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Cutlass Bearing
Cockpit Floor After giving the old cockpit floor a good clean it was clear that all the original varnish had gone but it wasn't too bad to throw away so instead I decided to epoxy coat and cover with an off cut of vinyl sign material which was water proof (I'd used similar material as a boat cover over the winter). The round inspection hatch which was broken was also replaced.
Auto Bilge pump After previously having the bilges filled with rain water from the leaking cockpit floor I was keen to install an auto bilge pump, maintaining the manual bilge pump as a secondary.
The float switch for the bilge pump is in the forward bilge just in front of the engine. I put it here for easy access so I could regularly test the switch. The pump has a three way switch - manual, off and auto and is connected directly through a waterproof fused connection to one of the batteries. With the addition of the wind generator and solar trickle charger I'm not too worried about the battery running down, plus I've fixed the leaky floor. New Instrumentation I removed the old Speed, Trim and Depth logs off the original instrument panel as the dials were not working, but kept the wind indicator which still seemed to be functioning.
The NASA depth which had been installed from the previous owner was moved from inside the cockpit (why would you put it there !) to the external display. The old speed transducer was replaced with a New NASA Transducer which was a slightly smaller diameter with than the original so the excess was filled with epoxy filler, then strengthened with epoxy/fiberglass tape internally.
Boarding Ladder The boarding ladder is secured to a small length of oak which is epoxied and screwed onto the toe rail.
Interior Refurbishment Welcome to the forward cabin pleasure dome ! The sides were painted with International Rustic Red Toplac (2 Coats), the ceiling with International Brightside Clipper White (3 Coats), the anchor locker with International Danboline white bilge paint (2 Coats). The centre piece was covered with some spare kitchen vinyl flooring in a nice beech effect. My mum made all the cushion (THANKS MUM), the mattresses were made out of 2" memory foam off cuts off ebay for 1 UK Pound !, cushions courtesy of Ikea as are the great storage pods shown in the right hand picture below; it's amazing what you can find in the kis section of Ikea !
Rutland 503 Wind Generator Details to follow.
Raymarine ST2000 Tillerpilot Details to follow.
Lewmar ST16 winches A well known UK magazine described a winch replacement as a 2 hour job, obviously he has never tried changing 40 year old winches on a Contessa ! It tool me about 2 hours to get each old winch off, then I had to fill the old holes as the new lewmar did not line up, another hour or two fixing up the backing plates and another hour or two putting in each new winch.
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I
deliberately had an excess length of vinyl around the cockpit floor so I
could trim this to the exact length I needed when the floor was put back
down. 
Then
topped off with using some excellent 2 UKpound door mats cut to size and
fitted tightly to keep the trimmed vinyl oushed up tight to the side of
the cockpit floor.
Picture to be
added
