On Thursday, I managed to squeeze a day out of the holiday visits to install one of the new ABI ports. It was clear as I worked through the problems of its installation that ABI had intended to simply screw the port into the cabin side from the inside; convenient and easy, but definitely not engineered for the strength to sustain the impact of a large wave or knockdown. In order to do a proper through-bolt installation, I had to drill the bolt holes at the bottom at an angle to allow room for the nuts to clear the angled flange.
I had only enough time to put the butyl tape around the flange as I did for the Ta Chiao ports (see November 1 post) and tighten down the bolts. Fortunately, with the larger bolts (1/4 inch), I could compress the butyl enough that the clamps were only necessary to hold the port in place while I drilled the bolt holes and inserted the bolts. If you look carefully at the interior photo, you can see where the butyl has self-welded and squeezed out around the inside mounting flange. You can also see that the port looks like it is mounted high inside; however, that is where it must be for proper exterior placement.
When the next dry work day comes up, I'll insert more butyl into the gap between the port and the cabin side and add the redundant 3M 4000 sealant. 
Best wishes for a wonderful new year!
The ABI ports are beautiful heavy cast and polished bronze, but a challenge to install because of the downward-slopping flange, height that allowed no margin for error when placing them, and the two different radii for the top and bottom corners (See October 25 post). My basic plan was to follow the method that worked for the Ta Chiao ports (See November 1 post.), but this one would be a bit trickier.
But no matter what type of jig is set up, a hand jig saw is not a precision machine tool. The blade is held only at one end, so it tends to flex, especially when cutting at an angle through thick hard material like fiberglass. So I wasn't surprised that one of my cuts was less than perfect. I had anticipated some careful grinding would be required back in October when I made my test panel cut-out. Alternate grinding and trial fitting eventually got the job done. It also turned out that I was about 1/8 of an inch too high in my placement of the cutout, so I had to grind away a bit of glass on an interior stringer where the ceiling meets the cabin wall. Not difficult; just very messy, throwing fiberglass dust everywhere. 
With the cutout completed, I epoxied the exposed edge of the plywood liner and filled the gap between the liner and the fiberglass with epoxy putty. I had hoped to get the port installed and sealed up by the end of day on Sunday, but I was running out of daylight fast. I set up an infrared heat lamp to try to speed up the curing of the epoxy.
To secure the stove firmly, but still allow it to be released easily when necessary to swing when the boat is heeled at sea, I installed a barrel bolt forward on the side where there was room and improvised a polished stainless toggle aft using a backing plate from a u-bolt for the side where there wasn't clearance for a barrel bolt. After seeing that Worst Marine wanted $50-$60 (!) for a stainless or bronze barrel bolt, I looked for a more reasonable alternative and found a solid brass barrel bolt the right size for $6 at the local hardware store. Even if it corrodes in just a couple of years, it would be a cheap and easy thing to replace.
Next was installing the saloon table extension leaf that was finished. That was simple, quick, satisfying, and a long time coming. The table saga goes back to early October when I worked on salvaging the corroded, 
I'll install the other extension leaf as soon as it's "finished."
It was a real treat to do something useful and satisfying that was free of trials and tribulations. I wound up the day by digging out a couple of old GPS units that came with Circadian for later testing at home. After buttoning up everything, I drove back home through a heavy rain.
I removed the teak doors from the aft cabin companionway so they wouldn't get damaged as the monster genset swung around. We padded other vulnerable areas with plywood, carpeting and blankets. Dennis, who was paying for the crane to re-step his mast, helped Scott and me prep for the big hoist. We rigged tackles to control the position of the big genset as it was eased up and around the overhanging aft end of the doghouse. Once the crane arrived, it only took a few minutes to hoist the monster out and set it on the back of Scott's flatbed truck.
It all went without a hitch...until I started Circadian's engine to bring her back to her berth. 
Of course I also had to do a bit of grinding, this time on the top of the post cover to fit it around a ring on the ceiling moulding. (Nothing fits the first time on a boat.) The final result, though, was a very snug fit: absolutely no movement or rattles when you jerk on the new attached grab handle.
I also tried out my new screw extractors on the broken-off old bronze screws that secure the teak hatch hinges. They worked great. Very cleverly, the saw teeth are designed to cut counter-clockwise, so it encourages the screw remnants to come right out as you make the surrounding circular cut.
I glued dowel pieces (which didn't need to match since they will be covered by the hinge) into the resulting holes and then trimmed them flush with a chisel. You can see in the photo that it's not as clean as what the flush-cut saw would have done, but I couldn't use the flush-cut saw because of the recess for mounting the hinge flush with the wood surface. Again, it won't be visible, so as long as it's a strong joint, it doesn't need to be elegant.
The old generator is still sitting in cockpit waiting for a break in the weather so it can be removed. The prospects for the coming weekend don't look good at the moment, with yet another storm moving in later in the week. Looks like I won't be able to tackle the next port installation for a while either. Ah well, there's always something that can be done!
The rest was basically nervous pulling on the chain hoist and tugging on the genset while I tried to keep the wobbling post and beam stable (... to the accompaniment of a great deal of gratuitous grunting, groaning, complaining and cursing) until the heavy genset was resting on the cockpit engine cover I had built back in May. It was reassuring to see that it could hold an estimated 800-900 lbs without protest (genset plus two big guys).
Next step will be trying screw extractors to saw a hole around the broken bit and screws, then plugging the hole with a piece of dowel, and finally drilling a new pilot hole in the dowel. Sounds good in theory. Stay tuned to see how it works in practice.
On Wednesday I ground the new glass close to flat and flush, using a straight edge to find and mark the high spots. 
I got to wear my new Wes Cravens designed grinding outfit, hoping to mostly avoid the infamous fiberglass itch.
Next followed three cycles of filling the low spots with Microlite putty and fairing it flush and flat with the manual sanding board (torture board). A foot-wide $3 plastic smoothing tool was a great help in applying the putty flat and smooth across the entire area.
The rain predicted for Thursday was delayed, so I was able cut out the holes for the new ports using my big hole saw and new jig saw. As anyone who's done it will tell you, cutting big holes in your boat, even above the waterline, is always traumatic. "Measure twice, cut once" was a mantra I repeated over and over. Careful use of drilling and cutting guides helped it go smoothly.
Cut-outs showed that my laminations were good: no gaps, all the mat layers fully saturated with resin A little grinding to round the inner edges and the ports slid into the new holes perfectly. Whew!! I coated the newly-exposed edges of the plywood interior liner with epoxy so it wouldn't absorb water and rot in the event of (Heaven forbid!) a leak. While I waited for the epoxy to cure, I cut and applied butyl tape to a porthole flange. In addition to the flat cut pieces of butyl around the outer flange, I added a strip around the corner where the inner and outer flanges meet at a 90 degree angle. The theory was that it would squeeze out between the inner flange and the edge of the hole, resulting in a good seal. 
The individual butyl pieces welded to each other nicely, and the excess squeezed out between the flange and the hole as I had hoped. 
Of course some also sqeezed out around the inside mounting flange on the cabin side, but that was easily removed simply by cutting around the flange with sharp knife and lifting off the excess.
At this point, the epoxy around the hole on the shady side still wasn't cured, it was getting late, the rain was coming in, and I was beat-all good reasons to call it a day and head home.
On the other side (the piece that will be screwed on during installation) I mounted a teak grab handle. No, I didn't make it. At twelve bucks (even at Worst Marine), it wasn't worth the time. 
The next morning, after the glue had set, I trimmed the protruding bungs flat using a flushcut saw. 
I find it works better than using the usual chisel method. Even with a sharp chisel and thin cuts, I usually end up with some of the bungs breaking off below the surface. The flushcut saw doesn't scratch the surface and results in the bung trimmed so close to the surface that normal finish sanding is enough to make it perfect. Finally, finish sanding of the post cover pieces, and between-coats sanding of the varnish on the table parts. Last thing Saturday was to apply varnish all around.
With some white plastic caps to cover the protruding nuts and bolts, it will be a pretty clean installation. I cleaned up the week's mess (well, mostly), and called it a good week.