Success! (or BeBop is Born)

Finally after 9 months of refit on the hard BeBop is floating peacefully at her slip. It's been a insane past 7 days and the next 3 are going to be a nail biter too with Hurricane Ernesto bearing down on Tampa Bay where I live. On Friday when I hauled in the storm was tracked 500 miles to the west of here. Go figure eh? We'll see if I still have a boat (and something to write about for that matter) in another 4 days.

Ok where to start...where to start....

Tuesday I was fired from my job of more than 2 years. I guess the best attendance in the dept and best performance record in the department don't mean squat when you refuse to kiss ass to your manager. It's no big deal and I totally saw it coming months ago. Being the contingency planner that you all know me to be.....I planned ahead hehehe. So for those of you still in the world of cubicle slavery, I'm doing just fine without the stress. I say quit and do what you want...It's very liberating. To my former manager whom will no doubt check my blog....Hey man!! Thanks for setting me free. ^_^ I'll still send you photos from all the cool places I travel to...While year after year you are still sitting in a windowless, colorless office working to make somebody else rich instead of enriching your own life.

After getting fired I spent the rest of the week doing the final preparation to launch BeBop. I tried to get Half Note ready for the trip but just didn't have quite enough time, so I decided to launch anyway without a dinghy available if need be. I'd have to swim to shore. Thursday all day was spent rigging up the mast and with Rich's help moving it onto BeBop into it's storage position for transport. I had the S$^& scared outta me too by a lighting strike that hit only one house away and set a palm tree on fire. It was so close that I felt the electricity pass through me. (wow) Lets do some before and after pictures.

Nine months ago the day I bought her.


This past Friday. Lot's of blood, sweat and tears.


The big launch day. You guys are going to have to forgive me now as I don't have nearly the number of photos that I wanted to due to the weather. Lack of a dinghy means no exterior pictures outside the ones taken from her slip. But it's ok...it will give me some more pictures to post in the future.

Friday early, Brolly a friend of Rich and I and long time follower of my blog volunteered to help launch BeBop. He came over at about 8:45 am and off we went to N.O.A. by the Gandy Bridge where I scheduled the haul in. At 6 bucks a foot it was cheaper by 50% than what I paid at Brunswick Landing Marina in Georgia to get her out. All was going well until they had just lifted BeBop off the trailer and a storm squall hit and left her on the travel lift for 15 minutes until it stopped. Sorry no pictures here..the camera was onboard the boat safe and dry. After hauling in when the rain slowed down to a drizzle we hopped onboard, checked the through hulls and once it was apparent we didn't have any leaks we motored about a mile down the channel and anchored in about 5 feet of water close to shore. There we spend the next 2 hours raising the mast while at anchor, tighting down the standing rigging and setting up the running rigging. Off in the distance we could see the next squall line comming in. We thought that we would have to sit it out inside but it remained calm long enough to get it up.

About noon we upped anchor and got underway via the kicker until we pasted the main channel marker for Tampa Bay and raised the Mainsail. No more than 5 minutes after that the storm squall hit us with 25 knot very gusty winds and lots of rain. The seas were pretty calm for the wind but one accidental jibe later it was apparent that sailing a monohull is way different than the hobie cats I'm used to. Brolly and Rich took turns going down below while I manned the helm. Here is a good picture of Brolly and I in the cockpit during the squall. Notice he's smiling while I'm trying like hell not to have another accidental jibe, run into something, balance the boat, hold a course and adjust the mainsail lol. It was raining very hard and we all got soaking wet. Take a note...foul weather gear is a very important piece of gear to have onboard.


After the squall passed and we could see where we were going again, Rich took the helm for a bit as well as Brolly and we made ok time through Tampa Bay with only one incident of a near accidental grounding. Tampa Bay is pretty big but shallow and even a mile or more from shore it can be less than 2 feet deep so even BeBop can't go into all areas around here. That was a minor scare with misreading the chart and in less than 5 minutes we found deep water again and continued on our way.

Rich at the helm.

Brolly at the bow.


After passing under a secondary span of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge which had a vertical clearance of 65 feet, we approached the first of two drawbridges that we had to go through on the way to BeBop's slip. On the approach I called on Channel 9 to the bridge tender with no answer twice on the VHF. As I started to do a ring around the rosie maneuver and signal with the horn, I throttled back the outboard to idle speed and it quit running! It was quickly apparent that there was about a 6 knot current dragging us towards the bridge and BeBop's doom. I quickly told Rich to deploy the dansforth on the bow while I tried like hell to get the engine to start again. Rich got the anchor deployed just as we were about to smash into the bridge pilings. As soon as he felt the anchor dig in he started yanking on the anchor rode trying to keep BeBop from hitting. We just caught the outboard which was knocked sideways by the piling. Another inch and the engine and mount would of been gone. Close, too close. It later turned out that my VHF handheld couldn't transmit and the main VHF couldn't receive. The outboard was also later discovered to not idle while in gear. How messed up is all that? Using one radio to transmit and the other to receive we navigated the second drawbridge without incident and arrived at BeBop's new slip about 50 miles, 1 storm, 1 near grounding, 1 near sinking (and heart attack) later. Here is a before and after shot. The first is just before haul out in Georgia 9 months ago.


At her slip Saturday afternoon.

Another shot.

As you can see it's been a rather exicting week here. I'm falling asleep as I'm writing this so I hope it all makes some sense. I'd like to say once again sorry for the lack of pictures like going through a drawbridge etc but me and the crew were just too busy to get to it. No worries there will be plenty of pictures to come in the future.

This about wraps up Phase I of the project. Starting with the next entry I'll be into Phase II which includes getting the trailer sold so I can put something resembling a power grid onboard, learning how to sail a monohull vs a hobie cat and some overnight voyages to get used to her underway and develop some new skills. Stick around. Still plenty to do. Until next time...Fair Winds....

T-Minus 5..4..3..2..1......

Hard to believe it's only 5 days to go. Seems like yesterday I had just started the blog and bought a beat up old sailboat that needed a lot of attention. I've given BeBop all the money, time and skill that I have in hopes that when the time comes she'll take care of me. I'm rather worried about her sinking or something right at the dock when the travel lift puts her in. I can't afford to buy comprehensive insurance to replace her if something happens so this is probably where my fear is coming from. None the less, until I see she's floating without issue and the bilge water level alarm doesn't go off within say...2 minutes of launch....I will worry.

Ok lets back up a step and let me catch you all up with the current state of Half Note. We left off in the last post right after Rich and I had cut her in half. Since then we glassed the bulkhead seams, drilled the holes for the bolts that will hold her together, fabricated the seat, finished the trim, mounted the oar locks and pins the new oars and did the float test Wensday night. I wish to give Rich credit in getting a lot of that done last week. There is no way I could of completed it this fast without his help.

Here is the picture of the seat after cutting it out and screwing on the support legs.

Here's me last Wensday at the beach during sunset getting ready to bolt her (bow and stern) together for the first test.

Since Rich put in so much time to get her ready so quickly, I let him take her out first.

Me in a rather horrible photograph (I was very tired) rowing by close to the shore. The balance is perfect this time compared to Notes which I felt was bow heavy. She rows like a dream too. Very easy, very quick.

Testing stability by standing up and rocking her back and forth. Rich was egging my on trying to get me to fall in by standing on the seat until he realized I had both cell phones, the house keys, the car keys and a vhf radio with me. Then he really wanted me to sit down lol. ^_^

With luck I'll at the very least have her primed by the time BeBop launches. (and hopefully doesn't sink) She doesn't have much in the way of carrying capacity, so if I need to haul a lot of water, food or gear all in one trip, I'll end up either towing her with a kayak or towing a inflatable with Half Note. Which way depends on how much money I have. She'll get a single person back and forth to shore ok though which is what I wanted in the first place.

Moving on to BeBop, this weekend Rich and I painted her bottom with black anti fouling paint. It was all going great until we took off the painters tape and with it about half the bootstripe!! I was not a happy man. For whatever reason Brightsides does not want to stick to Primocon primer vs the Pre Kote primer I used for the white on the hull. The bootstrip was about half on Pre Kote and half on Primocon so the bottom half on the Primocon peeled off nearly like a banana. The solution was simply to raise the waterline and decrease the thickness of the bootstripe. It's hard to see much of a difference anyway since it was black next to a dark green. I'm pretty happy with how it came out regardless.

I've also started moving everything back on board. Sails, cushions, stove....coffee pot etc.

Looking forward into the V berth, you can see all the sails, the trolling motor, spinnaker pole, cockpit umbrella's and dodger. That big white bag is the spinnaker.

Looking aft at the quarterberth cushions back in and vhf installed...looking sharp.

Since we brought her back home she was sitting next to the house. To minimize tracking dirt into her while I put her gear back onboard, we moved her into the driveway Sunday afternoon. It was a cool moment amongst the stress of trying to get it all done and more than one passing car stopped out front of the house to take a good long look! (or maybe they've never seen a twin keel sailboat upclose. ^_^)


View from astern, you can see curtains up in this picture.

I'm taking most of next week off to finish putting gear back onboard, work on Half Note and I expect it to take the better part of a whole day to get the mast rigged and back up on deck into it's storage position. I've made arrangements to get her hauled in not more than about 5 miles from the house for a good price even if they won't allow me to step the mast in their yard. (they want $75 a hour to do it..NOT!!) I plan on motoring around the corner and with the help of my friends put it up while at anchor. The area is very calm and unless the weather is horrid this shouldn't be a problem.

I want to have another post up late next weekend or Monday night covering the launch and trip to her new slip...of course if she sinks I guess I will have to cover that too. What? Me worry?

I am....it's in my nature.

Until next time....Fair winds....

The Launch Date is Set......

Today's update will cover the new pram I'm building more than BeBop but I know everybody wants to know when she's launching so I'm going to give the date. Barring something tragic happening, BeBop will be launched around the weekend of the 25th, roughly 3 weeks from now. I still have some stuff to complete before then involving the 12 volt system which is still acting up after fixing it last weekend, paint the bottom, caulk the rails one last time, rig up the mast, put it on deck for transport and I still need to find a slip. I know of 2 places with a travel lift and 3 places where I can get a slip right now, but I am holding off a bit longer so I can see how the money issue will turn out. I believe I'm going to be ok but there will be minimal amenities onboard at first. A proper Bimini, sail cover, barbecue, solar panels, more batteries, more fuel tanks etc etc (list continues forever) will have to wait. None of that is totally necessary right now, nice as it would be. It all bothers me a great deal but I try and remind myself 12 months ago I didn't even have a boat. 9 months ago, I had a very beat up sailboat that needed a lot of TLC. Now I have a pretty cool classic plastic sailboat nearly ready to live on. In 9 more months she should be ready for the world tour. ^_^ (with a empty wallet)

Moving on, I sold Notes this week to a couple of sailors who are taking their Bayliner 28 down to Key Largo. It was *very* sad to see her go since I built her myself from the skeg up, but if she didn't fit on deck then I had to let her go and build something else that I know would work. Enter the new pram that I designed myself using part of the basic line drawings from the Apple Pie class. It will be just 6 1/2 feet LOA with a 3 1/2 foot beam. It's a nesting dory (the worlds smallest that I know of) and I know this one will fit on deck!

Drum roll please.....I'm calling it Half Note! ^_^ ......................(ok, you can stop laughing now) Here she is.


Ok really now, here she is after I lofted the highly modified plans and cut out the pieces using a jigsaw for the mild curves and a circular saw for the rest. Just two pieces of 1/4 plywood and 1 piece of 1/2 inch will be used to make all the main pieces. It took about two hours to loft and another hour to cut. You don't want to rush this as the final product will only be as good as the pieces you start with. This next picture is her stitched together. I drilled small holes every six inches and used zip ties to hold her together.


Once it's been stitched together you need to start bonding the pieces together using fiberglass resin and 404 filler. On the first pass just go in between the zip ties to make the bond. The second pass cut the ties first and do all of the seams and make a third pass if you need to smooth it all out.


Using a cardboard template, Rich and I created the patterns for the bulkhead out of poster board, then cut them out using half inch plywood and bonded them both in. I'll give exact dimensions when I get around to creating the blueprints for her.


Before you can cut her in half to make the nesting design, you should cover the outside seams with fiberglass seam tape and the rest with lightweight cloth. Here is the bottom and stern completed. We did the sides right after this picture was taken.


For the rails we used 3/4 X 3/4 inch pine. It's soft but I'd rather dent the hell outta this than mess up BeBop. Plus it bends easy lol. It will be covered in fiberglass anyway to waterproof it. Ignore that piece in the middle as it was used for the bow and stern. Take a note...you can never have enough clamps. I was scrapping the bottom of my garage here for more.


Here are the rails bonded on. The skeg was put on less than 2 before after this picture was taken.


Now this one will blow your mind. Saturday we cut her into two pieces and this is her nesting bow piece in the stern piece. Tiny eh eh? This baby will fit on the deck of my pocket cruiser. The clamps are there because the bulkhead wanted to separate from the side of the hull. The plan is to fill the seams with 404 then use 4 inch fiberglass tape to cover them, then cover that with fiberglass cloth. (2 layers thick) I believe this should be plenty strong when completed even if it's a pain in the butt.


This is about where she is right now. I'm hoping to have her ready for testing by next Sunday, but it might be the week after. I've already purchased the new oars and oar locks. My personal feelings on Half Note is that's she's not nearly as charismatic as Notes. Nor will she be as strong or have all the floatation built in. On the plus side, She'll weigh about 30 pounds less, fit into half the space, have bigger oars (6 feet), and be completed in just two more weeks with luck. Notes took months to build by comparison.

That's it for now I think. I'm doing other smaller projects at the same time as working on BeBop and Half Note but it's too boring to mention, (like caulking around the hatchway) so I'm gong to go make myself another Gin and Tonic to help out with my sunburn and get some sleep. Until next time, Fair Winds everybody......