Sanding is oh so much fun......(or not)

This weekends goal was to finish up the hatch and sand the topsides in preparation for painting next weekend. The hatch...is taking longer than I thought it would but it's nearly done. Hopefully I'll have pictures and a paragraph up about it in the next day or two. Sanding the topsides was oh so much fun. (or not) I started Saturday by running out and getting more sandpaper. I went with 60 grit on the orbital sander to knock down the main areas and then switch to 220 for the final pass. Then for the areas that a orbital can't get to...and there are a lot of them...it's basically the same routine but by hand. Man are my arms sore right now. It might be a small boat for some people but that's a hellava lot of sanding I just did and it's not quite done. I'll have to hit the cockpit again in the tuff to reach areas with 220 by hand on my next day off. The portholes will have to come out right before the final sanding too so when the new gaskets and ports are installed hopefully the following weekend, they will be a good fit over clean fiberglass. That's the part that worries me. I don't like having open holes in BeBop so critters can get in. I'll tape them up good but it would still be like cutting a few holes in your roof for 2 weeks and leaving a tarp over it. Yep, it makes me nervous.

Sunday was a rehash of Saturday with a little bit of metal polishing thrown in. I was told to use bronze wool instead of steel wool for cleaning the stainless steel so you don't embed it into the steel and get rust spots. Makes sense and I'm taking the advice to heart. I also stripped off all the old riggers tape from the lifelines and cleaned them up some too. I think I'll probably end up taking them off and soaking them in bleach for a few hours to get them totally clean from stains, then coat them with a lithium grease for protection. Later in the day Rich pitched in and cleaned out the cockpit compartment for me while I swabbed down the decks to remove the sanded material. Then as a finale, I reoiled the teak rub rails because they were really dirty from all the sanding as you can see in the picture. I was literally covered in the stuff. Yes, yes, make fun of the monkey boy wearing the mask but it's better than having breathing problems. Ah what a man will do for his boat.

I made the mistake of ordering the paint I'm going to use online to save twenty bucks when I should of just bought it at West Marine. I don't think it will be here by next weekend. Still mad at myself about that since time is a factor and I can't waste a single day. But I guess the worst case scenario would be it doesn't arrive and I'm forced to do 1 of 100 other things that still have to be completed by the summer. Work on completing the yacht tender and stripping that god awful blue paint off the sides will be what I'm doing next weekend sans deck paint. When it arrives it will be a 3 day job minimum to paint..1 day per coat. 1 coat of primer and 2 of the paint...and yes you have to sand twice in there. Like I said.....sanding is oh so much fun. (or not)

Next time on BeBop Around The World: The long awaited completed hatch project....