Heat wave
Rough day in the boatyard today. Temperatures in Richmond hit 105 at our house, in the boat in Deltaville it felt the same. Might be the closest I've come to having a real heatstroke. At one point I just laid down on the cabin sole with the battery powered fan on my chest aimed at my face.
While I thought I was struggling with the heat, a British gentleman walked by and while chatting I learned that not only did they live on the boat currently on the hard with no air conditioning but they were having to take their entire deck off to re-core, yikes.
Common Sabre 28 issue, the compression post sits on a "step" under the floor which gets water into it for various reasons and rots. Then the mast pumps up and down causing all kinds of mischief.
Marked for cutting
Rotten wood. Not sure why they didn't cap this from the factory, or just seal it entirely, there is a hold drilled through for bonding wires to the keel...odd choice.

Step removed completely. Will let the area dry for a week or so before I build a new step.
After removing the chain plates and the compression step I moved on to removing the propeller shaft. The stuffing box (keeps water from coming into the boat around the propeller shaft) looked rough and I wanted to service or replace it. The issue I found was that the propeller shaft was stuck in the flange mounted to the transmission.
The flange. I tried to drill out the bolt that holds the shaft in the flange but that made no difference. In the end I had to cut this flange into three pieces to get it off.