Congratulations and welcome to the group Josh and Marly! I am another new owner who just recently got though the "important" list and recently splashed, and am sure that you will appreciate the abundant information here as well as various owner's blogs like Bill's:
http://j30rhapsody348.blogspot.com which includes engine information like oil changes, zincs, pump impellers and the like.
As far as seacocks go, I had a lot of work to do on Blitz in that regard to meet insurance/survey requirements. I agree with Luke... lots of penetrating oil like PB Blaster or Kroil, though that didn't work in my case. I had good luck with Perko seacock rebuilding which was better than complete removal and refairing, which I also did for another seacock. This still requires getting the top nut off without destroying it, and getting the driver nut (stem nut) out, which can be destroyed if need be. Just be aware that you might need both the rebuild kit (seats and ball) as well as the driver stem kit. If you have anchor locker seacock requirements, you might consider special ordering the 932263N part directly from Forespar, which threads onto the straight thread bronze thru-hull and fits in the area.
For bottom paint, it is important to determine what was on there... being blue, it could be VC Offshore (a racing bottom paint), which would need to be completely removed if you were going to switch types. In all cases, parts of the bottom recently faired or sanded down to fiberglass should be primed with barrier coat like Interprotect 2000.
Good luck - the learning and labor will be worth it!
Chris
Blitz #357
