I am sure you have read the intro my daughter, the writer, wrote for me or about me. I thought it might be fun to go back and fill in some of the blanks with some pictures. First of all, I can’t remember when I first wanted to go across the ocean, but I do remember reading an article about traveling across an ocean on a container ship in the 80’s. This is the first time I thought it might be possible for me to sail the ocean. I can say that I really got caught up in the idea of sailing while sitting on a drilling rig in the middle of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. Due to the isolation and long days, (25 hours usually) my imagination started to imagine the rolling hills as rolling waves. That and I must have watched 50 videos on the internet about sailing. All kinds: the winches and wenches type, the solo guys, the racing people, and some fantastic sailor/videographers who made stunning videos. I started researching sailing, techniques, boats, prices, destinations, and authors. I read books and I dreamed some. I figured out quick that I’m not in the income bracket to afford the sailing lifestyle, but I might be able to learn to sail and have fun on my favorite lake. You will have to forgive my inaccuracy of dates in this post. To start, I was on a rig in the middle of the Powder River Basin, reading about how to build a sailboat. I was brainstorming how to get started. The rig was on a bit trip so lots of down time, but I couldn’t leave because there was a lot of gas to watch. I had the canoe my dad left me, which was not being used much at the moment. After reading about sail canoes, I figured it would be a good place to start. I called Marjorie to chat and said off handedly, “Do you mind if I build a sail canoe to try to learn to sail with?” She said, “Do whatever you want.” I’m sure there was some eye rolling and head shaking. I was in the middle of building a camper out of a cargo trailer. I’m more comfortable having numerous projects going at once. So, on my next days off, I drug the canoe around to the front of the garage and started trying to figure out how to make this work. The kids, being related to me, were happy to be in the middle of it. Owen and Josh helped with the rigging and Cayley sewed the sail. We decided that the only we could afford this was to use locally sourced materials. That’s the reason everything looks like it came from Home Depot, it did.
Once we had it put together, we took it out to the lake and tried it out. We camped out for the night. Marjorie and I took it out and a gust of wind caught us from behind and we shot across the lake. My son Josh took pictures from his kayak while we sailed. We had more trouble getting back because I hadn’t ever sailed before but we did get back. A big storm came up that night and we only got the one trip out with it, but it was fun.
After the fun and excitement of the sail canoe, we started trying to find something a little more stable. I started looking on the internet for a bigger boat and something more sailboat-like. That is when I found the MEA-C.