Today, with my wife providing the critical extra set of hands required, I installed the ports and deadlights.  I used my habitual butyl rubber caulk for the deadlights and polysulfide for the opening ports.  Before beginning, I covered the decks with plastic to keep them clean, prepared job materials, and unscrewed the deadlight frames, carefully arranging the screws in their proper sequence on a piece of paper for future installation.

As usual, installing the first deadlight was the worst part of the process, but I quickly refreshed my memory as to the best way to proceed, which meant that the remaining three deadlights went more smoothly.  The key to ease of installation is to use two (temporary) longer screws (with nuts threaded on) to capture the outer frame first, usually at the extreme upper and opposite lower corners; tightening the nuts after bottoming out the long screws pulls the ports frames together.  Aligning the remaining screws tends to be straightforward thereafter, as is removing the two bolts and replacing them with their proper screws.

Installing the small ports was uneventful and without problem.

Once all the ports were in, I released Heidi from her slave labor and spent the next hour alone cleaning up the excess caulk and other mess.

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