October 9-11, 1987: A Weekend in Corpus Christi, TX
	September 18-21, 1987: A Weekend in Washington, DC
	Return to the Index for 1987

The occasion this Saturday was to take our next-door neighbors sailing. Dan and Gloria work for a company that produces in-house television programs for auto dealerships; Dan works in production and Gloria is in front of the camera. They expressed an interest in going sailing sometime, and Grant is only too happy to show off his boat. We just took a few pictures this afternoon, but they are some of the better ones we have of the S-2 sailboat.

Grant used to keep his old boat at Lake Lewisville, up northwest from Dallas. That lake is not particularly picturesque, and so when Grant traded boats and acquired his S-2, he investigated other places to keep it.

He decided to keep it at Lake Ray Hubbard, so when he traded down at Inwood Sailing Center, he had it delivered there, and put in the water at Chandler's Landing Marina, part of the Chandler's Landing Yacht Club complex.

Chandler's Landing is on the east side of Lake Ray Hubbard, which is in turn east of Dallas; it is about a twenty-mile trip out there from our house near Love Field. Lake Ray Hubbard, formerly Forney Lake, is a large fresh water reservoir east of town that covers portions of four counties- Dallas, Kaufman, Collin, and Rockwall. It was created by the construction of the Rockwall-Forney Dam which impounded the East Fork of the Trinity River.

The reservoir covers almost 23,000 acres and has a storage capacity of almost a half-million acre-feet (600 million cubic meters) of water at a maximum depth of 40 feet. The dam itself is currently owned by the City of Dallas. Interstate 30 crosses the lake about in the middle, if you measure north-to-south, but in fact most of the area of the lake is south of that crossing; certainly most of the usable area is south of it, as the half north is relatively shallow and still has numerous submerged obstacles. The lake was renamed when it was incorporated into the City of Dallas; Ray Hubbard presided over the Dallas Parks and Recreation System board from 1943 to 1972.

With the construction of the dam and creation of the lake, a whole new residential area was created east of Dallas, offering lakeside and lakeview property. It took some time for enough people to decide to move this far out of the city, but eventually the town of Rockwall on the east side of the lake and the surrounding communities grew to a size where there were enough facilities to make the lakeside communities self-sufficient. Interstate 30 offered a convenient route to the east side of the lake, although it eventually started to clog up at certain times of the day.

The Chandler's Landing Yacht Club was founded and built shortly after the lake reached its maximum size. With a nice clubhouse, a swimming pool, a dining room and, of course, a marina, the yacht club offered Grant a nice environment for keeping the S-2. The lease payment for the dock slip began at about $75 per month, and rose over the next couple of years to $110. But the facilities were nice enough that this was not an exhorbitant price to pay. Grant secured a convenient slip on the north side of one dock and far enough out such that coming in from the lake was easy.

(I might note that for reasons you will discover in the next few album years, the S-2 was here only through 1990. After we took it out of this marina and sold it, we rarely came out here. In the 1990s, the marina had financial difficulties, mostly due to its attempted metamorphosis into a tennis club. It is still in business, but it is a much different operation than when we were here.)

We have had the S-2 here for almost a year now, and the two of us come out almost every weekend to take the boat out. Of course Grant was almost always the captain, although I watched him closely (and read one of his books on sailing) so when he turned the boat over to me for the first time he was pretty surprised that I was able to sail it properly and efficiently. It is, after all, just a matter of geometry. It took me a few tries to get the hang of bringing it into the dock under power, but eventually I mastered that, too.

Here are some pictures to introduce you to the S-2:

Here is Grant's S-2 docked at Chandler's Landing Marina; this particular shot looks from the bow of the sailboat North along the shore of the lake to I-30 in the background.

Here is a view taken from our dock looking forward along the side of the S-2. Whenever we come out here for a sail, the first job is to get the boat all clean; Grant is quite adamant about that. You can't sail in "Bristol" fashion if the boat is dirty.

We have a really good dock space, far enough out on the long dock so that getting in and out of the space is so easy that even I can do it.

The S-2 is easy to sail, it seems to me. There is certainly an art to piloting a sailboat, but most of it is just a matter of geometry. All you really need to know is the direction from which the prevailing winds are blowing. Once you know that, then you can figure out where the sails need to be set to pull or push the boat in a given direction. The toughest thing, of course, is when the direction you wish to go is directly into the wind; it can be done, but the tacking back and forth can get exhausting.

Fortunately, the cabin of the S-2 sailboat is very inviting, and Grant's boat is certainly well-equipped. The inside of the boat is pretty spacious, although the ceiling at the stairs up onto the deck is just low enough that I can usually manage to hit my head at least once or twice in an afternoon.

Aft in the cabin is a small galley with a propane stove built in, and a sink with running water beside it. The only major thing that the S-2 doesn't have is a built-in fridge or cooler. I think Grant thought about having one ordered and installed, but when he considered the few times that we would be on the boat for longer than ice would last in our large cooler, it seemed an extravagance not worth its cost. The decision not to put one in never caused us any problem at all; the longest were were actually on the boat was over a single night, and so we never needed the fridge. (And there was plenty of room in the cabin for our cooler.)

There is a large berth in the bow of the boat, and even a small head with a shower. The S-2 was very comfortable for the two of us, and we even took two people with us on one overnight, because the dining table and seating can be converted into another bed that sleeps two. You could even squeeze one more person in the bench seat opposite, but we never had than many folks. Grant had a sleeping bag made that fit the triangular space of the front berth, and I must admit that I enjoyed the times that we spent the night on the boat- both in summer and winter.

As I mentioned above, the occasion for today's sail was that we brought the couple that live in the townhouse next to ours, Dan and Gloria, out here for an afternoon sail on the lake.

Here are Grant and our next-door neighbor sailing on the lake.

Gloria took this picture while Dan took the tiller as Grant is unwrapping the sail prior to raising it. Sailing is very relaxing and a great way to get some sun.

We enjoyed today's sail a great deal, as did Dan and Gloria.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	October 9-11, 1987: A Weekend in Corpus Christi, TX
	September 18-21, 1987: A Weekend in Washington, DC
	Return to the Index for 1987