proving to be a bit of a difficult job as they are well fitted on the boats' decks as they are screwed up from below the decks through the deck beams with 5 inch bronze screws which a being difficult to remove and in some case impossible.

So Simon is having to cut between the bottom of the hatch base and the deck beam and cut though the screws to release the base from the screws holding the hatch base in position. Having done that the hatch is still not coming off the deck beams as the edges of the hatch bases are caulked as well which is also holding the hatch bases in position. So the next time I am down on Chance and working on the hatch bases  hopefully we should have a result with the hatch bases coming off the deck beams and be able to come to the workshop for some well overdue TLC and sanding down. 

In this our 119 video you can see Simon has his hands full with a number of other projects in his yard. Not all boat projects car restorations as well the latest project body repairs to a Mk 1 lotus Europa. 


So you can see Simon is a busy man,he is not working on Chance with his family and friends in his spare time.. 

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