Vira - Sailboat rebuild, Irwin Citation 34

 Autopilot Autopilot was installed a year ago. I did not have mood to finish installation. Steering arm was installed just on friction, and friction between bronze and stainless is not great. So time to time if I try to fight with autopilot arm slipped and whole settings appeared to be lost. Other problem if it slipped to counter clockwise  autopilot actuator and arm get aligned in line and actuator can't work at all. There key was missed, actually I had a key, but rudder stock did not have a key way. Trust me, cutting keyway in rudder sock with Drimel in boat yoga position was not a most fun experience. Rudder is in straight position. 90 degree between arm and actuator.   I have actuator mounted in diagonal between port side wall of the engine compartment and arm is installed on starboard side. It looks little strange but it saved a lot of space and let to have easy access to actuator motor.  Other view to the rudder stock   Other issue fix i pushed back foe a ...

 Lake Travis get water back it was 20 Ft in 24 hours  We have got a lot of water! Some sailing fun on Saturday (~4 hours). We decided to go lake upstream direction and after about 1.5 hours nice sailing we was stopped by police and POLITELY asked to return back to marina.  Then we found the lake is closed for recreational boater for now due to a lot of floating trash on the water and search operation is steel in progress.    Refrigerator Since day one I installed refrigerator, I think how to make it work more efficient. couple years ago I have converted my ice chest to embedded refrigerator, it was done by re-aranging parts from the smal household refrigerator. I ended up mount evaparator inside the ice box, compressor is located under LPG locker and condencer in between LPG locker and starboard side of the hull. it is appeared pretty "cozy" space, but not a lit free airflow to keep condenser cool well a specially when it is working hard to cool 20-30 lb of...

 Interior Head and main cabin starboard shelves faces ready to dry fit.  Head cabinet Install cabinet door   Galley cabinets and starboard shelf front doors    Air conditioner Air conditioner pump moved to galley cabinet bottom, next to fresh water pressure pump. Pump is below waterline, but not good enough to be underway. need to install check valve  on the line Refrigerator Finished refrigerator compressor mounting "shelf". (final sanding required :-) ). Glassed rails to mount refrigerator condenser coil (on the left). It is on the back side of LPG tank locker. Interior Epoxied plywood scrap part as "anchor" point fro bulkhead between main cabin and cockpit lockers.        

 Fresh water plumping replacement Do not try to do better if it works! Short story, My boat 40 years old and all hoses are original. All of them Are hardened and start cracking. I do not want to wait until they bust. I made decision to replace old PVC hoses with PEX-A tubing.    Why PEX-A? It is pretty simple  "crimping" process. Connection are possible in pretty in hard to access places due to you can expand pipe in comfortable place and then install it. Beside price I would point other reasons: fittings are expensive but not so high as Shark bite, no metal collars (vs PEX-B) - no corrosion, expansion tool is not very expensive. It is easy to say - replace tubing.  In mind I imagine simple process - take off clamps,  connect PEX tube to old hose with some insert plug  and duct tape, and then pull new tube using old hose as guide. Simple enough. Right? Sounds like couple hours to do. In reality I spent 4 days to pull hoses and put PEX tubing.  Wh...

3 Weeks over from Day 1, I traveled to to Estonia and Ukraine.  Day 2. 8 hours spent for 4 things. 1) starboard side, rotted decorative plywood panels removed. Some teal planks was savaged. All chap cleaned,  lockers in the back of sit cleaned as well. Top liner removed - a lot of dust in the liner.    2) stuffing box clamps replaced Found cracked glass and soaked/rotted core where driveshaft tube glassed. Need to be addressed when boat will be on hard. Cleaned machine room floor/bilge from mud. 3) Centerboard control line under galley sink, added the second clamp   4) Cleaned starboard deck and cockpit. Now boat looks MUCH better.