Vira - Sailboat rebuild, Irwin Citation 34

Short day (3 hours) Companionway hatch lid hasp/handle. Made and installed hatch internal handle. it plays 3 roles - Handle to slide hatch from inside, hasp to put padlock on washboards and stopper to leave some space for fingers when you open hatch  Handle is a small piece of teak wood with two holes to insert padlock shackle thru. Mounted on the hatch with 2 #8 wood screws from outside for holding it on place and one machine screw from inside. And 1/4 inch machine screw in tapped hole in the lid for security (at some level) from the bottom.  Screw end if flush with top surface so no way to grab it from outside. Also, I put cyanoacrylate glue glue in to the thread to keep it in even stronger.   Idea about locking - use padlock with detachable shackle. Put shackle from inside, free ends out, then push it thru upper washboard (i made 2 holes for it and put lock body on.   View from cabin     View from outside.   VERY Temporary fuel tank. Temp fuel tank ...

Deck  New companionway hatch made and installed. New teak handle, 12mm plexiglass piece and stoppers  assembled. Fresh refinished cover (little bit visible under traveler) is sealed and screwed down on place. Difference from original, New acrylic glass instead of  heavy UV damaged one after 40 years serve, I replaced wooden stopper inside the cover to HDPE plastic blocks from bottom and top side. Now cover has no way to be pulled out completely  and find way over the board,  also stoppers  will not rot out in humid covered space under cover.   Windlass First version of mounting plate for windlass. Dry fit test shown the windlass itself must be moved 25mm toward port side to align chain with windlass. Also i decided to eliminate front piece  and leave just the "bridge". To be continued. Autopilot Pypilot Autopilot first test on water. Autopilot works relatively well on all courses with default settings. Tested Compass and Wind modes under sails and...

  Interior Took masking tape off and put back temporary removed elements back this weekend. Main cabin wood varnishing finished. Enjoy pictures.  ASA certification. Is was fun, but I never complete formal training and certification.  This year I have got birthday "present" - complete at least one course ASA101 Basic Keelboat Sailing. I did it after 5+ years active sailing every weekend. Two training/certification tracks  under sail. It is me ;-)  

Interior work  Main cabin varnishing . Temperature dropped a lot, so running small heater on the floor and and 20" fan blowing air through front hatch. First and second layer 1 hour scuffing, 1 hour cleaning, 1:30 painting (varnishing), 6 hours timeout,1:30 painting. 2 layers done, 4 coming. Photos will be after all done.   Third layer Monday: one more layer done of gloss Gleam. Next will be satin on most surfaces. I have too much busy look. Forth layer Satin varnish now. after 3 layers of gloss varnish all looks very rich, but too busy for eyes. Actually what happened, my gleam 2.0 originally was Satin version, but all flattening agent settled on the bottom of the can, and i did not realize that I have satin type until read it on the can.  I used gloss (top part) of varnish for first 3 layers and used about 1/3 of gallon from the can. It means if i just mix varnish with settled flattening agent  back to liquid I will have it "overdosed". I did a trick, carefull...

Interior Head door When I bought the boat, head door wad lost. Looks it is time to make it.  I am looking to design and build door similar one to airliners toilet doors. Folding door will fold inside the head room. I have prepared Door panels and vertical parts of the frame with installed hinges. assembled and dry-fitted it to frame, after some adjusting was able to install it. Door opened Door closed (from inside) Galley cabinet door installation. Last door installed  (after 2 failure attempts :-))   Main cabin wood varnishing (including prep) This day I did 2 additional layers of wood sealer on plywood and 2 layers on all bare wood in main cabin.   All trimming is recovered original teak and new made panels are meranti marine grade plywood.  After first layers of sealer they started to play different colors and make nice two color interior accents. Next week plan to do final sanding and start to put varnishing (Gleam 2.0).

 Interior Worked on 2 layers of wood-sealer around ALL plywood in  Main cabin. main issue is 40C outside and to keep myself ok i had to run AC and close doors and windows. BUT painting inside sealed box is not an easy task from many perspectives.  Yes, I vented cabin time-to-time mainly to avoid combustible concentration of vapors. Saturday i started work at 6AM to catch a little OK (not cool) time and have chance to work with open hatches.  beside plywood, I also soaked galley countertop with ting oil. Now it is came water protected and amazingly nice looking. Just showing pictures after priming with wood sealer, but even without varnishing it looks great, is not?