After sailing Cupholder down to the marina on Sunday, Monte spent the next few days taking the rigging, booms, and mast down. Today we met Marty at the marina and we put Cupholder on the trailer and brought her home. Many, many thanks to Marty for his help and guidance as we worked to get the boat on the trailer properly. And thanks to Sue for the use of the 4Runner to do the hard work. We couldn’t have done it without you.
She’s back home. Hopefully not for long; and to return to the lake in 2021.
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. 🙂
We are about a week away from the end of summer here in our Central Texas home. Today we motored over to the Lake Travis In-the-Water Boat Show on Cupholder. Turns out we were the only sailboat.
We did tour a 45′ $880K+ motor cruiser. Nice RV. I’m sure it throws a horrendous wake.
Then Kurt and Barbara rescued us and took us out for a drive in their new red convertible. Awesome!!
Today Monte, Kurt and I sailed Cupholder to our favorite cove, to check out the reopened and recently upgraded Arkansas Bend Park. We walked ashore and checked out the new bath houses, parking lot, playground, and campsites. I checked on a couple of my geocaches. We anchored and floated for a while. It was nice to experience the lake again from our favorite wooden boat.
Over 2 years ago I posted a picture of the catboat wind thingie that monte made me (here’s the original post). It had sails made out of ripstop nylon which I had sewn and installed on each little boat. It worked great, and I LOVED it. As the wind blew, the boats started turning and the sails tacked and jibed as they went around.
Then last summer, I posted a picture of it after it had been attacked by squirrels (here’s that post). One of them went nutso in the heat of the summer and ripped up the sails. And just like that my catboat wind thingie was out of service.
Til today! Monte made new sails out of copper sheets, and fastened them to the mast with copper bands and replaced the string mainsheets with little pieces of metal chain.
It’ll take a stiffer breeze to make it go round, but it’s back! I love the new, improved version.
The marine survey was scheduled for today. I took the day off work so that I could be there with Monte for it. The marine surveyor was fantastic. He spent about 10 hours on the boat with us, inspecting virtually everything on the boat while explaining how everything worked as he went along. He didn’t find much wrong, and no surprises. So, pending getting the final report from him, I think we will be upgrading from our beloved, homebuilt wooden catboat that we’ve been playing on for the last 8 years, to a big-kid, plastic boat that we will be enjoying for the next 15 or so years. 🙂
On this Memorial Day, we spent several hours with friends at the marina. We are actually just starting to look at boats for sale. We looked at 2 sloops on E-dock today. Time will tell how long it will take us to find a successor to our beloved Cupholder 🙂
Speaking of Cupholder, we sailed the slip with Marty, Sue, Joe and Wally, and then headed home.
Rigging at rest.
We had just enough energy left in us to buzz downtown for dinner at Taverna, and stopped by to see Willie along the way.
I had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon which took me downtown. Since I was in the neighborhood, I just had to stop by the Sno-Beach snocone stand. If you’ve never had one, you must. It will change your life. If you don’t live in Austin, fly or drive down here as soon as you can and get one. They make the absolutely, hands-down, indubitably BEST snocones on the planet. If any of you are skeptical, I’d even put money on it. And I NEVER make a bet unless I’m sure I’m right (even when i’m wrong) 😀
Even though there were about 30 people in front of me when I got there, and when I left I was in the middle of rush hour traffic on Mopac, it was worth it.
I’d like to work on ways to transform my blog into something more interesting for other people to follow. Up til now I’ve mostly been doing this for my own enjoyment. The Daily Post is hosting a Post-a-Day-2011 and Post-a-Week-2011 challenge, an online community really, for bloggers to share their posts and inspire eachother. It started at the beginning of the year, but I’m joining mid-way (or in work-speak, at the end of 2Q 🙂 ). I recently completed my own 365-project (a year of posting one photo taken of a moment from each day) but I have been and will continue to post here. So, in search of inspiration, today I signed up for the once a week version, check it out:
Oh, wait, one more thing! Here is a link to a video that my friend Teri took of us on Cupholder last weekend as we were all headed up to Cypress Creek Cove for the raftup. (we’re the little boat in the distance that Teri and Jim are catching up with quickly). It was WINDY… and we had 2 reefs in, so only a tiny bit of sail up, but we were MOVIN’! It’s good to be back…
After little over six months in dry dock, today was the day we relaunched Cupholder. Thanks to Marty and Sue for the ramp duties. Here she goes! She’s back in her slip where she belongs.
This auspicious occasion also marks the beginning of lake playtime. We had a great turnout today: Joe, Kurt, Wally, Kevin, Shannon, Lori, Dave, Marty & Sue, and we even had a drive by from Ken and Chris.
We missed you Teri & Ace!
Oh, yes, she is a sailboat, but we still have a little work to do on the masts, so we may need to do the next raftup as a motor yacht 🙂
For those that have been following the boat refurbishing project… Monte has been working diligently on it and it looks beautiful. All the mahogony trim and brightwork was sanded down to bare wood and has its many coats of varnish. The decks have been sanded and repainted with gritty bits for traction. He’s added fishing pole holders (YEAH!), some bronze bits, fixed the swim ladder mount, sanded and painted the cockpit floor (we know that get’s a lot of abuse), repainted the toe rails, etc etc.
The big thing we have to do before launching is to put on new bottom paint. We’ll work on the mast and spars after it’s back in the water. That way, we can at least play, even if we can’t sail yet.
This is a shot looking aft taken through the eye on the bowstrap where the mainstay attaches (when it is there).
Today Monte and Marty pulled the catboat out of the lake (for only the 2nd time) and brought her home. Thanks, again, to Marty for lending his time and his truck 🙂 This time we have the shop to put it in and working in there will be nicer than working outside.
Sheila365 