Vira - Sailboat rebuild, Irwin Citation 34

 Sailing That is it, last sailing day this year.  Then 3 weeks out of town, after 3 weeks to prepare boat to "jailbreak" from the lake and travel to the "spa" on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico for several month where i plan to do external hull work from top to bottom, replace thru-hill, repair drive shaft strut, repair centerboard, fix bottom rudder bracket, re-rig standing rigging. But about this later.  Yesteryear was a one of the best whole friends sailings this year. Nice steady wind, sailing 4-5 knots without heeling above 15 degrees. All was perfect.   Several videos of the boats passing us  

  Hard dodger Waked up early morning to start work on templating hard dodger. I decided to make it out of fiberglass with real front glass and Polycarbonate sides.   Boat is not symmetrical and not square. It is learned many times. To be able to work on dodger at home  and to get feeling of the size and shape, I had to make full scale  3D template.  During my restoration/refitting journey I did it many times and did not hesitated to do do it. Usually I use  5mm plywood 1" strips and hot melt glue to do templates. Template was started from the center line - rope tightly routed from the mast to backstay just below boom to be a center line and theoretical max height marker. I protected interface surfaces (deck surfaces what will be contacted with dodger) with masking tape to be able to use gluegun and mount template to the surface without need to clean it for the glue after.  Then I mounted planks representing dodger footprint on the deck.   Fro...

Sailing.   Nice sailing day, spent about 6 hours cruising lake Travis.  Nice almost stable 10-15knot wind during the day, with couple 20 knots poofs.  Total log 21 nautical miles (unfortunately track was lost). We did about 40-50 tacks minimum. Sailing "river kind" lake is little "sporty" My younger son and friend on the board today. Couple video shorts here. Marina update, Marina re-configuring their docks. They moved dock with 20 boats all together and reshaped configuration. Kind of Tetris for adults.  

 Mast My son to the top of the mast  This weekend me and son spent to measure all tings on the mast. Goal was to get all what we may need to make setup for switching to synthetic  ropes. Plan is keep forestay in SS all other shrouds and stay replace with Caligo DUX Dyneema. Here is the standing rigging measurements table for Irwin 34 78'  here. A lot of information in the table including all mast dimensions  starting of mast height, and up to diameter of each clevis pin.    Link        Some basic measurements here:   I am looking to make custom parts to terminate stay on the boat. At least mast side connections and spreader ends will be custom. Most fun part to design  - Spreader ends terminal.  Boat has non-continuous shrouds connected on the ends of spreader. Originally it was kind of chainplates    It is good for steel ropes, but not so nice synthetic. I decided to make special shaped speader cup...

  Had a minor surgery on the foot, this week - no way to do anything on the boat.

 Water tank     About two years after I rebuilt the water tanks, I finally started using them again—and right away I found out the forward tank lid was leaking into the V-berth. The funny part is, the difference came down to the sealant. The little portside tank I’d done with silicone, but on the big forward tank I decided to try butyl tape. The butyl itself wasn’t the problem. What actually happened was that in one corner, the gap between the tank lip and the lid was just too wide, so the tape never got squeezed. That left an open path, and sure enough—leak. To find exactly where it was coming from, I hooked up my shop vac in “blow” mode to pressurize the tank, then sprayed soapy water around the seams. The bubbles gave the leak away instantly. Now, saying “just reseal it” sounds simple—but to reseal, I had to actually get the lid off. And that turned out to be a real fight. The lid was cut so snug that there was basically no room to wedge anything under it, and butyl...