BeBop's In The News....

It's been a great weekend here at the BeBop project. I've had a visit from a popular superhero, Richard spotted the rare Sailorus Crusierous and snapped a photo, then BeBop made the news and finally got her bottom primed. This was going to be BeBop Gets A Facelift Part V but with all the stuff that's happened, I changed my mind. I had to go with something cooler.

Alright, getting serious now, I decided to take a 3 day weekend since the weather was supposed to be rainy and windy on Saturday. I was going to sand and prime on Sunday and Monday. Of course the weather report changed on Friday night and Saturday turned out to be the nicer day, so instead of working on Notes, Richard and I started to do the final sanding on the bottom of BeBop. It really was a nasty job. It's so tight to work under the keels and somewhere in the process Rich disappeared, but in return I got a comic book superhero assistant....none other than the Tick appears out of knowhere!!

I grabbed the camera as quickly as possible and grabbed this photo.....


Amazing how the word has spread about the BeBop Around The World project eh? Wow, even superhero's are showing up to help me succeed in my goal of sailing around the world.

After chatting with the Tick for a little while, it was time to repair the blisters that I had popped and sanded. To prep them so they won't come back in the affected areas I used Interlux Interprotect 2000E. It was a two part paint that forms a waterproof barrier over the exposed fiberglass. It was some strange stuff I have to admit. It took about 10 minutes to stir up the main compound really good because it was so thick. When mixed with the catalyst you let it sit for 20 minutes before you start to apply it. It had the consistency of warm honey and applied pretty thick. I put 2 thick coats on in the areas that need it. It dries very quickly and hard, like a thin cement.

You can just see some of the areas that it was apply too in this photo. This was the *good* side actually, the other side was much worse but it all came out good and I got great coverage with the stuff. I think it really will keep the blisters from coming back in the areas that it was applied to but only time will tell.


See I told you BeBop was in the news!! Ha! Haha!

Ah...Ahem, yeah I know....too literal. But it was funny.

It was hard getting back to work on Sunday after the Tick left, but I must carry on in his absence. Richard decided to come outside and help me tape up and prime the bottom today. We couldn't get started until about 11am because it rained overnight and into the early morning, but the weather radar called for it to dry up and just be mild and windy. Since it was just primer and the stuff dries in no time flat, we carried on with the plan right on schedule. The primer I used is Interlux Primocon and I have to say it seems to be good stuff. It has nice coverage and it only took about 3/4th's of a gallon to prime the bottom twice. Richard used the roller and I crawled underneath again with a brush and got all the areas where the roller couldn't.

After the 1st coat was on and drying, Richard spotted a extremely rare species these days...and getting rarer all the time...the Sailorus Crusierous. He grabbed the camera and just caught a photo of it in it's natural habitat and I wanted to share it with everyone.


Wow, just wow....there you have it folks...in the flesh, a real Sailorus Crusierous. They are almost extinct ya know, falling prey to the evil Yachticus Maximus Dollarous that prey on them. ^_^

Such a exciting weekend eh? Anyway I know your getting bored and just want to see the final result after the 2nd primer coat so here it is.


Cool huh? She really doesn't look like the same boat now. Overall I'm pretty pleased with my efforts. Another weekend or two and the green trim will be on with the registration numbers and her name of course. That will wrap up 90% of the major exterior refit of BeBop excluding stuff like adding on the stern ladder and much later the solar panels etc. Oh, I still have to put the cockpit locker back in and paint the cockpit a 2nd time too. But wait, you say the bottom isn't finished. Yeah I know, you can't put the anti-fouling paint on until the last 60 days before she goes in the water so she'll be grey on the bottom until this summer.

Don't worry I still have plenty to do before she goes back into the water....like redo the entire interior in the comming months plus paint the mast and hopefully finish Notes in the next couple of weeks. I'll have plenty to write about for a long time before I even move onboard and start my trip. Stick around and I'll share it all with you.

That's about it my 3.5 readers. (seems we might of picked up a third reader somewhere hehe) In spite of my high spirits I'm pretty beat up this weekend from crawling under BeBop for 2 days. I'm signing off for tonight folks...until next time Fair Winds....

Success at Last!!!

It's been a very nice week here all things considered and lots of progress on many different projects was made. To start with I should let you know that the oars have been finished. Richard painted them after work everyday this week and completed them on Thursday. They look just great and you can't tell the black foam grips are for a bicycle lol. Photo space is limited on the blog so I'll just describe them as having white shafts and the paddles are green. (It matches the boat) The oar leathers still need to be tacked on but that will have to wait until Notes is more finished so I can test fit them. No big deal, but if you think about it, this is the 1st project that is complete since I've started. Needless to say they are leaning up again the living room wall acting as a motivational tool. ^_^

Notes is coming along nicely, While I was taping up the ports on Sunday, Richard helped me out by sanding her down again in preparations for the 2nd coat of primer. We then figured out where the waterline is going to be and taped that off so we could prime it again. This was necessary because I expect her to spend a large amount of time in the water so I'll have to put anti-fouling paint on the bottom which requires that you use a different primer. Anyway, the 2nd coat turned out very nice and the exterior is almost ready for final painting now. I figure she'll be ready for commissioning in under a month and you'll get a full photo spread of the mini party when that happens.

BeBop is turning out very very well, but not quite perfect. I don't think Rich and I could of done any better give the circumstances that we had to work with. Saturday was perfect weather for painting the 2nd coat on the sides. We spend the morning sanding them down and the painting was done by about 1pm. Rich would roll it on in about 4 foot sections and I would come along behind him and "Tip" the paint with a 4 inch brush. In english this translates to when you roll it on the paint has tiny air bubbles in it that needs to be popped and blended across the hull. Sounds easy, hard as hell to do right. At 107 bucks a gallon (plus materials) you really don't wanna screw it up. I had a real nice stress headache going on. It turned out very good though, a couple of runs that only Rich and I could probably point out to you. One was so minor I didn't spot it til the next day, another will be sanded and covered by the green trim etc. I'm pretty happy about it all really.


Sunday was warm, calm but overcast. After checking the weather radar to verify it was not going to rain, I decided to press on and paint the areas around the ports with the 2nd coat of Brightsides. As usual with painting the prep work took the longest as I had to tape the ports off and with Rich's help we sanded around them. Then some denatured alcohol to clean the sanded material off the area and then paint. Same way we did the sides of the hull, Rich rolls on the paint and I tipped it. It looks great compared to the 1st coat, zero runs this time. (yay yay yay!!!) Finally as we are finishing up the large above waterline areas we figure out how this weird paint works. I probably wasted a hour this afternoon just looking at her. This is not the same boat I picked up a few months ago. Just scroll back through the old posts and compare them to the new photo's. Add in 400 hours of manual labor and I think you might begin to understand how I feel.

Check out this reflection!!


Cool eh? It ain't AwlGrip but it's close.

The last thing I did this week is purchase another car outright so I can get rid of my PT Crusier. (no more monthy payments) Ouch. This really hurts, but nothing worth doing comes without sacrifice. I believe so strongly in what I'm doing I'm getting rid of my nice car and bought a old 90' Honda Civic that will serve as basic transportation to and from work. Assuming that it doesn't die (seems to run real tight) and I can fix whatever breaks cheap enough I will save over $5,000 dollars in the next 12 months vs keeping the Cruiser. That's a lot of stuff I can buy for BeBop and when I set sail for Mexico (my 1st scheduled stop outside the US circa 2007) I'll sell the Honda probably for what I paid for it and break even. Another perk is the gas mileage will be better by about 10 miles to the gallon. This will probably be the most painful thing I have to do before I leave. I rather like the Cruiser but I don't have enough money to go around.

I'm a firm believer that if you want something bad enough and long enough you can make it happen if your expectations are realistic. Hard work and apply yourself. I really want to go sailing around the world. A nice car does not and can not do that. A nice sailboat however, can. I'm simply trading one for the other. To the people who think you have to have the newest car and compete with the Jones'..(i.e. the ones who would make fun of me)......you can come check out my blog in the future and see all the cool places I was able to visit because I didn't sell my soul to buy a pretty internal combustion engine with a cupholder. I'm giving up materialism as best I can. The "I want this and that" syndrome just leads to a road of suffering my friends. Find satisfaction in your adventures in life...not what your paycheck can buy.

Enough of Jammer's great wisdom...Next weekend I'm hoping to finish sand the bottom, seal the blistered areas and apply some primer. The weekend after that I really want to get the green trim on and get BeBop's name on BeBop lol. I plan on painting it on and I'm going to check out all the different kinds of fonts out there this week to find the right one. Until next time...Fair Winds...

New Motivation....

Been a very slow weekend here at BeBop Around The World as the weather once again is just the pits. Saturday was rainy and windy, Sunday was very cold (for Florida) and very windy. Even my coworkers were complaining about the weekend weather recently as they have their own outdoor projects that are not getting completed. So needless to say nothing was accomplished on BeBop. Notes, my heavy weather day project, received a final sanding early on Saturday before the rain started and was moved into the garage. That afternoon I finished priming the inside of her as the wind and rain howled outside. She is coming along nicely and I expect to probably commission her in about a month. The oars that I purchased two weeks ago were lightly sanded and Rich is painting them for me to help out. They will be completed by the end of this week.

After priming Notes it was only about 3 in the afternoon and I was feeling pretty down about how the whole project seems to be running behind schedule. Not to mention how I feel it's not measuring up to my level of perfectionism. So I suggested that Rich and I head down to the St Pete Marina and see if we couldn't find anything that was there that looked worse than BeBop does right now.

Just so you know the Saint Petersburg Marina is THE place to be if you wanna be a liveaboard. It's so highly desired there is a 5 year waiting list for a slip. Prices start at about 900 bucks a month and go up, so I won't ever have a slip there. I'll be further up in Tampa Bay with the poor sailors not the yachties but hey, we both make Gin and Tonic's at sunset the same way. You just have to pass the Deet around at happy hour since they grow the mosquitoes awfully big were I'm looking to live. In the St Pete Marina they spray a lot because we all know the rich yachties can't handle it. ^_^

Getting back to the point, the trip was worth the effort imho. I couldn't believe the level of disrepair that most of the boats there showed. It was downright sad I tell ya. I was simply floored. If you took BeBop and sat her next to any ten sailboats we saw at the dock, she was easily better looking than 9 of them hands down, right now. Of course she was smaller than all of them too lol. Very nice little ego boost to see I'm only 3 months into the refit and she looks sooo much better than the rest. I consider it a point of pride even if she's not going to be perfect.

While I was pumping my ego a bit, the security guard drove up and Richard and I talked to him for probably a good 15 minutes. He was a liveaboard in the Marina for about 8 years now and I was surprised to learn he knew exactly what kind of boat BeBop is. (Westerly Nomad) He completely understood the concept of the twin keels and why they made them like that. He also seemed surprised when I told him I was building my own stitch and glue yacht tender, but he probably believed me since my shirt and pants had paint on them. I mentioned that I was going to move onboard this summer and he sat there and thought for a second and said sorry but you don't have the record lol. He said that goes to a old man with a long beard who a few years ago sailed in with a 19 footer and staying for a few months then sailed off to the Florida panhandle. That's a morale booster too since my boat is 3 1/3 feet longer and I'm sure the beam is easily another foot across. Who says you need a 40 or even a 30 footer to live onboard? Just have to find the right boat with the right design.

Sunday was a complete loss, the high was about 50 degrees with 20 to 30 mph hour winds so I didn't even sand on Notes. I just ran some errands around town since I had the time. Next weekend is supposed to be nice if the long range forecast can be trusted. I'm hoping to do the 2nd coat of pain on her sides from the waterline up to the deck. If I get two nice days it's certainly possible. I have all the paint in the garage just waiting for the right sunny day.

That's it for this update, Perhaps the weather gods will give all the sailors of Tampa Bay a break and we'll have better weather next weekend. Then we can get some real work done. Until then. Fair Winds....

BeBop Gets A Facelift Part IV

Wow did it rain hard on Friday. We received over 12 inches in about 4 hours time. Why do I mention this? My new ports had problems with leaking when first installed if you remember me describing it. I thought they just needed some settling in time and a touch of silicon where the two rubber end pieces met. Well I was right! When I opened her up on Saturday the ports didn't leak at all. (whew!) The companionway did and it ran down into the port aft locker, but it was very minor and only took a couple paper towels to soak it up. I think when I build the new washboards and put the dodger back on (after I make it) it won't be a issue at all. Beginning to look like I might have a dry home in heavy weather after all eh?

Saturday the weather gods did *not* shine on me. (rainy, cold and windy) I'm getting used to it, so I used the 1st half of the day to run some errands and didn't get back home until about noon. I spent the cold afternoon putting the very last of the fiberglass resin and micro fiber on the inside of Notes. She's getting very close to having the inside primed. Figure another three or four hours of sanding and she'll be ready. It's tuff to stay focused on the bigger picture (BeBop) when I'm so close to having Notes ready for the water....but then I can't exactly take her around the world and in pinch she's completely usable right now. Just not finish painted and no....you don't get any more pictures of Notes until the launching ceremony. (quit laughing...there IS going to be a ceremony. I don't care how small she is.)

Sunday's plan was to sand on Notes and pull the marine head out of BeBop as I'm not going to be using it. The fiberglass resin on Notes wasn't dry yet so Rich and I set her in the sun to dry and commenced to ripping out the head. Now I imagine many of you wonder why in the hell I'm doing this. Well....marine heads are smelly, high maintance, prone to failure and a pain in the butt. Many people feel that a chemical porta pottie is cleaner and easier to deal with and I fall into this camp. BeBop didn't have a holding tank for waste anyway so that would of cost more (by more than double) than the porta pottie...which I still need to purchase. You may think this is very primitive but I will disagree. Think about this for a sec... In port (with luck) you can use the marinas bathrooms and showers, underway 3 miles offshore you bucket and chuck it, so the only time you will be using this is at anchor and then it's just for number two. Anyway, pulling the head out sucked I tell ya. It's so tight in there you can't reach all the nuts and bolts without a few 4 letter words. 2 hours later it was thrown from the cockpit into the yard with a large amount of satisfaction. The thru holes are glassed into the hull so they will stay put, I'm just going to silicon the sea cocks closed in the event I choose to put a head in again at some point in the future.

After that rather nasty job was taken care of, the weather was much better than it was predicted to be (less wind) so I decided to change the plan and ended up painting the cockpit. Rich helped me tape all the hardware off to save some time and off I went with my trusty paint brush.

I was going to save this picture for the last before and after when I have the cockpit locker installed again but screw it, I have to show you what I'm doing right? This is what it looked like about a month and a half ago right after I had finished sanding it down. Before this weekend I had primed it and sanded it again in preparation for finishing paint. You can see were I bonded down the locker cover..er..thing the previous owner cut into the seat. No clue why...you can get the 6 gallon fuel tanks in and out just fine. It will be safer offshore this way.


This is after the first coat of brightsides paint, the tape isn't coming off til tomorrow...I literally just finished when this was taken.


Sweet eh? eh? It came out ok...you can see the brush marks in the paint from a distance of about 3 feet which I'm not real happy about and I missed a couple of runs too. The runs will be sanded out and done over but all in all I'm pretty pleased with it. I don't think it will be a big deal or so easy to see when she's in the water with all the standing rigging, running rigging, dock bumpers, seat covers, cockpit locker, lifeline netting, bimini etc etc etc is all installed. (Reminder to self again, she's a cruiser not a show boat) Also something to keep in mind is outside the water every little thing is amplified and so easy to see. The same effect happened when Rich and I put Notes on the ground today...90% of the areas that still need sanding turned invisible...ground effect..something..I dunno. But when something is below eye level you can't see it as well. When we put her back on the sawhorses, yep...still there. Weird. Anyway...A second coat will probably be applied closer to when she's going back into the water since the cockpit is a very high traffic area.

Well that's about it for this weekend, if the weather is nice I'm hoping to finish sand out the blisters on the bottom and prime it up next weekend. I'm beat, think I'll go grab a drink then crash for the night folks. Until next weekend, Fair Winds...