James Silver Western Isles Chance Restoration

This last year as been a busy year in lots of ways, Especially with regards to Chance and her moving down from Woodplumpton in Lancashire to Walton on the Naze. This was a logistical merry-go-round to say the least. Getting the timing correct so that the jobs that were needed to be done to Chance before she was transported down from Lancashire to Essex. Picking the right time and having the funds available to move her when we did. Over the course of the spring and summer, when we both had some spare time together between my work as a boat builder and my wife Tricia as a Nurse we spent the time driving up to Woodplumpton and worked on Chance. Removing as much of the interior furniture and other items such as her old engines, fuel tanks,water tanks, black water tank, ballast and many other items in order to make her as light as possible to give her a chance to make it possible to move her without stressing her already weakened hull a chance to survive the transport from Lancashire to Es

Over the past year, we have achieved a great deal of work on Chance while  working with the restrictions of the Covid pandemic and working as a full time traditional boat builder work on my clients boats and their projects.   Now it is time to take stock of what we have achieved in the way of dismantling Chances' interior and doing some of the smaller jobs on Chance, such as dismantle the Blakes sea toilet which is in need of a full restoration as it as not been restored for a long time. So many of the moving parts are either corroded (bolts and nuts holding the parts of the toilet together) or harden up due to not being used and lubricated and so the rubber parts will have to be replaced as part of the toilet restoration. Another smaller project is the diesel cooker restoration ( the fire brick will need refixing and cracks filling and the burner parts which have corroded from use and age will have to be ordered from Canada after Christmas.    After the Christmas break and when th

Its cold outside, so it is time to go indoors and get a number of smaller projects underway and ones that can be done in the workshop. Two projects that spring to mind are the diesel cooker, the Baby Blake Toilet which both need a lot of work done to them to get them both back into working order. Then they will be able to put back into Chance later on in the restoration project. The diesel cooker is a Dickinson Bristol cooker which as been neglected and the electrical parts have not survived the years of neglect and water damage. The parts will have to be removed from the cooker and recycled at my local recycling business. So not in land fill. Inside the firebox there is a small area of missing fire cement which can be easily sorted by making up some more fire cement and replacing the missing area and letting dry off. the other item that is missing in the firebox is the part that makes the diesel cooker work. I have been informed by Dickinson's the cooker manufacturers that as lon

Some of the work that can and will be done over the winter will be to tackle the shelves full of parts that came out of Chance before she was transported down from Woodplumpton down to Walton on the Naze for her next stage of her restoration. There are a number of drawers that came out of different parts of Chances' interior, some of the drawers are in poorer condition than others. Some will just need a couple of parts re-making while others will completely apart from the drawer fronts which is the only part that can be re-used.  Other parts such as steps just need stripping of old varnish and sanding down and new varnish applying. One job that is going to be interesting is going to be making a new saloon table from scratch. I will have to source a set of the plans and make a replacement table,     After a lot of taking with people in the know about the diesel cooker and whether it was worth replacing the worn out parts that had given up the ghost and after a long decision making p

The original Baby Blake toilet has been removed from Chance to under go a complete overhaul and be brought back into commission with new parts that are still available from the manufacturers of the Baby Blake toilet who are still in business to this day. A major result, a new Baby Blake toilet is over 4k to buy today. The repair kit is a little over £200.00 so it is no contest. Repair the toilet.  The same goes for the diesel cooker, the replacement parts are going to cost in the region of £250.00 from Canada where the cooker was originally made and the parts are available from the Manufacturers Dickinson who have been very helpful with getting the spare parts we are going to need to repair the cooker to full work condition  This is the galley area which has been stripped out and with a bit of re-organisation, the cooker will be fitted in this area.