Vira - Sailboat rebuild, Irwin Citation 34

   Day out Had nice peaceful sailing afternoon. Wind  5-10kn, no unexpected gusts. our speed up to 4.5kn about a half time. Ready to go It is me ;-)  

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...

Cabin sole (day 178)   Sanded floor patches was done weekend before  To make clear cut on floor panels I made  plywood (actually laminated MDF) templates based on paper templates I had made week ago. Then fit them to place using jigsaw and orbital sander to meet all curves of the recesses on the FG floor.  Easy to say, not easy to do. it was about 10-15 try-cut-sand-try-cut-send cycles per each of four pieces. Templates after they was fit to places. Based on my pretty short experience I found several areas on the cabin sole are uncomfortably slippery due to they are just glossy gelcoat.  I decided to put no-skid paint in these ares. All is ready to be painted with no-skid. Under cabin table.    Sloped floor part in the galley. Area under navigation desk. Sloped floor next to cabinet in front cabin.  Floor in the shower Cockpit  Pedestal guard, finally installed. Cabin sole (Day 179) Final flooring (wood areas) will be STAINMASTER London Sky...

 Interior Cabin sole gelcoat (Floor ) cleaning. Still thinking about to keep original gelcoat on cabin sole and built in cabin "furniture".  During 40 years and and my and not only my repair activity  "white" floor was used actively and had was weathered pretty much. Fortunately gelcoat  layer is pretty descent, so I decided to sand it to clean polish and wax it. Easy to say, but it is a lot of work. about 10 hours work on the floor with 3 types of sanders and manual sand blocks.  sanding order 120 grit, 240, 320, 400, 600. After 600 plastic still have satin look, but it is really smooth.  There several places where gelcoat was too thin and I sanded th the glass. Yes, it is some imperfection , but I would rather left them as is. I processed all "white" parts on the floor in the cabin. Wood covered areas (as you remember we removed all rotted plywood) does not require so clean sanding and cleaning, just 80 grit sand to remove old glue and make surface prepa...

Interior Cleaned floor from sealant adhesive leftovers, sanding gelcoat to make fresh surface and remove "ups" epoxy  drops. First run around is complete.   Grind openings in the floor was done to investigate area around compression post, prepared area fro re-glassing. Sailing Afternoon  we get out for sailing. nice day 10-20 knots wind. Upwind  sailing Speed is 6.1 knots (11 km/hour) Wind 17 knots boat heel 23.8 degrees, yes we are overpowered.

 Little work this week, actually nothing to picture Sand excessive glass on the knee connecting deck and port side bulkhead holding steering block Checking color and properties of PVC flooring i plan to use on the cabin sole Reviewing the base under the mast and planing course of actions there  Made new insert covering manual bilge pump and installed it Put breakers locks (to protect supposed always on and  always off breakers to be mistakenly operated) Get out and readjusted autopilot parameters.  Removed Cockpit compass and cup holder board from pedestal to make new one or repair and adjust existing one. VicVic  made template for bow block to insert under bow roller to put back screws.  Manual water pump, connected it to water system, but looks like check valve is too tight for this solution, water flow from manual pump is going to be small, but maybe it is not a bad thing ;) Checked mast alignment.  Mast appeared tilted to port side for 3/4 inch if ...

Interior Removing old Teak and holly plywood from the floor. It was mostly de-laminated and rotted in about 50% of surface. Galley floor in process Younger son provided great help today Whole floor cleaned up from wood. Windlass. Windlass battery strapped down. Pulled out chain and marked 40, 60 and 80 feet points with pieces of webbing to make length tabs Engine room.  Glassing "the shelf" over the opening originally left by builders. This area was just a hole opened directly from engine room to cabin. Result engine room wall was just "in air" and any water splashed in this area will be ended pilot berth really wet.. Another thing which had to be addressed - the bulkhead to deck connection. it was very weak and bulkhead traveled about an inch side to side when any load applied to steering. I am not sure the stiffening this joint this way is right thing to do, but i hope it will provide some support to bulkhead. it si to side direction.excessive glass should be cut...