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Chrome looks nice and shiny and is initially slightly lower maintenance. to keep looking good.  Bronze will almost certainly be what's under the chrome so if  you intend to keep them for many years or are off on a circumnavigation you  may prefer not to have a chrome layer that will eventually wear and need re-chroming.  However Bronze will need *some* polishing to help it develop a patina rather than a load of blue verdigris.  You wouldn't want to keep polishing it bright. too much work, too much wear.  The bronze ones are probably lacquered so they start nice and shiny. It wont last and as the lacquer wears through they will look pretty bad.
Alloy will probably be cheaper, will be lighter and less durable. However I have some bottom acting Gibb alloy winches that the drums haven't worn out yet although the bearings are pretty bad and they are somewhere around 40 years old.
If you are a dedicated racer and your prevailing wind comes off a dune field, desert or other source of fine dust, *DONT* get alloy winches. ;-)  The  repeated abrasion when trimming will wear the drums fairly quickly. A hard chrome finish would hold up best under that sort of abuse but even that is going to need rechroming regularily.

I have an original UK C026 and I have yet to find *any* spinny winches that would fit the existing pedestals on the coaming. Everything is at least 1/2" too big across the base.  I have had it suggested to me that I should get an adaptor plate made with countersunk holes and machine screws from underneath into the fixing holes of the new winch and drilled and tapped to the old bolt circle so studs can be inserted  to bolt it down by using the old holes.  If your access *sucks*, or the bolt circle is larger or is too close to the old holes for safety and you don't want to rebuild the pedestal, you may want to consider this.  A 1/2" stainless or bronze plate drilled and tapped as described would be no weaker than bolting it direct for any reasonable size winch. It might be possible to go down to 3/8" but I'd not go thinner.

The Primaries are much larger, with a 4 1/2" base and I could fit just about any winch I liked there but they are in pretty good condition and the captive bottom acting handles can never get lost overboard.
The lack of self tailing isn't too bad as I don't usually race so aren't constantly trimming and with a bottom acting non geared winch, its easy to use both hands for the power stroke while tailing with one hand on the return stroke.  I *might* treat my ageing  crew to longer handles for them for a bit more leverage.

If I offended you I'm sorry, but the ****ing thing was with reference to the misbehaviours a towed dinghy is capable of.

There is NO good solution as stowage for a reasonably capable tender s difficult on any 26' boat, let alone more traditional designs like ours, Inflatables are really awkward to rig and stow when working  aboard a Contessa 26 in often less than ideal conditions and a towed dinghy overtaking you in rough weather may seriously hazard any crew in the cockpit at the time.

Expect to have to cut a towed dinghy loose at some time in your sailing career to protect the mother vessel.  If you aren't very good *and* very lucky, expect to loose more than one!

Maybe if there was some way of voting spammers off?  If all users who've been here more than 3 months and made more than 10 posts got a 'this is spam' button when we read a new post, which could be used to remove the offending post if  enough of us click it.  Get three posts voted as spam within a week and that user gets deleted as well.  If the votes required are carefully chosen to be an appropriate proportion of the usual daily visitors, there would be virtually no risk of abuse.

Also if the *same* message is posted to three or more forums during their first 24 hours membership they are a cut & paste spammer and the best solution is to auto-wipe their posts and account.  You'd also need to ban the IP address.  It would be best to delay the wipe five minutes or so so they *think* its worked and  dont work out how to defeat it,

Remember, Spammers are Stupid, so it doesn't take much to program the server to be more intelligent than them . . . .

I presume you have a JJ taylor boat.  If you have a J Rogers boat, I had a similar problem when the surveyor was tapping around and the casting on the keel for the pin on the rudder heel broke.  I was lucky enough to be able to buy the last raw bronze casting Jeremy had left from the original production and had that machined and pinned and glassed in place.  My rudder is solid hardwood so the heel pin is on a stainless strap and the badly corroded pin was replaced by a local stainless shop.

If its any help to anyone, I saved all the parts of the broken casting and it wouldn't be too tough to epoxy it together well enoughand build up surfaces that will need machining,  make a mold and then just about any foundry that does one offs or art bronzes could make one. 

Unfortunately I am in London UK so even if you have a J  Rogers boat, if you are stateside, it isn't worth pursuing this unless you are desperate .

R&D 800-037 Super Mounts (the smallest with a proper oil shield)
The  engine no longer hits the engine box! (Though I had to repair the lid and make a cutout in the reinforcing sheet of ply I added to its bottom to clear the highest point of the rocker cover.)

Got a Yanmar 1GM10 in Kazbek with the original non self draining cockpit sole. 
The engine is basically inside the cabin with the bell housing and gearbox under the cockpit.  I have had to do some work on the engine beds and I can categorically state there is NO WAY that it could have been mounted any further aft on the standard mounts.

(Its on some aftermarket ones now as the standard ones had totally failed and I decided I was willing to trade vibration at idle for shielded mounts proof against disintegrating  if a trace of fuel or oil gets on them which would also give me more stable shaft alignment.)

The amount of engine box in the cabin is quite large, but as my galley and chart table are by the companionway, its a usefull seat and worksurface.

To improve the clearance between the air filter and the corner of the cockpit sole with the cabin rear bulkhead at the companionway,  its both possible and easy to mount the air filter baseplate upsidedown (Its held by two bolts to the intake, with the hole off centre in the baseplate) which buys you several inches of vertical clearance but  you then have to be carefull where you point the intake on the filter housing so you can still get at the two latches.

Access is otherwise acceptable and I can get to any external part of the engine with a spanner or socket though if one has anything major to do from the bell housing on back, one is best off pulling the engine. (goes up the companionway easily enough on a halyard with a tackle fore and aft to control it's swing).  I've even got enough space to get a paint tray under it to catch any oil and small parts or tools while doing maintenance

If the tight access is really a major problem, one could remote the oil filter and the primary (on engine) fuel filter though  Yanmar might not be too happy from a warrenty point of view

Idle and dead slow are  somewhat similar to sitting next to a car with  a tricked out sound system at the lights: Thump ... Thump ... Thump ... with the backstays and shrouds rattling but one only runs at idle for a short time when manouvering in a marina or if you need engine backup for a harbour entrance.  At sensible throttle settings  the noise and vibration is acceptable even with no sound insulation.  There are a couple of resonances, but one just doesn't run at those engine speeds, a touch faster or slower and everything is fine.

I've got 300 hours on it this season since a major rebuild (it was over 20 years old)  with no significant trouble and on flat water, I get  6 knots flat out and 5.5 knots thottled back a little to a speed it can keep up all day

There are three things that a 1GM10 owner needs to keep an eye on besides what's in the manual.  The exhaust elbows corrode through internally and dump water into the exhaust port which *will* wreck your cylinder head if left.  When laying up, remove the exhaust  hose and cooling hoze from the elbow when laying up, preferably with the engine still warm, look up the elbow with a mirror to check for excessive corrosion (a torch down the spigot for the water hose may help spot pinholes, but *any* flaky rust isn't to be trusted), give it some good anti corrosion spray and tape a plastic bag over the openings with a fresh silica gel sachet inside.  Remove the air filter. inspect, spray the housing and base plate, and re-fit then bag the intake the same way. Use the hand crank and the decompression lever to leave the  piston at TDC on the power stroke so both valves are closed (a good policy if leaving the engine for a couple of weeks even if not laying up).  The elbow is a wear item and is *much* cheaper than a top end rebuild. If in continuous commission, check the elbow at least twice a year and if suspect, for heavens sake pull it and inspect it on the bench.  If you have low compression or excessive oil consumption, the chances are the head is rotted out due to the elbow having previously failed and nothing having been done about it.

The water pump also tends to suffer from shaft seal problems, especially in silty water.  There is a massive weep hole so as long as you keep it clean, ther is no real risk of water in the oil, but there is a steel oil line running accross the front of the engine under the pump and any drips of salt water *will* eat this pipe and if left will result in total loss of engine oil when you least want it!  I got a copper one made up using the steel one as a pattern so any future drips will do much less damage.  Apparently the water seal cant handle the chamber pressure if there is too much clearance on the rotor ends and grooves the shaft.  As there isn't a replaceable wear plate, that means a new pump though a new rotor and replacing both shaft seals with a large diameter narrow  fibre washer under the water seal to moove the lip along the shaft a touch clear of the wear groove will buy you a season or two.   

The remaining trouble is corrosion from water weeps from the thermostat gasket and Zinc anode gasket.  Keep any salt crystals washed off and  wiped dry, replace the gaskets, using a good brand of gasket dressing if there are more than traces or if you've opened them and use a good anti corrosion spray or brush on (WD40 isn't good enough and is a waste of time - you dont have an iceing problem)

Keep on top of that lot and  with the standard maintenance in the manual you'll have no trouble in the spring or during the season and the engine will probably out last you - its basically pretty bulletproof..

Jeremy Rogers designed 'em with a substantial shoe casting at the back edge of the keel with a pin on the bottom of the rudder.

  I know it was original as after 40 years, ours had de-zinced and we phoned Jeremy for ideas.  He said he'd seen one around his yard somewhere and after he'd looked it out and sorted out a price with us, we duly received a NOS 'factory fresh' casting,  only needing the pivot hole bored and holes for the retaining pins through the keel. I  belive it was probably the last spare one in the country so anyone else will need to get a pattern made and get one cast.  Its not really a job you want a stainless fabrication for  as if it got bent it could jam the rudder.  I suppose it could be made that way, but I'd be concerned as well by crevice corrosion. 

The pivot pin on the rudder protrudes enough and the pivot hole is high enough on the heel casting to amount to about 2" clearence for the bottom of the rudder from a level surface so unless you are daft enough to reverse into a (or dry out on) a rock its pretty well  protected.

There are only two pintles in through bolted (with GRPed in nuts) gudgeons on the hull, one just above the prop and the other high up on the transom.  The  rudder itself is solid wood, probably teak.

Well If I had *that* job to do, I'd cut a small hole and pressure wash it after pumping it out with the pumpout still running.  Then temporily plug the hole, (putty, some plastic board and self-tappers) fill with disinfectant and soak a couple of days.  After a rinse or two, it shouldn't be too nasty to work on so cut a decent sized access hatch (sized for a commercially available tank access port), then get on with it.  When its all done and tested for watertightness, fit a test tap at the lowest point of the tank then fit a bladder inside it.  Alternatively, cut the whole top off and fit a rotomolded plastic tank in the space.

Still got the 'Typhoid Mary' water tank to fix, been working out of a bladder all season. At least *MY* tank is pretty clean at the moment.

I actually was forced to *buy* and *use* silicone sealant this year :-(
Unfortunately I needed to reseal the astrodome and if you are sealing acrylic plastic, you CANNOT use any sealent that has any solvents in the formula or it will craze your plastic. Silicone is the official reccomendation  Bloody horrible stuff to work with if you want a neat finish, and getting the suface prep good enough so it actually sticks properly is a bitch.

Generally speaking  I like a good butyl (rubber) mastic or a polysulfide sealent for above waterline stuff.  I used to be able to buy a butyl mastic called Farocalk.  Unfortunately the company went under and you can no longer get it. Might have something to do with it having a useable shelf life of about ten years and several years after opening.  Fortunately there are alternative brands but they dont sell it in the retail marine marketplace

Most of the modern sealents are only useable for a few months after opening however carefully you re-seal the tube and even if you keep them in a ziploc bag in the fridge with a sachet of silica gel.  If you just put the cap back or plug the nozzle, it will set in the tube and you'll be lucky if you find any thats still useable a month later even if you rip the bottom out. 

Under the water this year I've been using one of the multitude of Sikaflex products.  I probably haven't chosen the best one for the job, but the need to 'git er done' and local avalibility wone out.

Remember they dont call it 'silly-con' sealent for nothing . . . .

That's funny. I've been using Captain Tolley's creeping crack cure for a fair number of years and I've never heard of Captain Jacks. I am most definately UK based. Its NOT a cure-all as it needs a fairly fine crack to do its stuff and you DONT want spills of it sitting around as it attracts dirt but it has a permanent place on board as it is a great 'quick fix' that will get you through the season till you can fix the leak that was dripping on your bunk / chart table / locker of kit properly without giving up sailing time.  Yeah, you may need to add a little more after a couple of months, but that still better than raindrops falling on your face . . .

As to loose cap rails etc., I am not looking forward to dealing with them as realistically, about 50% of our ones need replacement, not just rebedding :-(  If anyone has tackled this on an early J. Rodgers boat, I'd appreciate hearing about any surprises and cautions.