In thinking it would be easier to install without the lower pulleys, that never occurred to me.

Should I pull it before the 4200 sets up? Doing it alone, it was a bear of a job I hated to repeat. It looks like the base is removable. Phew! 6 short - small - machine screws are tapped into the bronze base. It comes off(miracle!), and just barely fits through my cut out in the cockpit sole(another miracle!).

I slide the pulleys - all greased up - into their frames. Now, just fit the plate back to the base of the pedestal, way up inside the recess.

Laying in the big starboard cockpit locker, one hand stretched holding the bronze plate with the pulleys and cables attached; the other hand upside down and backwards, guiding the tiny screws, blindly,... toward their holes, I realize this task is not possible. I'm beaten. It's the end of a frustrating day spent largely inside the intimate canals of my boat.

Then I spy a message I've never noticed, on the old middle oak beam supporting the cockpit(I've never 'come in' from this angle).

The hand written message is a little far away, but I can make it out. It says:

"Don't you hate this kind of job?"

'You have no idea, pal',...I'm thinking out loud to the long gone writer that shared one of my boats more intimate spaces.

Then I see there was another visitor and in another hand, a second message was penciled in, that reads:

"Be content with what god gives you. Consider it a challenge".

I'm not religious but I can relate to this second guys resolve. And it was comforting to feel a mysterious company from the past writers, in this tomb of impossible tasks.

Laying there thinking; maybe this message was a clue. You couldn't write the message from where I was. I'm in the wrong place!

Out of the starboard locker and into the manhole over the propellor shaft. Put your legs to each side of the engine, shimmy forward, drop your head, shimmy aft, and,...crikey! There are the messages right in front of me and the base of the pedestal, right over my head! Plate up with my left hand, start the screws with my right - tighten. Done.

That was it for the day. The 4200 kicking off(need to repaint the wood doughnut thanks to acetone), and the last holes in the cockpit sole - 3/4" plugs over steering gear parts - all set in epoxy. That's where I wanted to be: Let it rain, bring on the waves and spray, my cockpit is ready for the sea.