James Silver Western Isles Chance Restoration

This area was neglected for so many years, One of the major jobs in this area will be to a deep clean and dry the whole area out and get rid of all the old items that are not going to be used again.   So it is out with the cleaning gear and empty the bilge and wash down the bilges and get rid of all the rubbish that as find its way into bilges. We got to start some where and it might as well the cockpit and then work out from there. These old gear shifrs are coming out as they are no longer going to be used and take up room in the cockpit bigles. The seacocks will be comiong out and get serviced and put back in later in the restoration.  

Looking aft at the last two frames on the port side, it is possible to see the problem there is with the starboard side. The starboard side is rotten and broken and is not connected any part of the boats hull and that the starboard side as fallen away badly and is going to need a lot of shoring up to get it back into the correct position once more. As can be seen from this photo the starboard side is in a very poorly condition with out a lot of connection between the beam shelf and the lodging knees which are all going to need replacing in due course. This lodging knee is so rotten that the only thing that can be done is to take a pattern of what is left and take another of the port side to see how much of the starboard side knee is missing and make up a new knee to put in place of the rotten and broken starboard knee. Also the starboard beam shelf is in three pieces at the moment which we will put back in two pieces with a long step scrape  in the mid section and will be fixed to the

At long last got a cover that is able to cover the top of Chance and down the sides to keep the weather off Chances's hull and deck and make it able to work on the inside  over the winter and beyond. Now it is just a matter of getting the cover over the stem and over the top of the cabin and the rest of the superstructure  and then try it down. With a bit of careful pulling we were able to get it over the top of the foredeck and then over the wheelhouse and over the  aft cabin and now it is done it is time to get to work on the inside as well as the starboard side and transom.  

This is the RNLB Helen Wycherley undercover on Whitby Quayside where Richard Sworder and friends are restoring this Watson Class Lifeboat. Like us they are doing the restoration on limited funds. We both have patreon pages, gofundme pages YouTube pages & Facebook pages  so you can follow our progress as we both restore our own vessels. We when to Pickering to see where some of the scenes for Harry Potter were filmed ( Platform 9 3/4) we even had time to visit the Windermere Museum to look at the boats there which include boats from the Swallows & Amazons.    Finally a visit to the National  museum of the Royal Navy Hartlepool to see how they make traditional ropes and many other things related to the Royal Navy  and the surrounding area over the centuries.