Don, The only way to clean out the bilge is with a sponge and bucket and a lot of contorting of your body to get the sponge into and out of the thing. Once it is empty, work on the cockpit drain. Run some water into the cockpit and check the bilge to make sure you don't have a leak between the centerboard pennant housing and the bilge (I did when my boat was brand new and had to slap a fiberglass patch over a flaw in the layup from the inside to solve that issue). If there is no leak then you just need to work the accumulated dirt and flotsam out of the the centerboard housing. That's probably best done in the water by pouring copious amounts of water onto the cockpit floor and raising and lowering the centerboard to work the stuff out. The pennant opening, once cleared, is sized to rapidly drain water from the cockpit floor. Good luck. Stan M-15, #177, Carol II