We brought home the jib from Nirvana. It has several tears and wear that needs some TLC. I’m setting out to mend this 42′ x 17′ triangular mass of Dacron. Who will win? Stay tuned.
Category: inspiration
Across the years.
My high school friend, Irene, was in Austin this week. She and a colleague and another friend were headed for San Antonio for a conference and made a side trip to Austin. We karaoke’d, texmex’d, BBQ’d, imbibed, touristed, selfied, and enjoyed catching up. Then I drove them all to San Antonio for the conference and stayed at their hotel on the Riverwalk. I even squeezed in some birding while their conference was in session.
Irene and I were besties in high school. Life happened. We ended up on opposite coasts and fell out of touch until rekindling our connection in the last 10 years, in which I have really enjoyed our rendezvous. The years melt away and what is left is pure friendship.
Singing and dancing…
Tour of ATX…
MEAT! @ the Salt Lick…
Pretty views along the Riverwalk boat tour…
A lovely night along the Riverwalk…
Hotel room view of the Alamo!
See you again soon, Irene!
Pretty boat.
Over the weekend, we took out Nirvana and Cupholder at the same time. Monte wanted to get some photos of the catboat underway. Kurt came along to steer while I stood on the bow and took photos. The light was lovely, with a slight northerly breeze.
Taking 4 years to build, starting in 2000; launched in Lake Travis in 2004; heavily sailed and thoroughly enjoyed for years; hauled out in 2012; driven to the coast for its saltwater christening and to sail the weeklong Texas 200 in 2013; lovingly restored over the course of a few more years; relaunched on Lake Travis in 2019. Monte has taken great pains over the years to keep her looking and sailing like new. A pretty boat, indeed. Also, still the best dancefloor on Lake Travis. 🙂
Companions’ cover.
I think I’m on a roll with this boat canvas thing. I made a companionway cover for Marty & Sue’s boat. I love the color. It’s insulated, with a layer of Reflectix between two layers of marine Sunbrella. Stitching it was a bit like wrestling a bear at times, but my new machine handled it well. 🙂
In the belly of the beast.
I spent today and another day last weekend sitting in the bottom of our port-side lazerette at the stern of the boat. We lost the electronic control unit of our auto helm in a lightening strike at the marina earlier this year. We got off easy; a neighboring boat’s electronics repairs from the same strike is over $80K and counting. Marty gave us a unit that he used to have on their boat. We installed it over the course of the last two weeks. Lots of pulling of cables through tiny stainless steel tubing, making new electric connections, and squeezing into small spaces.
Marty and Sue accompanied us on the calibration run. Everything worked! It’s nice to have Otto back.
Septemberfest.
Monte and I rang in our anniversary with a trip through the Texas Hill Country. We had our own mini-Oktoberfest exploring Altstadt Brewery and spent the weekend in Fredericksburg.
We enjoyed the wine and brews of the region and some local good-eats. We also did our share of antiquing and mantiquing and each brought home a little sumpin-sumpin.
The Longhorns have an off-week, but we caught them chilling in the shade near the Pedernales River:
We did a number of laps down Main Street in Fredericksburg. Next week is Oktoberfest in F-burg, so GET DOWN THERE! 
You gotta love the Texas wine trail… grape vines and live oaks.
And zinnias as far as you can see…
Happy Anny to us!
Transported.
We are watching the latest Ken Burns multipart documentary on PBS, Country Music. I think it’s great. I love the music, and the walk through time.
The episode on Hank Williams dusted off some cobwebs for me. I have strong memories from my childhood – including listening to my dad play Hank Williams albums on his record player at night, often with the lights in the living room turned off.
I couldn’t resist playing some of the same albums on my iPod tonight. And I just had to flick the lights off. I was immediately transported to my old home many decades ago, and memories associated with that time resurfaced.
Music sure is powerful.
A memory from that same time came to mind. I was going through my pre-teen gymnast phase. My dad, upon discovering me doing cartwheels in the living room one day, strongly suggested that I not do that anymore. Unfortunately, I had a bad case of Nadia Comaneci fever, having closely followed the 1976 Summer Olympics. So the urge to bounce about was irresistible. A few days later, on the very last indoor tumbling run of my life, my foot hit and broke the plastic cover on my dad’s record player. The very same turntable from which Hank Williams sang to me in the dark. Lesson learned.
After the much dreaded confession when my dad came home from work, I searched for, found, and purchased a replacement cover and paid for it from my babysitting money. It was not an easy thing to do back then. There was no Google search. No Amazon Prime. I only had a phone book and a Sears Roebuck catalog. But I had to make it right.
Long story short: it’s amazing how music and memories and the mind work.
Good Night Hank.
So, sew.
I’m slowly working down my boat sewing project list. I made 5 winch covers for our jib sheet winches, house top winches, and windlass. I used Sailrite’s pattern and instructions as a guide. My takeaway: it is not easy to sew a circle onto a rectangle.
I also replaced our frayed and yucky bimini straps, having to sew a loop and attach the fastener-buckle thingie before installing.
Bring on the next project!
In hot water.
We have been talking about it for quite some time. Today we sprang into action! We replaced an old water heater before it failed and flooded the house.
After two trips to Home Depot (you can never, ever take one trip), draining the old tank, some heavy lifting, and a few choice phrases, we are back in business.
Thanks Sweetie!
A day in the ATX.
I joined Rachel and Becky on their second day in Austin.
Monte made crepes for breakfast. Then we headed out.
Spelunking at Inner Space Caverns:
Boot shopping at Allen’s Boots:
Zilker Botanical Garden:
Chillin’ at Barton Springs Pool:
Mural tour:
Boot scootin at the Broken Spoke:
Mr. Dale Watson:
Good night Austin!
Nightfall.
Rachel and her friend Becky are visiting this weekend. We didn’t think we could keep up with a couple of vivacious 30-something’s in downtown Austin on a Friday night, so I dropped them downtown tonight for an evening of fun. I was treated to a view of tonight’s lovely sunset on the way home.
Sweet niece.
I received a wine delivery today from our niece, Julie. She is no longer just down the street from us, and we miss seeing her. But she’s off exploring and enjoying life.
I’m a lucky auntie. Thank you Julie!
Take cover.
Hurricane Dorian is currently bearing down on the Bahamas and the east coast of Florida and, likely, the east coast of the US after that. It veered east of Puerto Rico, and, thankfully, the USVI and BVI were not devastated, per current reports. I am hoping for the best, and if possible a swing more northward before turning northeasterly.
I follow marinetraffic.com, which shows the AIS-reported locations of boat and ship traffic across the world. This is the current view of traffic in the western Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean. Can you tell where Hurricane Dorian is currently? Stay safe, everyone.
Doo-hickeys.
First some terminology…
Sailboats have barriers along the perimeter of their decks that are meant to keep people from falling off. We call these barriers lifelines. Lifelines have gates that can be opened to let people walk through them when docked or rafted up. These gates are typically created by putting a piece of hardware that opens and closes on the lifeline at the gate called a pelican hook.
Still with me?
Pelican hooks have a tiny little ring that you pull to open them. It’s usually difficult to grab the little ring just right.
To make it easier, you can put a little fob, or lanyard, on the ring that you can more easily grab and pull the pelican hook to open the gate in the lifeline.
Long story short, today I made a set of these lanyards for Nirvana’s lifeline gates. 2 for port, 2 for starboard.
Installed…
Here’s how I made them if you’re interested.
The easy part is learning how to tie the individual cobra weave knots. So I’ll leave that out and just share one of many links that I looked at to help me figure out the basic cobra knot: here. The hard part was figuring out the best jig or setup to easily secure the cord while tying the cobra knots. I’ll share what I came up with.
What you’ll need:
– 95 paracord (1.75mm wide)
– measuring tape
– knife
– lighter or hot-knife to melt cut ends of the cord
– carabiner with 2 big paper clips attached (the jig I came up with)
– tweezers and/or a crochet hook to pull the working ends of the cord back through and under the cobra weave knots to bury them and finish the lanyard
To make a 3-1/2″ finished lanyard out of 95 paracord, I used 44″ pieces for each lanyard. Cut to length and fold that in half.
Tie a simple overhand loop knot 3 1/2 inches from the midpoint of the piece of cord. This defines the finished length of the lanyard.
The carabiner and paper clips make up my jig for holding the cord while tying the cobra weave knots. Other people use different things; pegboards, wire harnesses, etc. Basically, you want something you can pull against to keep the cord taut while you are tying the cobra weave knots with the two working ends of the cord. This is what worked for me.
The carabiner can easily be clipped onto a drawer handle or hook. The paper clips make it easy to loop the 2 working ends of the cord to start the first cobra weave knot. And they make it easy to slip the finished lanyard off them as well.
Before tying the first cobra weave knot…
After tying 3 to 4 cobra knots…
Keep tying cobra weave knots (9 or 10) until you have about 1 inch of the loop left. Remove lanyard from carabiner and paper clips.
To finish the lanyard, you need to pull the working ends of the cord back under the length of cobra weave knots that you just tied. This will bury them and keep the lanyard from coming untied when it is in use. This is where the tweezers and/or crochet hook come in. I pulled the working ends under about 4 or 5 of the knots.
Then trim and melt the cut ends of the cords; the finished lanyard…
Good luck!
Sheila365 