Very active sailing day on Sunday  20-25kn wind and 2-3ft sea with 34 seconds period. Almost horse back riding. Well working autopilot make difference ;-)      Saturday boat work  report Repair countertop.   I had to re-sand and re-oil after mistakenly put a very hot coffee maker to countertop. It was a great idea to use tang oil to  finish galley countertop. After complete disaster (burned circle) I was able to do repair almost without evidence. Yes, some elbow grease had to be used but it is nothing compare to what it will be in case if surface would be varnished.   SOUND OM OPEN PLOTTER  Check and proof possibility to get sound from my RPi5 over Bluetooth to have Openplotter to sound loud.  AUTOPILOT   Made some adjustments on Autopilot (pypilot), decreased current over clutch to 30% and increased max rotation speed. Result is impressive, on Sunday we cruised under autopilot at short period 2-3 ft sea with 20-25kn wind with ...

 Engine. Final decision made. I convinced myself to get engine out and repair engine mount stringers bonding to hull as well do check/repair engine "on side". Taking engine on my own was an interesting challenge. I am very pleased to boat designers for big engine compartment hatch! it was the game changer. Process to get engine out. Disconnect drive shaft coupler. Before disassembling I started engine put on gear and cleaned and slightly filed cylindrical surfaces on rotating coupler to have good reverence surface for alignment later.    There was no surprises but one bolt had not lock washer and bolts was not tighten well. Remove and starter, alternator  No surprises on alternator, but starter mount nuts are hard to reach due to starter body diameter does not give space to put 19mm socket on the nut (starter is to "fat") and I had to use 20mm socket sitting little "on side". Starter and alternator removed  Undo aft engine mounts.  Nuts on mounts are tight...

Time to show  the new interior. Welcome on the board.     General. Almost all plywood in the interior replaced with couple exclusions - Port side part of main bulkhead, walls around the head, 3 panels left in galley cabinets and some solid wood trimming parts. New starboard main bulkhead mounted. Floor replaced with high quality hard PVC flooring.  All gelcoat (white) inside is slightly sanded to refresh it and clean of "ups" epoxy drops paint and 46 years weathering, polished and waxed. Galley New galley countertop, completely rebuilt all rebuilt galley cabinets. Added drawer under stove cavity. "cap board" rebuilt, shelves have roulette doors now, Big rolling out  drawer added under the cockpit sit. New combined electric panel. Icebox rebuilt to built in refrigerator. Microwave installed on the stove gimbaled shelf under the LPG cooking surface.  Plenty of 110V outlets  mounted to avoid any splitters.    Nav desk rebuilt, Installed na...

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...

 New year, New official :) pictures. Galley Drawer under cockpit settee (starboard) Irwin boat has strange hard to use cavity accessed from galley located under cockpit settee. It is strange, because has any barrier to prevent stuff from rolling out of there right to stove surface. Original design: Who has IC34 Know this place. So I made made a drawer there to be able to keep stuff  from rolling out and also to be able to keep it in order.  It appeared pretty big size. ~20"x16"    Due to no straight walls around to put rails to keep it on place I had to invent some way. So, I put drawer on roller blades wheels and they just run over countertop. To prevent side movent I put  stainless full extending rails. Here is other challenge, I need to extend drawer about 1.5 length of it to have good access to it.  So, I connected two rails together to keep it on straight path and prevent from sliding side by side Electrical Nav table Electrical panel, Water tanks...