The major restoration of Chance (Token) James Silver Western Isles Motor sailer

[jstarmarine]

We were going to go down to Chance this morning, however, the weather is against us working on Chance itself today as it is very damp and wet on the boat especially the decks, which are like an ice staking rink as it would be not good to work on even if it was dried later on in the day.
So it was decided to do some work around the workshop instead. Since we had been working on the deck of Chance removing the butterfly hatch lids and the aft hatch lid and bring them back to the workshop. Simon has had a chance to dismantle the butterfly hatch lids and remove the glass out of the hatches and start to sand down the hatches removing the moss and other discolouration on the outside faces of the hatches to get back to the clean teak under the discolouration on the surface of the lids and remove all the old putty and sealant holding in the glass into the frames.
The butterfly hatch lids are in good condition given the fact they have been neglected for the past 20 years without any maintenance or teak oil or varnish to protect them from the elements. This is not going to be the case from now on when they will be given a lot of TLC. The aft hatch is in a bit of a poorer condition as it as been messed about with over the years and at some point repaired without checking what it was made from before repairing the hatch. As you can see from the video the base of the lid and the covering boards of the hatch are both teak, however, the repair is made out of mahogany which when sanded down is a completely different coloured wood. The hatch itself has broken apart at the joints as it was not glued in any way and just relayed on tight dovetail joints and dowel pegs to load it together. All these joints and pegs and the biscuit joints on the repair have now given up the ghost and Simon will now rebuild the hatch and recut the biscuit joints and clean and glue the dovetail joint and then re-assemble the hatch lid frame using modern glue and also new biscuits and teak dowels to ensure the hatch is going to be strong and fit for its job once it is back fitted to the base part of the hatch.
All the bases of the hatches have yet to be removed from the boats' decks which is proving to be a bit of a difficult job as they are well fitted on the boats' decks as they are screwed up from below the decks through the deck beams with 5 inch bronze screws which a being difficult to remove and in some case impossible.
So Simon is having to cut between the bottom of the hatch base and the deck beam and cut though the screws to release the base from the screws holding the hatch base in position. Having done that the hatch is still not coming off the deck beams as the edges of the hatch bases are caulked as well which is also holding the hatch bases in position. So the next time I am down on Chance and working on the hatch bases hopefully we should have a result with the hatch bases coming off the deck beams and be able to come to the workshop for some well overdue TLC and sanding down.
In this our 119 video you can see Simon has his hands full with a number of other projects in his yard. Not all boat projects car restorations as well the latest project body repairs to a Mk 1 lotus Europa.

So you can see Simon is a busy man,he is not working on Chance with his family and friends in his spare time..



https://www.patreon.com/posts/simon-talking-on-75179427/edit

 

[burgundyben]

I've been in my tent in howling wind and pissing rain, I just give up after a while. Last 2 months the weather has been shocking.

 

[jstarmarine]

I've been in my tent in howling wind and pissing rain, I just give up after a while. Last 2 months the weather has been shocking.

Hi Ben,
I can feel your pain of not being able to work on the boat because of the weather.
Regards
Simon

 

[jstarmarine]

Decisions to be made about the Toilet and the position of the diesel cooker when we refit the interior of Chance back to its original layout

The original Baby Blake toilet has been removed from Chance to under go a complete overhaul and be brought back into commission with new parts that are still available from the manufacturers of the Baby Blake toilet who are still in business to this day. A major result, a new Baby Blake toilet is over 4k to buy today. The repair kit is a little over £200.00 so it is no contest. Repair the toilet.



The same goes for the diesel cooker, the replacement parts are going to cost in the region of £250.00 from Canada where the cooker was originally made and the parts are available from the Manufacturers Dickinson who have been very helpful with getting the spare parts we are going to need to repair the cooker to full work condition



This is the galley area which has been stripped out and with a bit of re-organisation, the cooker will be fitted in this area.

 

[burgundyben]

Have you thought about engines and boxes yet?

 

[jstarmarine]

Have you thought about engines and boxes yet?

They have long gone and were not repairable as parts not able to be sourced

 

[burgundyben]

The reason I ask is that I have a pair I dont need. PRM. 2:1. Co-axial. They've done a lot of hours and the input shafts do show some wear on the splines. The front bolt pattern is the SAE7 same as velvetdrive, so options for adapter plate to engine easy.-ish. They are epically heavy, like Atlas stone heavy. They do have an interesting get you home lock up featured in the event of clutch failure.

PRM support is good.

You'd probably need to spend some money on them, but not as much as new boxes.

Yours for the cost of a pallet delivery if you want them.

 

[jstarmarine]

I am looking for 2 x Perkins 4108 diesels or similar to go in the space the Dorman's came out of, but that is further down the line

 

[burgundyben]

These would go ok on the back of a 4108. Here if you want them.

 

[jstarmarine]

Do you know what the cost of getting the gearboxes to CO14 8HW would be?

 

[burgundyben]

I could strap the pair onto a small pallet. I guess the weight would be 100kgs. I think a pallet service would be less than £100.

 

[jstarmarine]

Hi Ben,
If you could find out then , we can do a deal and I cold do a bank transfer for the shipping.

Regards
Simon

 

[jstarmarine]

Some of the work that can and will be done over the winter will be to tackle the shelves full of parts that came out of Chance before she was transported down from Woodplumpton down to Walton on the Naze for her next stage of her restoration.
There are a number of drawers that came out of different parts of Chances' interior, some of the drawers are in poorer condition than others. Some will just need a couple of parts re-making while others will completely apart from the drawer fronts which is the only part that can be re-used.
Other parts such as steps just need stripping of old varnish and sanding down and new varnish applying. One job that is going to be interesting is going to be making a new saloon table from scratch. I will have to source a set of the plans and make a replacement table,

After a lot of taking with people in the know about the diesel cooker and whether it was worth replacing the worn out parts that had given up the ghost and after a long decision making process. It was decided to order the new parts from Dickinson in Canada and get the cooker sorted and up and working again. Then refit the cooker in the galley area after the galley area is re-designed to make it fit and be user friendly. Then put the cupboard back in the saloon where it was originally positioned and make the saloon look like it was when Chance was originally built

Another job is to see if it is possible to reuse this original fuel system and if so it will save a lot of money not having to buy a new filtration system for the replacement engines. As one engineer friend once said to me you can never have too many fuel filters in a boat engine system.
So as the long night are here we will be busy in the workshop get boat wood work sorted and repaired ready to put back in the boat at a later date when the hull and deck repairers are done.

 

[jstarmarine]

This week we have been stripping down the baby Blake toilet and cooker, getting the fan body out of the cooker so I can fit the new fan to the fan holder and then refit the fan body to the cooker once it arrives from Canada after the Christmas break. There will be a bit of wiring up to do with the control knob to do and make up power supply. Then repair the fire brick walls where they are broken off the walls of the firebox. We ask if we had to replace the whole of the firebrick walls and were told we just had to clean the bits up and then mix up some new fire cement and fix the pieces back on the metal walls and then fill any gaps with fire cement and do the same to the cracks in the broken pieces and make the surface smooth and flat so there are no hot spots within the firebox.

The Baby Blake toilet is now broken down to a lot of smaller parts, however, not small enough yet. there are some parts that need stripping to smaller parts to get to replace some of the parts that are inside other parts of the pump bodies. So there is a lot of work to do on these two bits of boat equipment before they are back in working order.

 

[penfold]

I'd advise against reusing the filter units; even if replacement filters are available the standard of filtration is antediluvian. When chinese knock-off Racor filter units are available for very reasonable prices it just doesn't make any sense, although I would personally choose to use genuine Racor filters to go with them.

 

[Birdseye]

My first job when I get back to the boat will be -mark off all the planks I need to remove, also get to grips with the transom which will need to replaced completely as it is double diagonal planking over a framework. This job will be very interesting as it as been a few years since I done any great amount of that type of construction. So it will be time to blow away the cobwebs and start to have some fun. Another job that I will need to do is get rid of all the old paint off the hull and the cabin sides. The cabin side should have been varnished like many of her close sister ships. It would be good to find out if the other Western Isles is still afloat and if it is to have a look at her to see if they were build with the same interior or a similar interior. So let the fun begin and see where it takes me.

Fun??? I have nothing but admiration for romantics like you who take on the thankless task of restoring ( or in many cases attempting to resore) old wooden boads. At my club we have just had to smash up what came to us as a Morecambe Bay prawner yacht and which languished on the hard for years slowly deteriorating. In the end the owner couldnt give it away. We have anopther old wooden sailing boat that is going the same way after its devoted owner, who sailed it far and wide, sadly passed away leaving the boat to his son.

But fun? I guess you take ice baths and flog yourself with birch twigs for entertainment.

 

[jstarmarine]

Before you start calling me or my Family romantics, I have been and still am a time served wooden boast builder, I have been for the past 46 years and this is not my first restoration project. I have done a number of them for other people over the past 46 years. So I thought it was time I did one for myself and my family. This is going to be my last restoration project before I retire from the job I done for the 46 years. Yes there are a lot of people out there who are in love of the idea of restoring old wooden boats but do not take onboard the size and cost of the project. You see them on you tube asking for people to fund their projects. I am not one of these people. This project is being funded by myself and my family through our own work and will be done at a pace that is controlled by our own funds. Yes it is fun for me as it is a busman holiday doing my own restoration project on our own boat and not controlled by an owner wanting the boat done yesterday.

I am no romantic and never have been.

 

[jstarmarine]

An overview of what we achieved in 2022 and what we hope to achieve in 2023.

Over the past year, we have achieved a great deal of work on Chance while working with the restrictions of the Covid pandemic and working as a full time traditional boat builder work on my clients boats and their projects.
Now it is time to take stock of what we have achieved in the way of dismantling Chances' interior and doing some of the smaller jobs on Chance, such as dismantle the Blakes sea toilet which is in need of a full restoration as it as not been restored for a long time. So many of the moving parts are either corroded (bolts and nuts holding the parts of the toilet together) or harden up due to not being used and lubricated and so the rubber parts will have to be replaced as part of the toilet restoration. Another smaller project is the diesel cooker restoration ( the fire brick will need refixing and cracks filling and the burner parts which have corroded from use and age will have to be ordered from Canada after Christmas.
After the Christmas break and when the dust as settled after the New Year. Then it will be time to make a start on sorting out the Transom and starboard aft cabin beam shelf and deck repairs and the planking and rib replacements and the frames in the aft cabin that need renewing.
While all this is going on we will try and sort out covering Chance over with some good covers to keep the worse of the weather and start to get Chance dried out and be able to work on her at anytime.
So it is time to chill out and have a peaceful Christmas and look forward to the New Year with recharged bodies and minds.

 

[jstarmarine]

Over the past year, we have achieved a great deal of work on Chance while working with the restrictions of the Covid pandemic and working as a full time traditional boat builder work on my clients boats and their projects.
Now it is time to take stock of what we have achieved in the way of dismantling Chances' interior and doing some of the smaller jobs on Chance, such as dismantle the Blakes sea toilet which is in need of a full restoration as it as not been restored for a long time. So many of the moving parts are either corroded (bolts and nuts holding the parts of the toilet together) or harden up due to not being used and lubricated and so the rubber parts will have to be replaced as part of the toilet restoration. Another smaller project is the diesel cooker restoration ( the fire brick will need refixing and cracks filling and the burner parts which have corroded from use and age will have to be ordered from Canada after Christmas.
After the Christmas break and when the dust as settled after the New Year. Then it will be time to make a start on sorting out the Transom and starboard aft cabin beam shelf and deck repairs and the planking and rib replacements and the frames in the aft cabin that need renewing.
While all this is going on we will try and sort out covering Chance over with some good covers to keep the worse of the weather and start to get Chance dried out and be able to work on her at anytime.
So it is time to chill out and have a peaceful Christmas and look forward to the New Year with recharged bodies and minds.

 

[jstarmarine]

Plans for the New Year and beyond,
This last year as been a busy year in lots of ways, Especially with regards to Chance and her moving down from Woodplumpton in Lancashire to Walton on the Naze. This was a logistical merry-go-round to say the least. Getting the timing correct so that the jobs that were needed to be done to Chance before she was transported down from Lancashire to Essex. Picking the right time and having the funds available to move her when we did.
Over the course of the spring and summer, when we both had some spare time together between my work as a boat builder and my wife Tricia as a Nurse we spent the time driving up to Woodplumpton and worked on Chance. Removing as much of the interior furniture and other items such as her old engines, fuel tanks,water tanks, black water tank, ballast and many other items in order to make her as light as possible to give her a chance to make it possible to move her without stressing her already weakened hull a chance to survive the transport from Lancashire to Essex.
Thankfully the lifting and transporting by road, when well and Chance arrived in Walton on the Naze in good shape and was able to be lifted off her transport and laid up in Titchmarsh marina, her new home for the duration of her restoration.
Since Chance as been back in Essex, Simon and his family have continued to get on with the restoration of Chance. One of the jobs, Simon and his Son Michael have been doing is to get the deck hatches off the deck. So far Simon and Michael have been able to remove the tops off two butterfly hatches and the top off the aft hatch and have made a start on removing the bases of these hatches and when they have done these hatches will tackle the foredeck hatch which is in a every poor condition and may well just fall apart when trying to dismantling the hatch. Time will tell when we start to work on this hatch. Either way Simon and Michael will be spending time restoring these hatches so they can go back on later on in the restoration of the deck.
Once these hatches are done, Simon & Michael will start on sorting out the transom and aft end planking and starboard deck and beam shelf repair work to get done before moving on to the rest of the hull and rib repairs. So over the coming spring and summer Simon, Michael & Tricia will get on with as much of the hull and deck work to get Chance in a better shape than she has been for many a year.