These are the things you actually live on: the floor, the cushions and the table. When I bought Vira, all three were tired. By the summer of 2025 all three were new, and I had learned two new trades along the way: woodworking with a table saw and sewing.
The chart table
In July 2023 I came back to the nav table. Originally the whole top opened on a piano hinge, but I'm putting a screen and a dashboard right behind it, so there's no room for it to swing up. It got new hinges.
In November I added a link so the display door can't hit the desk, and screwed the wall that holds the nav table to the desk and the liner.
In January 2024 came the display control buttons, 3D printed.
A new cabin table
The Irwin 34 has a dining table on the port side of the main cabin. What I got was a 40-year-old plywood table with fake teak Formica, chipped in places, scratched all over, and just ugly, especially next to the real teak butcher block in the new galley. Real wood next to fake wood is too much contrast. And the old top had no fiddles to stop things from sliding off.
So on one hand I had an ugly table. On the other hand I had leftovers of a superior teak countertop. The only problem: no single piece was big enough, and the countertop is thick (1-1/2 inch) and heavy for a table. Short story: I sliced countertop pieces into ~5/8 boards and joined them.
Long story: I cut the countertop into 5-inch-wide strips, 1-1/2 inch thick, and resawed each strip on the table saw into two 5/8-inch boards. Then I glued the 5/8 boards into one panel. I DID IT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE! Then I routed it to the size and shape of the original table. Underneath went a 3/4 plywood backer for stability and mounting, bonded with thickened epoxy. Then 1-inch strips around the bottom edge, so it looks about an inch thick and is stiffer. I turned it over and glued on fiddles, about 1/4 x 1/2 inch, and routed all the edges to match the galley countertop. Then the first coat of varnish primer. Looks very nice, doesn't it?
The old table was so worn out that next to the new galley countertop it looked like a piece of... you know. The new one doesn't.
In October 2024 I checked whether it fits as part of the sleeping platform. Nice, isn't it? But when I made it, I did a "little improvement": all the corner radii the same and exact 90° corners. Now I know I should have copied the original exactly. It doesn't sit where it should for the bed. There's a 1/2-inch gap, and the holding ribs are only about 3/4, so it won't sit tight. Lesson learned: in a 40-year-old boat, "improved" geometry doesn't fit anything.
In March 2025 I tried it in the cabin, and suddenly it looked so massive, taking so much space. Maybe the cabin was just full of tools and parts. Or maybe I just didn't want a table.
It went in anyway. In June Maria and I found it a bit low in the up position, so I added spacer plates, another 1.25 inches. It still goes down to make a bed.
Polishing the old floor
In December 2023 I tried lightly sanding a small piece of the stained gelcoat floor under the table, with 350 grit. It came out pretty good. The gelcoat is thick enough to sand and polish again.
In October 2024 the real demolition started: the old teak-and-holly plywood came off the floor. It was mostly delaminated, and about half of it was rotten. My younger son helped a lot. Here's the galley floor in progress, and then the whole floor clear of wood.
The rotten plywood came out of the front cabin first. The original teak-and-holly floor turned out to be just decoration, 1/4 inch thick or even thinner.
In November I cleaned the sealant leftovers off the floor and sanded the gelcoat to a fresh surface, getting rid of "oops" epoxy drops. First round done. I also ground openings in the floor to look at the area around the compression post, ready to re-glass. That afternoon we went sailing: 10–20 knots, upwind at 6.1 knots in 17 knots of wind, heeling 23.8°. Yes, overpowered. But what a break from sanding.
I was still thinking about keeping the original gelcoat on the sole and on the built-in furniture. In 40 years, with my repairs and everyone else's, that white floor had gotten really weathered. But the gelcoat is pretty thick, so I decided to sand, polish and wax it. Easy to say: it took about 10 hours with three sanders and hand blocks, 120, 240, 320, 400, 600. After 600 it's still satin, but really smooth. In a few spots it was too thin, and I went through to the glass. I left them. Where the wood goes, I only sanded with 80 to take off the old glue.
After sanding, I re-glassed the holes I'd cut in the floor to look at the compression post.
Templates, sand bags and vinyl planks
We made brown paper templates, then cut pieces of cheap 1/8-inch MDF wall panel from them, half an inch bigger. Then we fit each one in the boat with a jigsaw and a sander. Easy to say again: 10 to 15 rounds of try, cut, sand, try, for each of the four pieces.
Some gelcoat areas are just too slippery, so they got KiwiGrip non-skid: under the table, the sloped floor in the galley, under the nav desk, by the cabinet in the front cabin, and in the shower.
The floor is STAINMASTER London Sky Oak Gray rigid vinyl plank, 6 mm thick, exactly as thick as the old teak and holly. It took exactly two cartons.
The trick was keeping the planks as one piece. I clicked the floor together on the bench, put masking tape on the top seams, flipped it and put duct tape on the bottom. Then everything stays locked, and you can handle it like a solid board. I cut each piece with a jigsaw a quarter inch big, then routed it exactly to the template. Three hours, and all four pieces were done.
Then the install: lots of masking tape and brown paper, 3M 4200 on the edges and between the pieces, and sand bags. Lots of sand bags: 16 of them, 50 lb each. My neighbors at the marina had fun watching me drag sand bags down the dock. I think some of them still wonder what I was building.
On December 7, 2024 the last pieces went in. The cabin sole was done. Officially.
The same weekend I sanded the gelcoat of the main cabin settee with 120, 220, 320, 400, 600 and 1200, then cleaned and waxed it. It looks like new. Next on the list: cushions, and that table.
Sewing cushions
In February 2025 I re-oiled the galley countertop and worked out the cushion materials: about 20 yards of face fabric and 10 of backing, 7 zippers totaling about 40 feet, and 204 feet (68 yards) of piping.
In April I started. I ordered from Sailrite: 30 yards of Outdura Chesterfield Graphite 54-inch upholstery fabric ($22.95 a yard), a 50-foot #5 YKK molded-tooth zipper chain ($30.90), pulls, top and bottom stops, and Tex 90 Cadet Grey UV polyester thread. The foam came from Foam Factory: a full sheet of 6-inch Lux regular foam, 82 x 76 inches, for $169, for the seats, and a half sheet of 3-inch foam, $43.99, for the settee backs.
Here's the list. Two almost identical 4-inch V-berth cushions, with good foam. The big port U-shaped seat, 6 inches, with fair foam that I'm thinking of replacing. The port cushion over the table, 6 inches, good foam. The starboard settee, which sat over the leaking fuel tank, so its foam was trash. The pilot berth, which came with no cushion at all, so new foam and a template. And the settee backs: I had the original port set, but it had been stored in a wet garage, and the foam was beyond saving. In three of my six cushions the foam was fine, with no smell or mold, so those just got new covers.
I learned how to make cushions from Sailrite's videos, which helped a lot. The V-berth cushions are very similar, but the starboard one has a rounded corner on purpose. One picture, but about 8 hours of work. They still need some steaming. Not bad for the first cushions in my life?
The old cushions were really old, stained and falling apart, so the work went on at home through the spring, a couple of hours almost every afternoon: 6-inch Lux regular foam for the pilot berth and the starboard settee, fabric and zippers from Sailrite.
A tip for cutting thick foam: use an electric knife, mark the line on both sides, and get two people, one holding the motor end and one guiding the tip on the other side. All the panels cut, piping ready, three of six cushions done.
In May 2025 the new cushions were finished. Not perfect, but not too bad for my first upholstery. Here they are in place.
In June came the back cushions on the starboard settee. I removed the side parts of the backrest that used to sit against the bulkhead and the galley cabinets, to get the most usable length, and I'll add drop-in cushions there. The port side was underway.
The cabin table went in on a 3-stage lift leg, so it lowers to make a bed. The leg's control was on top, which meant a hole in the table, and my wife and I hated the idea of an ugly plastic button in the middle of the table. So I removed it and made a control that works from under the top: a piece of 1/4-inch stainless rod with a small plate welded on and a couple of 3D-printed parts, like an office chair. Here's the table in the lowered position. That evening friends and I anchored and soaked in the lake, then had a relaxing sunset sail in 7–10 knots, with the autopilot in charge and some fun on the bow.
Then the settee back cushions were done, and the cabin looks much better. A special word about latches. The originals were just friction catches, so if something heavy is stored in the lockers, it pushes the seat back open and flies across the cabin. Not a good thing at sea. I wanted latches with a positive lock and couldn't find anything that fit, so I designed and 3D printed my own in PETG. Each is three parts (top box, bottom plate and the latch tongue) plus a 0.6 x 6 x 30 stainless compression spring. About 40 g of filament: roughly $1 per latch, $0.80 of filament plus $0.20 for the spring. Here they are assembled, and a couple of sections showing the inside.