I noticed the same small leak only after I had my boat for two years and finally decided to spend more time in the foc's'le. (This illustrates the downside to the philosophy of "just sail and have fun and discover your problems as you go along".) To my surprise, that forward triangular compartment was full of clean fresh water! My first thought was that long ago, someone put some beers on ice in there for a cruise, and never emptied the compartment.
It's meant to be a storage locker, not a bilge. Here in Southern California, it could easily have taken 5 years of rain and deck washing to fill it.
I doubt that the water comes in from the anchor locker. You can test that easily just by filling up the anchor locker with water and checking that it all quickly drains out of the small holes in the bow. My anchor locker is not cracked and I have the same minor leak that you do.
If anyone has an insight into what to look for, Arturo and I sure would appreciate it.
The problem is that so little water leaks in there that it isn't clearly worth the trouble of detaching, inspecting, and reattaching the deck hardware that is a potential suspect (for example, the bow pulpit stanchions?) to try to stem the trickle. And the zipper on the foc's'le headliner is frozen despite multiple applications of T-9 so I can't examine the underside of the deck without ripping into that.
Well, I'm almost certain I can tell you where the water is coming from. I found water in there as well, and I could tell from a water stain that the previous owner did also and never dealt with it.
The water was coming in from the aft starboard leg of the bow pulpit. The bow pulpit legs, as is true for all of the stanchions on this boat, are in sockets. In the case of the aft starboard leg, the base of the socket is hollow to allow the wiring from the the bow light to run inside the pulpit tubing, through the deck, inside the headliner, and then back to the electrical panel. If you look at how the pulpit leg fits into the socket, you'll see that it's not even close to water tight. This, needless to say, was a supremely stupid way for the factory to have installed this. It had to have leaked from day one.
The way I settled on stopping the leak was to wrap the joint where the pulpit leg goes into the socket with a self-annealing silicone tape. I then put hose clamps over the ends of the tape, top and bottom, to make sure it stayed in place and could not unwrap. The tape should be inspected from time to time, but I have found that it stopped the leak. There may be a better way to do it but this worked for me; it was quick and cheap.
The other issue is that you really need to get access to the hardware underneath the deck that is blocked by the headliner. You mentioned that yours has a zipper. Mine does not. What I did was to cut two round holes of sufficient diameter underneath both aft bow pulpit legs. Due to the foredeck geometry of the E26, I cannot see these holes from inside the main cabin looking forward, or even when I poke my head into the vee berth to get something. The only way I could ever see them is if I were in the berth, on my back, with my head at the bow. When I originally cut the holes I figured I'd make a way to cover them with matching material, but when it became apparent I couldn't even see the holes I didn't bother. Plus, with it open, any leaks will be very apparent. If I keep the boat long-term I want to replace the headliner with removable panels anyway.
Another way to do it would be to carefully remove the headliner trim, remove the staples, peel back the headliner, rebed the hardware, and then put it back together. There are posts on this forum about removing and reattaching the headliner. And I would definitely go to that trouble if cutting a hole in the liner would be visible. But in the case of the two holes in question, they really are not, and to me having ready access to that hardware is more important.
But in your case, you have a zipper up there. If I were you, I'd repair the zipper so you can get at that hardware. (There are posts on the forum about how to repair these zippers, so some of the EYO gurus here can advise you on that.) The hardware really needs to be rebedded periodically. One downside to a headliner is that it can in certain instances (such as this one) block access to hardware, which then discourages proper maintenance. This can become a structural concern if you rot out your deck core.
While I'm on the subject, another place where the liner blocks access to stanchion bolts on the E26 is on the port side, just aft of the partial bulkhead that divides the galley from the port settee. Here again, I cut an access hole into the outboard side of headliner just aft of the bulkhead and above the top of the storage cabinet I have there. (There is not quite 4" of space between the top of that galley cabinet and the underside of the headliner.) And here again, the hole is hidden from view--at least on my boat--so I again did not concern myself with covering it. The stanchion bolts just forward of that bulkhead are accessible because the headliner above the port settee is zippered and the zipper runs the full length from that partial bulkhead all the way to the aft side of the port vee berth bulkhead (above the hanging locker).
On the other hand, the starboard side liner has a zipper that runs all the way from the main bulkhead to the stern, so it does not suffer from these access issues.
Hope this helps,
Alan
(P.S. I'm writing this from Fourth of July Cove at Catalina, where the rain has just started up again and the wind is howling. Because it's a westerly this cove is nice and secure. I just finished my hot chocolate and am enjoying listening to the wind and the rain. I completed a good day of work on the laptop and I'm going to reward myself by pulling out my Kindle and getting back to reading
Crime and Punishment. It is a bit cold over here but nothing a sweatshirt won't handle. I was going to sail home Tuesday but thought better of it after looking at the weather conditions, especially the sea state. So I decided to just hunker down until Friday. Moorings are cheap here this time of year--pay two, get 5 free. I've got this little Ericson tricked out with everything I need. Our baby Ericsons are neat little cruisers. Life is good.)