How we became Chance's latest Owners and her restorers

 The story start back in the early part of the 2000's when Simon was asked to do some work on Token as Chance was called at that time.. This name had been hers for many years, since she was sold by her first owner who had her commissioned by the renowned boat builders James A Silver of Rosneath in Scotland. Chance as she was originally called at the time of her launching in 1948. My wife Tricia would visit me while I worked on Token (Chance) and would ask if we would be in a position to ever be able to have a vessel like Token. To which I answered not every likely as we were not in a position to own such a vessel of her size or perigee. I continued to work on Token until the owner moved her to another place. At which time I lost contact with her. Fast forward to 2021 and while looking on the YBW forum I cam across Token (Chance) once more and a person had taken her on as a project to restore her. 

However,, this owner had not told his wife about the boat or how much work it was going to take to restore her back to a seaworthy vessel once more. So this owner asked if I would take the boat on as a restore project for him. Over the course of a few days may be a week, It became clear that he was not going to go ahead with the restoration himself and he offered me the boat for free, there is no such thing as a free boat. 

Having said to the owner, I was willing to take the boat on and he transferred the ownership to me. At this point my wife came home from a long night shift at the local hospital.  When I drop the bombshell. You are going to kill me, To which she replied what have you done now, thinking I had done something wrong and it was going to be problem.

I calmly said that I had been given Token ( Chance)  to which she asked how much did this cost you. I said it was free the man just needed to get rid of her as the his wife had hit the roof when she found out what he had done.

I thought my goose was cooked, I did not expect the answer I got, my wife was over the moon as she had always wish we could own a vessel like Token (Chance). 

So when got the chance to go to see Token (Chance) in Woodplumpton in Lancashire. We got in our car and drove to see her. At this time my wife felt in love with Token (Chance) again and we started to make plans to start the restoration of her  there, then when it was possible to move her south to Essex  to be nearer to our home we did. Unfortunately, the Covid 19 pandemic stopped these early plans and we had to put much of the work on hold until it was possible to work on her again.

Last year we were hoping to  make a major start on the project but  a family  bereavement and other family matters stopped Us from doing any major work on Chance as she is now called again and back to her original name once more. 

So this year we are hoping to make a fresh start and get some major work done of Chance

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A year to remember and also forget.

 This past year as been one of many turns and changes along the way. We had plans to get the restoration of Chance underway in a major way. however this was not to be the case. As the following paragraph will show you. Having moved Chance from Woodplumpton in the previous November to Walton on the Naze in Essex, we set about making plans to start doing the restoration in the spring of this year.  However, this was derailed by the passing of my wife's mother after a long illness, this event happened and so the project was put on hold for most of the year apart from doing the odd bit here and there either on Chance or in the workshop doing small jobs while we rebuild our lives once more,  So has the months when on during 2023 without the heart to move the project along the project ground to a slow halt and in the end it stop with a cover being put over the boat and all work stopped on the boat itself.  So we both when about our daily working lives while we came to terms with the pass
Read more

Chance Autumn update

As many of you will have seen from the lack of updates there as been little work done on Chance over the summer. This as been due a lack of time and more over a lack of funds to do major task done on Chance. especially the removal of the middle and aft section of the starboard beam shelf and reconstructing the transom and its framework which holds it in position.   However, all is not doom and gloom, has I have been able to take on an apprentice to help me during the working week on my clients boats and leave myself and wife time to get on with working on Chances repairs.  So hopefully over the coming week's we should be able to make a start on getting the beam shelf removed and replaced with a new correctly fitted beam shelf which will bring the hull back into position  along with the ribs and frames which have to be replaced at the same time to get the hull back into its correct position once more.  There is going to be a lot of shoring up of the starboard side until it is seen t
Read more

It is now 6 months since I become the owner of Chance.

Over the past six months a lot has gone on with Chance. The first few trips to Woodplumpton were to make a start with clearing out the inside of the boat and taking stock of what we had on the boat and what is missing.  It appears that along the way all the deck fittings have gone missing, which is a great inconvicetion as I will have to get the deck fittings remade using patterns from other James Silver boats that are still around. The other James Silver's that are close to where I live are close in size to my James Silver and so I will be able to get the parts remade easily. Harbour Marine Services has restored a number of James Silver's over the years and the owner now  owns Davey & Co so parts are not going to be a problem to source when the time comes to start doing that part of the restoration. The part of the first six months as been the removal of the old furniture and other items in the inside of the boat so it is going to be easier to get to the planking and make
Read more