My good luck continued.... While digging around the bottom of Circadian's chain locker I discovered a ratcheting windlass handle, much to my delight. The reason for my excitement was that I needed one to operate the new windlass manually in case of electrical failure and they haven't been made in decades. They are extremely rare as a consequence. After repeatedly checking ebay, I finally found only one, and they wanted $140 for it!
I also found some spare rigging fittings, among which were exactly the right pieces to replace the ones that had been lost in shipment! They were used, but appeared to be fine. It was only 7 am and I was already a happy boy!I arrived at the swapmeet about 8:45 and there was already a good crowd. My good luck continued: right across from my spot were the guys from the Beta Marine dealer (They're with the yellow truck in the photo.), so I could conveniently walk over and get the supplies I needed to change the oil, filters, impeller, etc. on Circadian's' 50 hp Beta diesel.
I also was able to get a very large stainless steel shackle that I'd been having trouble finding from the guy next to me. He's one of two professional swapmeeters I see at every swap meet. His prices are high and he's a real bull shitter who'll say almost anything to make a sale. But, any port in a storm, as they say. While the shackle was no bargain, it was a reasonable price. I sold a few items, mostly minor, and as usual, what you do sell is not what you expected would go. By 11:30 the crowd was starting to thin, and I figured I had sold everything I was going to sell. I packed up, grabbed a sandwich from the concession benefiting the Spaulding Boat Works and then walked across the street to have a quick look at the shop at Spaulding. It's rarely open to the public, so I took advantage of the opportunity. They are a non-profit that is keeping wooden boat building alive through a school and the restoration of classic wooden boats. Lin and Larry Pardey donated the wooden molds for all the custom bronze castings for Taliesin to them.
I had a long drive ahead of me, I'd been up since oh-dark-thirty and still had to unload and put away a truck load of gear at home, so I hit the road about 1:30. I was home by late afternoon. I unloaded the truck, had something to eat and made an early night of it.
By the time I had the wiring secured, it was getting late in the afternoon and, because something in that salad apparently disagreed with me, I was feeling drained in more ways than one. I test fit the hardwood hawse pipe and marked a few places where I needed to saw some more cutouts. Finally, I cleaned up the worst of the mess, buttoned up and headed home. I was exhausted, but happy to have achieved a major milestone. I also found a second ratcheting winch handle while doing the installation. More good luck! It was definitely time to buy a lottery ticket!
To run it while she was 6 feet above the ground required getting cooling water to the raw water intake, but not under pressure which can cause damage. So, I brought a large bucket into which I inserted a garden hose supplying water and the engine's raw water intake hose which I managed to disconnect from the seacock without too much trouble. I had equipped the end of the garden hose with a shut off valve so I could control the volume of water in the bucket from the engine room. I filled the bucket and then tried starting the engine. It started right up, ran perfectly for a few seconds and then quit. This pattern was repeated several times. Had to be a fuel problem. I went through the bleeding procedure; no change in results. Finally I noticed that the shut-off valve below the auxiliary fuel filter was closed. Duh! Ran perfectly once that was opened. Ran it for about 15 minutes to warm it up and get everything lubed. I decided a running engine was a milestone worthy of a nice lunch at Cuttings Wharf, so after cleaning up I headed over there.
I thought I might have been really lucky and found some stainless chimney pipe for the Dickinson stove I bought on ebay, but it was the wrong size. I did get a good book for Carol, "Tips From Women Onboard." Lots of good ideas and infomation, much of which wouldn't occur to men. By 8:15 I was sure that I had seen it all, and headed over to Emeryville where there was to be another swap meet at 9 am. It turned out no one showed up, so I had a nice breakfast at the Can't Fail Cafe and hit the road.
By 4 pm I was done in more ways than one and headed home.
While I waited for the various layers to cure, I did laundry, polished brass oil lamps, cleaned up the recently arrived old Dickinson cabin heater, and drank excessive quantities of Cabernet.
I had the lumber yard cut a new plywood core to size on their panel saw to ensure a straight and square cut. I laminated a layer of heavy glass roving to what would become the underside of the hatch. After the resin cured, I ground off the excess around the edges and rounded the edges of the top side with the router.
Next, I stapled strips of fiberglass I had previously fabricated to the edges of the plywood. These would be the base for subsequent layers of glass that would form the two-inch lip around the hatch. 
I laid the heavy roving over the plywood, mixed up a batch of laminating resin and squeegeed it on. It turned out that using the heavy roving for the first layer was a mistake. It was too stiff to make the 90 degree bend over the edges even though the corners had been rounded off. I had hoped that when the resin got to the tacky stage it would stick enough to hold the roving in place. No such luck. I ended up pressing the roving against the lip using boards covered in polyethylene, but that simply resulted in pushing the roving away from the top of the plywood around the edges. I'll try remedying that by injecting resin into the gaps. If that doesn't work, I'll have to grind off the unadhered roving and use additional layers of the more flexible cloth to compensate.
Then I went below to work out of the wind and rain. Running the heavy double-ought cable the full length of the cabin required drilling pairs of one-inch holes through bulkheads and partitions in lockers of various configurations and sizes, all of which forced me into contortions and made it impossible to get good leverage on the drill. It turns out that fiberglass that has had 35 years to cure gets pretty hard, too! Even getting the cable through the holes and lockers required a lot of awkward muscling.
I still had to mount the big fuse in the engine compartment and eventually connect the cable to the batteries, but I didn't want to do that in the rain, since the engine compartment leaked. That should be pretty straightforward, though, and it would be much easier to do with the cover open and more light on nicer day. 