DaveH6
Texas sailing
We have returned to our winter home outside of Austin. I'm getting organized to return to Bluejacket building. However, first priority was enjoying a December sail on my neighbor Ernie's boat. Temps in the 70's and blue sky.
This is the first time I have been on lake Travis since massive rains increased the lake from 35 to 85% full. Gone are the high and dry boat houses and unusable boat ramps.
Last May before the rains came, Ernie and I were sailing towards a white buoy. These buoys are plentiful on Travis and usually indicate a no wake zone or buried cable. Consequently, with our vast boating experience and superior intellect we ignored it and sailed on.
We came to an abrupt and crashing stop. We had hit a house.
Prior to the Colorado river bed flooding after Mansfield dam was finished, there were limestone walled houses on the river banks. No reason to tear all of them down as in theory the lake level would never be low enough to pose a problem for boaters. With the four year historic drought, the walls of our impacted house were three feet under water thus our keel found it. Had we taken the time to read the buoy's marking we would have found "DANGER".
Ernie's keel has a new notch in it and I add "house" to my list of hit objects.
Texas sailing
We have returned to our winter home outside of Austin. I'm getting organized to return to Bluejacket building. However, first priority was enjoying a December sail on my neighbor Ernie's boat. Temps in the 70's and blue sky.
This is the first time I have been on lake Travis since massive rains increased the lake from 35 to 85% full. Gone are the high and dry boat houses and unusable boat ramps.
Last May before the rains came, Ernie and I were sailing towards a white buoy. These buoys are plentiful on Travis and usually indicate a no wake zone or buried cable. Consequently, with our vast boating experience and superior intellect we ignored it and sailed on.
We came to an abrupt and crashing stop. We had hit a house.
Prior to the Colorado river bed flooding after Mansfield dam was finished, there were limestone walled houses on the river banks. No reason to tear all of them down as in theory the lake level would never be low enough to pose a problem for boaters. With the four year historic drought, the walls of our impacted house were three feet under water thus our keel found it. Had we taken the time to read the buoy's marking we would have found "DANGER".
Ernie's keel has a new notch in it and I add "house" to my list of hit objects.