Progress reports

Half a year: 211 hours

July 2022: 211 work hours so far. I went back to the list I made when I inspected the boat before buying her, and wrote next to each line where it stood:

• The liveaboard mess: cleaned out. Closed.
• Water damage: all the rotten wood is out of the interior. The plan is to rebuild it almost from scratch.
• Port lower front chainplate knee: rebuilt. Done.
• Scratched gelcoat: starboard side and bow patched and primed, port side planned.
• Leaking stanchions: all mounting blocks removed and rebuilt, stanchions to go back.
• Ports: new ones bought, the pilot one installed. Big fixed windows replaced.
• Deck: old cabin handles and the drip rail removed and holes patched, small voids this year, full repaint later.
• Furler: good, but the forestay's top Sta-Lok needs redoing, plus a 4-inch spacer plate at the bottom for the shorter forestay.
• Sails: off and washed. The main has lots of small holes, the genoa needs some care but is good, and a second genoa was found in a locker.
• Soft engine hatch: re-cored and re-glassed. Seal later.
• Ugly RV AC: works, but still ugly. A 12,000 BTU marine unit is bought and its shelf made.
• Steering: everything tightened, good for the lake. The port block plate needs redoing.
• Engine control: new aluminum plate, control remounted, gearshift cable replaced.
• Shrouds: wrong-size chainplates, and the mast was tilted 3–4 inches to port. New chainplates made, mast straightened.
• Fuel gauge glass replaced, showing 1/4 tank. Still want to look inside.
• Bulkheads: starboard was already wet again, so replaced and tabbed to the hull. Port tabbed on one side.
• Starboard front lower anchor: several layers of 1708 and 24 oz roving added, to sleep better.
• Companionway: slides and doors rebuilt, two boards made from teak with 1/4-inch acrylic windows. Looks cool!
• The strange anchor well drain: it turned out to be an inch of old PVC pipe going to the cockpit drain. Pointless, and almost destroyed. A new, deeper chain locker will replace it.

And here's what I found along the way, which was not on any list: a burned-out alternator (replaced with a 60 A one I had in the garage), the leaking hull-to-deck joint, leaking deck drains, the damaged forestay, a ripped-out welded pin on the front chainplate, a broken sump pump with a clogged hose, a quarter-full holding tank with rotten straps, a mast step sagged about 1/4 inch with a strange "piece of poop" under it, engine mounts on lag bolts with the glass let go of the wood, a broken toilet with sweating hoses, dead masthead lights, engine alarms not working because of a corroded connector, no air filter element, a leaking raw water pump, exposed wood around the shaft log, flaking transom paint, and a broken compass. Most of them were already fixed, or had parts on the way. Half a year in, and the boat had told me all her secrets. Or so I thought.

In August I opened my Trello board to everyone, so anyone can see the task list. Public accountability: now I can't pretend some jobs don't exist.

Report #2: she sails

September 2022:

• Forestay repaired: I cut the damaged part and added 4-inch link plates between the chainplate and the turnbuckle. The furler has room for it. Temporary, until new rigging.
• All chainplates and spreader connectors cut and bent. They still need a couple of welds.
• Sails cleaned, genoa fixed, furler repaired, genoa and main back on.
• New ports installed. Interior plywood panels on the cabin sides.
• New VHF antenna and cable, new Windex, and a handheld VHF for now. Good enough for the lake.
• Marine air conditioner installed and working.
• Brand new wiring, the right wire and no shortcuts in material, gauge or routing. New battery charger, two new flooded group 27 batteries, new bow nav lights and LED bulbs, 18 W LED spreader lights. Inverter bought, not installed yet.
• Cockpit drains replaced, engine room ventilation redone.
• Holding tank, sticky gray water hoses and the broken toilet out, porta-potty in.

And YES, I had a day of sailing on the lake. She is great! Ten months of work, and finally the reason for all of it.

Report #3

November 2022:

• Cockpit drains replaced, a fixed window reset.
• Engine room vent hoses and scoops, new VHF/AIS antenna and cable, LED spreader lights.
• Both water tanks repaired (osmosis, a crack, a hole in the bottom), coated inside with two-part potable water coating, new HDPE lids and level sensors.
• Stanchions done: filled with polyester resin, rubber plugs in the bottom, reinstalled. New Dyneema lifelines, one piece still to replace.
• AC intake and outlet boxes and ducts, and the front cabin cabinet rebuilt around the AC.
• Traveler and cabin top winch re-bedded. The aft cabin top hatch repaired. I kept it wooden, I like it.
• Port bulkhead tabbed from the head side and to the deck.
• Started sanding the interior wood.

Report #4

June 2023:

• Front cabin: 1/2-inch neoprene insulation on the hull sides, new headliner, the hatch repaired (it needs more attention).
• All pressure water plumbing redone, with the hot water priming valve and the tank connection.
• Head walls glassed to the shower pan and painted.
• Roll-up cabinet doors made.
• Delaminated glass removed from the starboard bulkhead by the engine room.
• Backstay chainplate replaced, with a backing plate.
• Holding tank back in with new black water hoses.
• The aft bulkhead and the side wall that holds the rudder turning blocks re-glassed.
• Starboard cockpit locker: the delaminated hull layer re-glassed. Looks like Irwin reinforced the docking area, but laid it over the gelcoat. Locker walls in and painted.
• AC raw water pump moved under the galley and suspended against vibration. New AC vents and intake grille.
• Starboard shelves with roll-up doors. A refrigerator built into the ice chest.
• Bimini. A big 15-inch touchscreen in the cockpit for OpenPlotter, where the port window between the galley and the cockpit used to be.
• Galley: upper cabinets, reinforced cabinets with new doors and drawers, a removable shelf under the sink to reach the pumps, a new countertop and a new faucet.

Report #5

December 2023:

• New electric panel installed. The new wiring is connected, and the old wiring disconnected and cut short. All wiring except the battery cables is now tinned marine wire.
• The windlass location planned.
• LPG piping rebuilt.
• 24 V LED lights all around the cabin.
• The ice chest rebuilt, insulated, with a 110 V refrigeration system on a dedicated inverter.
• A LOT of interior work: all new headliner and teak headliner battens, the starboard shelf with roll-up doors, a new "bookshelf", a rebuilt nav desk, a drawer between the companionway wall and the LPG locker, and the port cabin liner reshaped to reach under the port cockpit seat.

The interior rebuild is complete, and all the wood is varnished. Two years after I first stepped aboard, the inside of Vira looks like a boat again, not like a crime scene.

Since December 2023

June 2024:

• Deck: cabin top, cockpit and decks fixed, patched and painted with two-part Interlux Perfection and KiwiGrip. 130 hours, 19 work days, 14 weeks.
• New aluminum hatches, with the deck rebuilt around them. New fixed windows, screwed down on DOW 795.
• Cabin: varnishing done, port lockers painted, companionway steps refinished, covers on the cockpit display and the inverter locker, head door installed, support strips for the fridge lid, a sliding drawer under the starboard cockpit seat.
• Electric: water and black water tank gauges, mast wiring tidied with a cable gland, all battery cables replaced, new battery switches, a charge isolator for the alternator, battery monitors with a display, a shore DC power supply, a 3 kW inverter with a 2.5 kWh lithium battery, and a buzzer on the main bilge pump.
• Navigation: OpenPlotter on a Raspberry Pi with a display at the nav desk and a splitter to mirror the cockpit screen. Masthead wind instrument and Wi-Fi camera, depth and log, autopilot drive and rudder sensor, all connected.

Since June 2024

October 2024:

• Barton winch handles. The big chain locker rebuilt, windlass and big bow roller installed, bow patched and painted.
• New companionway hatch.
• Autopilot drive installed, with end switches.
• Fuel tank repaired with a solid glass lid, service fuel pump, 30 and 10 micron filters, all fuel lines A1-15.
• Holding tank vent with a filter, going to the chain locker.

Since October 2024

February 2026, the big one:

• Cabin sole replaced with rigid vinyl. New cover on the manual bilge pump. 3D-printed breaker guards. Cockpit compass mounted lower. Foot pump connected to the water system. Pedestal guard.
• Engine hauled out and tested: new injector tips, timing set to spec, compression and oil pressure checked. Converted to fresh water cooling. An engine monitor I built for temperatures, oil pressure, coolant level and so on. Engine beds rebuilt, new engine mounts.
• Cabin table with a gas lift. All new cabin cushions and cockpit cushions.
• New navigation computer in an IP68 box with my baseboard. 12 V outlets.
• 6-gallon water heater, shower controller and thermostatic valve, LPG valve controller and LPG leak alarm.
• A sail pack for the main.
• Trucked from Lake Travis to a boatyard in Dickinson, TX, with a way out to Galveston Bay and the Gulf.
• Bottom paint stripped, hundreds of small blisters and a few dozen medium ones fixed. Two deep delaminations at the waterline re-glassed. The smashed front of the keel ground out and rebuilt.
• 40-year-old bronze gate valves replaced with Marelon ball valve thru-hulls. Its own thru-hull for the HVAC, plumbed with no air lock. Cockpit drains now go straight down, hoses crossed so they can't backflood. A 1-square-foot lightning ground plate.
• Barrier coat, three coats of TotalBoat Spartan, topsides in Alexseal two-part polyurethane.
• Mast cleaned and coated with Nyalic, mast wiring replaced, radar bracket, new LED steaming light and masthead tricolor/anchor light.
• Raw water strainer, new cutless bearing, PSS dripless seal, prop and shaft cleaned and polished with Lanocote. Rudder skin repaired, lower rudder bearing rebuilt, strut tightened and re-glassed, rudder stuffing box repacked.
• Boat moved to Kemah Boardwalk Marina.

Of course, the list never ends. Still waiting for later: a safety strap so the engine and LPG lids stay with the boat. The centerboard crack (not critical, the ballast is lead pellets in epoxy), the sloppy pivot that knocks when the boat rolls, and the lift line pipe. The front chainplate with the ripped pin. A loud buzzer on the engine alarm lamps. Epoxying the wood joints between the bulkhead pieces.

Since February 2026

November 2026:

• Installed AIS transponder on 6' pole at the transom.
• Added night mode to main breaker panel to dim indicator LEDs.
• Radar installed.
• Installed 25 A charger for inverter battery.
• Mast lightning grounding connected and wire hidden over wooden trim.
• New mainsail.
• New standing rigging installed.
• Helm navigation station designed, made and installed.
• Marine ELCI replaces domestic GFCI module.
• Variable speed fresh water pump installed.
• Electric fresh water toilet installed.
• Refrigerator compressor replaced with DC model.
• Refrigerator smart thermostat designed, made and installed.
• Refrigerator lid designed, made and installed.
• New outhaul setup.
• 4 reefs installed, new reef lines and boom winches.
• Windlass motor replaced for brand new.
• Anchor shackles replaced.

Everything that's better than the original

The full list of what's better than when Vira left the factory now lives on its own page: Upgrades log. I keep adding to it.