Vira - Sailboat rebuild, Irwin Citation 34

  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...

Radar        "dry fit" radar installation Halo20+ mounted on the mast. Vira with radar temporary mounted   Mounted just to test radar on the boat before hide it and store until boat will be splashed to salt water. Dual mode on openCPN screen OVERLAY on the external open cpn screen. For some reason auto-targeting targets land as blob and makes mess on the screen.       New cockpit cushions I sewed sail pack, and it appeared about 17 ft of  sunbrella fabric left.  I decided to use if to make new cockpit cushions.    Way from the idea to implementation is not too long.   Sailing Had several hours peaceful sailing . Radar already hidden below the deck.      

Sail pack   Finalized sail pack, put cheek block on the mast and adjusted all lines. [Sorry, no pictures now, will update later]    Electronics I have got great present from the son.  Radar, yes it is B&G (Navico) Halo20+ .   Sure i do not need it here in the lake, but as soon as i plan to bring boat to big water, it will be very good add-on to my navigation electronics setup. No sense to make the mount right now (before transportation) but will be nice to test its compatibility  with my OpenCPN setup. I designed  "cheap and dirty" radar bracket to tie radar to the mast for testing. Cut and it on my CNC from plywood and glue together. Next weekend plan to get radar on the water and see how it's work.      Standing rigging  Measuring angles of the shrouds.   Took picture from far away point to get closer to real angles.