The heater kept it warm enough to do work in the middle of winter. A working bilge pump was the number one priority. There was all kinds of disgusting crud in the bilges. The cabin had to stay buttoned up to keep the heat in, and stirring up the bilge water made the odor unbearable without a mask.
A repeated cycle of manually pumping the bilge water out, pouring warm fresh water into the bilge, scrubbing the bilge area with a toilet brush and soap, and pumping the water out again eventually made it bearable to work in the enclosed cabin. It was messy, smelly, repulsive work. Eventually the bilge water was nearly as clean enough to work on the bilge pump.
I will be installing a redundant two-bilge pump system as outlined by Don Casey in the BoatUS article, “Installing a Bilge Pump“. The smaller bilge pump sits over the larger, higher capacity pump. As Don Casey says in the last sentence, “An added advantage of this bilge pump configuration is that the high-capacity pump sits high and dry, extending its life indefinitely.” Because it sits lower, the smaller capacity pump is the first to engage. Anything that spills or is dropped in the cabin is likely to end in the lowest part of the bilge. The smaller (and cheaper) bilge pump will be doing most of the work and is likely to burn itself long before the larger pump. If that happens anytime in the next five years the West Marine extended warranty will mean the replacement is free.