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Hi Scott,

If I haven't already (it's been a looong year), welcome, and
congratulations on the new-to-you sailboat.

Deep Blue Yacht Supply seems to have a good selection of cutlass bearings:



From that, 3-6".

You can pull it yourself. Major hurdels are getting the prop clear of
the rudder, the shaft out, then the bearing out.

Do not use a "slide hammer" or any kind of hammer for any of those
steps. Cracks around my abused prop tube were leaking, I had to haul
out for that, and the repair is now no where near "new". A slide
hammer can easily ruin your transmission too.

A gear puller may be able to pull the prop off the shaft but if can
clear the rudder (with some finagling), just leave it on the shaft.
Removing the transmission coupler from the shaft is harder. I can dig
up a link if you like, but the method for removing the shaft involves
getting long bolts and a socket the same size as the shaft or so. You
unbolt the coupler, remove the bolts, put the socket (which is only
used to take up space to force the shaft out) in front of the shaft,
put the longer bolts in, and start tightening them round-robin to
force the shaft out. It's a huge pain.

There are pullers for the cutlass bearing. You could probably
fabricate something too. You want to pull outwards, pulling against
the inner edge of the bronze tube body of the bearing. If you don't
want to buy or fabricate something to do that, call around and find a
mechanic that has one in your size.

If shaft vibration is noticeable, putting it off would not be ideal.
Otherwise can't say if blocking it with the zinc is a good idea.

Likewise on the nasty bilge. My own finding was that there was no
substitute for a little scrubbing. I used acetone and alcohol in
various places when prepping surfaces (cleaning the bilge floors
before putting more fiberglass over where someone put screws all the
way through the fiberglass in the bottom of the bilge to screw a bilge
pump down... one step forward, ten steps back... for example) but a
strong soap detergent probably works as well. Letting it sit and soak
helps. Because some scrubbing action is required, uneven places in
the fiberglass won't clean up easily. A good assortment of brushes
including toilet brushes helps. I saw one recommendation for steam
cleaning to deal with that.

Please don't pump overboard. The bilge pump discharge line can be
re-routed to empty containers to go to hazard waste or whatever is
recommend. I did a lot of wetvac'ing. Guess if you're on land now,
not pumping overboard is the default.

Help that helps!

Cheers,
-scott