James Silver Western Isles Chance Restoration

The pile of floorboards are a mixture of teak floorboards and larch floorboards. It appears that the forward end of the boat's interior had teak floorboards as far back as the main cabin bulkhead and then they are again in the cockpit, the cockpit sole being teak.  The other areas of the interior are larch floorboards, which appear to be a little odd as the main cabin and the aft cabin were used mostly by the owner and his family and friends. These floorboards mush at sometime be covered with lino or some other hard wearing floor covering.   Many of the floorboards had to have a large number of steel nails and the other bronze screw to hold they in place.This job my wife Tricia took upon herself to do and give not give up on the job even when the going got tough and some of the fixings were difficult to remove. Some of the floorboards had ring pull catches which had to be removed to get ready to sand the floorboards back to remove what is left of the old paint and varnish on these

This part of the cockpit furniture is out of place as it is made from marine plywood and not mahogany as the rest of the cockpit furniture is made from and is original.   When it comes time to refit the cockpit furniture this is going to be a part that is remade in the original design as the seat that should be where this seat front was originally made and fitted. This piece of mahogany is the inboard side of the cockpit seat which the panel in the first photo is screwed too. It appears that the original panel may well have been broken at sometime in the past and a new panel was made from whatever they had to hand at the time. The reserve side of the side panel shows the height of the seat and the size of the locker that was under the seat lid. The two side panel to go either side of the aft companionway steps to blank off the engine bay from the aft companionway. Now a lot of varnishing to come over the next few months.  

Over past couple of years, life as been to say been very stressful with a lot going on in the family's personal life which impacted on our restoration project, which at time caused major changes in being able to go to Woodplumpton when Chance was there for the first 18 month's or so of the restoration project.  Covid did not help the situation, as we had to work round the travel restrictions, which caused a lot of problems with my own boat building business cutting back on working hours and the ability to get more jobs coming in to keep my business from closing down for good.  Some how we survived and were able to open up again for more work to come through the workshop and to get the business off its knees and working again.  So, after the period of the Covid pandemic was over, we were starting to rebuild our lives however, this was not going to last for long before another difficult period was going to begin, my wife Tricia mother became unwell after Covid pandemic was over.

With a spare few minutes at the end of my working day, working on client's boats. It was time to get the varnish brushes out and do a spot of varnishing on Chance's cockpit chart table. This is the drop down door on the lower part of the chart table below the chart drawers. The first of the full strength coats of epifanes varnish, just another 8 to 10 coats to go before there will be enough to seal the surface and make it hard wareing. The front looking better than it as been for sometime like the top a lot more coats of varnish to come The rich original colour shining through as we build up the coats of varnish on the important item of furniture in the cockpit. The drawers are in need of a few coats of paint on the side that are not seen, as these parts have not had any paint or varnish in a long time   

We have had this Banner commissioned so that people who visit Chance while they are down at Titchmarsh marina, will know we are working on Chance and can stop and chat and have a cuppa.