Life's a Gamble, so lets take a Chance Restoration Project

Hi fellow blogger Members One of the major problems having your boat in one part of the country and living in another part of the country is working out how best to make the best use of the available time and your resources and not to make any wasted trips which end up with little or nothing being done to move the project along. Over the past six months there as been a lot of problems with Covid and friends passing during Covid pandemic, however, their deaths were not due to Covid, their death were not Covid related. However, this did however, put pay to some trips and trips that were planned had to be rearranged for other times. So that was a spanner in the work while we sorted out the fallout from that situation. That aside the long term problem with my works van being off the road for such along time. Still not resolved at present, however, should be resolved shortly fingers crossed and toes as well. So after almost 6 months without my works van and having to use my wife's MPV a...

The good part about the old fuel filter system on Chance is that it is a non disposable system, so it just needs cleaning at regular intervals to keep it working  Although there are a number of parts to the filter system it is straightforward and easy to dismantle and rebuild when it needs cleaning to maintain the engines   Just need a couple of parts replacing as they are worn out, apart from that the system is ready to be reused again for another 70 years or more   

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...

Now we are back at work and we have given ourselves a dead line for getting Chance down the country to my home part of the country. The deadline is going to be around the time of my birthday at the beginning of May. All being well and the country not being lock-downed again. The hull of Chance should be in a condition to be able to move her down to Essex from Woodplumpton and then continue the restoration down in Walton on the Naze in Essex where my yard is situated. I hope to go back up to Woodplumpton during January to continue to remove the last remaining bits of furniture and the fuel and water tanks out of the engine bay along with the engine drip trays which need to be removed as under the starboard drip tray there is a plank that as come off the frame which needs investigating to find out why the plank as come adrift and repair or renew the affected frame. Once the tanks are out and loaded into the trailer and the engines are put in the back of the van then they can come down to...

 Now the Christmas break is fading into the background, it is time to make a fresh start and get on with some of the jobs that were not able to be started or finished before the Christmas break. My family got me a tool which I had wish I had many years ago. It was a mortise attachment for my pillar drill so that I could make mortise and tenon joint for doors and panelling which I have made in the past for boats I have worked on by hand. This new new tool will make the making of mortise and tenon joints a lot easier and make accurate and be able to make the same joint over and over again and make well fitting joints each time.  So now I have this new tool, it is going to be time to experiment a few times to get the tool set up and then be able to make the joints fit well every time that way taking the guess work out of the situation. So speeding up the making of the joints and be able to remake the cupboard, under settee locker doors and the full height cabin doors which n...

So with all the preplanning done over the Christmas break. It is now time to put the preplanning into operation. Starting with all the unfinished jobs from before the Christmas break. This means that with  all the cabins emptied of much of the loose items such and drawers and locker doors. It just  leaves the framework of the doors and drawers  to be removed before the hull can be made accessible to work on the planking which needs replacing in different areas of the hull.  So one of the first jobs will be to finish off taking the last of the framework out of the interior so that we can see the hull from both sides and do any repairs to the frames of the boat as is necessary before removing any planks.  The other job that was not done before the Christmas break was the removal of the fuel and water tanks, as we ran out of time before Christmas to get them out. We will have to engage the services of the Crane yard owner to help get the tanks out of the ...

The reason for doing the restoration on Chance, to safeguard a piece of maritime history My mission is to restoration my James Silver Western Isles Motor Sailer Chance. She built in 1948 at James Silver’s Yard at Rosneath in Scotland to a John Bain design. Chance was a change to the normal boats that James Silver was renowned for as Chance was a 50/50 Motor Sailer and not a motorboat which the boatyard was building before Chance was built and after her launching. In that way she is unique in that she only had one other boat built to her design, the whereabouts of which is unknown at the present time. So over the next few years, my family, which is my wife Tricia, and son Michael and I, my brother John and friends have taken on the restoration Chance to bring her back once more to sail the high seas. The last 6 months have been challenging with the Covid pandemic making it difficult to go to Chance which at present is in Woodplumpton in Lancashire and I live in North Essex 300 miles awa...

  One of the trips to Chance we were able to bring back with us a few of the loose items of the boats interior which we can work on while not being able to get to Chance for whatever reason and we can continue to work on parts of the boat. This is one of the drawers from the interior which is a be worse for wear and is in need of replacing as parts of it are rotten. The fronts are okay however, much of the rest is beyond saving and will have to be rebuild. The general condition of many of the drawers which were in low areas of the boat are in much the same condition as they have been sitting in damp condition and rot as set in  Some of the drawers have faired better and just need a good cleaning and sanding down and repainting and varnish before putting back in the boat later on in the restoration  Some of the varnished panels are in reasonable condition however, some will need a bit of TLC and repairs doing before they go back in the boat Starting to strip and sand some ...

Then came the largest job to date the engines removal from the boat. The old engine have been in the boat for 70 years now and spares and keeping these engine running is going to cost to much so it was decided to remove them and go for modern clearer engines  A very old fuel filters which we can not get any spare parts for, I would love to keep them, however, there are more modern filters that do a better job today and more modern engines in better filters than these. My brother starting the long process of removing all the parts holding down the engines so that we can lift them out  The last photo of the engine in the boat before we lifted them out with the help of the yard owner with his crane One engine out Then the 2 engines out and off to be disposed of, it is hoped that there may be a person out there who as the time and money to sort them out  

Making temporary floorboards so that the old floorboards can be removed and cleaned and repainted before putting them back later  The first of the temporary floorboards in place more to come as the months go on   Some of the equipment getting removed so that we can access to the hull to make repairs to the hull planking  Then to removing the ballast out of the bilges for the first time in over 70 years and they were in a hell of a state, covered in dirt and oil and god knows what else About a 1/3 of the ballast out and more to come as we were able to remove floorboard that covered them There has been a fair few of these large buckets full of rubbish and other shit coming out of the boats interior and there are going to be more to come as the months move on