Plans for the New Year and Beyond

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 Essex.
Thankfully the lifting and transporting by road, when well and Chance arrived in Walton on the Naze in good shape and was able to be lifted off her transport and laid up in Titchmarsh marina, her new home for the duration of her restoration.
Since Chance as been back in Essex, Simon and his family have continued to get on with the restoration of Chance. One of the jobs, Simon and his Son Michael have been doing is to get the deck hatches off the deck. So far Simon and Michael have been able to remove the tops off two butterfly hatches and the top off the aft hatch and have made a start on removing the bases of these hatches and when they have done these hatches will tackle the foredeck hatch which is in a every poor condition and may well just fall apart when trying to dismantling the hatch. Time will tell when we start to work on this hatch. Either way Simon and Michael will be spending time restoring these hatches so they can go back on later on in the restoration of the deck.
Once these hatches are done, Simon & Michael will start on sorting out the transom and aft end planking and starboard deck and beam shelf repair work to get done before moving on to the rest of the hull and rib repairs. So over the coming spring and summer Simon, Michael & Tricia will get on with as much of the hull and deck work to get Chance in a better shape than she has been for many a year.
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