Vira - Sailboat rebuild, Irwin Citation 34

Deck Itchy again.  started first step to prepare deck for repaint. Step1. sand all flaking old paint, voids in gelcoat and gelcoat damaged areas.  Found two hatches on cockpit lockers are damaged around hinge points so hard that i need to redo these areas. All grey dots was gelcoat voids different sizes, now I need to patch them, some of them must be re-glassed. Also find two places with minor structural issues in laminate, One place loos like somebody hit deck with axe. Found sealant patched drilled hole in the left bottom carner of the external companion way "step". Why somebody did it I probably will not figure out. (same mystery like hole in the water tank). Two axe hits (big and small) grounded out. Port side aft cockpit  wall corner some de-lamination, but likely just very "voidy" build. I will need to dig deeper before start to rebuild this area. Electrical  Cabling Get all wiring ordered, connected antenna cables together using N type connectors.  Ready ...

Morning spent Making order on things on a boat to have less mess on the floor :) Main thing was done is making order with wires inside wheel pedestal, connect depth sounder and Log to Open Plotter computer, so no more need to get on the floor to get readings on the knees. (previous owner put instrument too low on the pedestal, so it appears almost unusable). My dshboard now.   Then afternoon I had a nice sailing in steady wind of 10 kts south. in 4 hours we did 15.2 NM with average speed 3.2kts and top one 6.5. My hull speed is 7.0kts. So we was close enough if count the last cleaning I did in September. During sailing boat points pretty well.   Short  video from this trip.  Link here . On one on Close hull tacks. 6.35 kts on beam reach.  Top was higher. Little relaxing... Getting home at night Still under sail. Wind dropped to 5-6 kts but still there. Full moon helps a lot. Night sails  

Electrical Last piece of wiring - mast wiring seal. For now I have 3 cables I need to wire in. Navigation and deck lights, VHF antenna, Wind instrument. As first let see what we have coming out of mast. Just 40 years old boat :-)   I found 3 connections for each individual wire hidden inside the mast and wrapped by multiple layers of isolation tape.  Some crimped, some twisted. I decided to put single cable seal box intended for 3+ cables to have capability to add more wires  later. Selected this one Powder coated SS version. It is designed well, BUT, I like the idea to elevate thru-decks a little to prevent extensive water flow over the sealing. It is not hard to do 6 mm mounting plate from G10 sheet and laminate it to deck surface.  As additional benefit I will have nice flat surface to mount cable gland.  20 minutes in cad and 15 minutes to cut on CNC. Plate is ready. Plate glued  on thickened epoxy with fillets around. Cables rearranged and sleeved in p...

      Long story about hatches I have decided to change original hatches with low profile aluminum profile type. One guy on FB group recommended one particular type as direct fit. Maybe he has other IC34, and it was built differently, but I have got trapped. Unfortunately deck opening on MY boat was just square cut, so when I put brand new, sparkly hatches for dry fit I found corners of the hatch do not cover corners in the deck opening :-)    Also hatch appeared about 3/4 inch smaller then deck opening and mounting holes on the hatch appears EXACTLY  on the deck frame edge.  Step 1 (Adapter frames) I decided to make adapter frames covering corners and provides support for mounting screws.  After week thinking about solution I decided to make adapter from (G10) pre-manufactured fiberglass plate. Adapter thickness 16mm, it will have the lip to lay lay over the top of the deck, external adapter dimensions the same as original deck opening, internal ...