James Silver Western Isles Chance Restoration

  Tricia's mother passed away at the beginning of May and left a great hole in all our lives and so as a mark of respect all work was put on hold with Chance as the family come to terms with the passing of such a strong lady both in body and spirit. Ann was a lady who would never let a problem or hurdle get in her way, this "never say die" spirit as in many ways help her daughter Tricia live her own life and this "never give up" spirit as help her throughout her own personal and professorial life. This same tenacious spirit Tricia and I are using with the restoration of Chance. Tricia has looked at a hurdle or a problem and asked many a time is there a better or different way of doing a job on Chance or any of the boat's we have restored over the years. Many times with Tricia's non-boat building head, Tricia has seen the any hurdle from a different viewpoint and as seen a clearer way of going about the same job from a different angle. Then we would bot

Although, it appears that little was done over the course of a year, a lot was done in removing a lot of furniture from the inside of the hull. Because much of the work was done around my day job as a working boat builder and around my wife's work has a nurse. If we were to have had no time and travel limits on our time at Chance the work would have been done a lot quicker and the project would be further ahead by now. However, that is life and we work round it as best we can. This photo shows the forecabin with the port side berth removed and hull paneling removed, however the chain locker bulkhead was still going to be removed shortly after this photo was taken. At which time the forecabin was washed down and the rubbish removed and the work was highlighted , what needed to be done. This photo shows how far we had got with removing the old furniture out of the aft cabin. The transverse double berth was removed as this was not original as was the paneling down both sides of the ca

This week marks the second anniversary of us becoming Chances latest owners and her restorers. The story go back a number of years when I was asked by a former owner of Chance to do some work on her. My wife immediate fell in love with her saying that I would love a boat like this, to which I replied, we could never afford it. What even if someone gave us it. "As If"  they would.  After I had worked on Chance I lost contact with her whereabouts and fought I would never see her again.   Many years later, I like many people was looking through the YBW   Forum at Classic & Wooden boats. I at which point I saw what looked like Token (Chance) in a forum posting. At which time I contacted the then present owner who confirmed it was indeed Token.  He was keen to restore her, however, his wife was not. He, therefore had to to find someone to take her on and do the restoration.  I agreed to do so, My wife came home one morning having a night shift as a nurse at a local hospital. W