Looking good

 Inside cleaned up and everything refitted. Looks clean and tidy. Not a spectacular difference from before but we know its fresher and cleaner ... the camera cants not the boat! The most obvious difference is the deckhead boards, all fixed and no gaps. Over the years the movement of these boards between winter and summer appeared to be less. Time will tell if the looks are preserved or whether repainting the deckhead becomes an annual winter job.

Winter work

Visited Ada to fit the new alternator ... 75amp replacing 55 amp. Went in almost without a hitch! One of the old terminations was a spade connection. I had made up a short link to convert it to a ring but fitted to the wrong terminal at home so when the engine was started the charging light did not go out and the rev counter was not working. A quick check established the error and once corrected all working well.
Whilst doing this upgrade discovered why the Sterling alternator regulator I fitted never worked. The instruction for this include fitting a wire to B- or the alternator case. I fitted it to the case. I now understand that marine alternators usually have insulated return ... the case is not negative! I may adapt the new alternator to use the regulator but, as it is difficult to get to the batteries use it only when planning to stop for more that 2 nights.
Cleaned the bilge with the wet and dry vacuum and topped up coolant and gear box oil (this last was necessary because the RCR engineer allowed oil to pump out with the engine running whilst replacing the selector arm oil seal).

Winter jobs

Normally we do our own engine servicing but this year we had a RCR service and concluded that in future years we will continue to do it ourselves. He did not have a tool to release the fuel fiter and I provided the new oil filter but he did show me how to replace the oil seal on the selector arm of the PRM 150 gear box. We joined RCR because we realised that if we had a problem that we could not fix then finding an engineer to come out to the boat would be difficult.
Pre New Year we repainted the interior and refurbished the hardwood window, vent and door trims. The deckhead is tongue and grove planks and these had shrunk since first painted, in some places opening a gap between the tongue and groove. Planks were repositioned using a block of wood and a big hammer and shrinkage gaps were filled with decorators chaulking before painting with water based acrylic paint... we'll see how it survives the warm summer months!
Having stripped off all the fittings before repainting, putting back every thing has taken 2 days and still needs another half day. We'll leave a final clean and floor scub until the spring but already the boat interior looks smarter and cleaner.