During a recent visit Joel Potter took the following photos of Lone Star under construction. He said it looked like a train wreck, but we think it looks beautiful. You can judge for yourself.

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We shipped our personal items and the stuff we removed from Seabbatical before it sold to France yesterday. In total we shipped 27 boxes.
Now we will be able to get a car back in the garage!

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We did splurge and get a new hard bottom Walker Bay dingy and an electric start Honda outboard. Our winter in the Caribbean made us more particular about our alternative transportation.

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After owning sailboats named Millennium Falcon, Bullet Proof, Imagine and Seabbatical (which we were currently cruising on) and remembering the difficulty finding the "perfect" choice, the process of selecting a name for the new boat began in earnest. We loved the name Seabbatical, and got a lot of nice comments about it, but were tired of spelling it two or three times everytime we needed to provide it. By the way, you need to give the name of your vessel to a lot to marinas and others.

We knew we were going to fly a US flag and would be in the Mediterranean for a few years so we wanted something that conveyed our roots. We toyed with several Aggie related names, but kept coming back to Lone Star.

We were 99% set on the name Lone Star when we arrived in the Turks and Caicos Islands and ended up docking next to a vessel named "Lone Star". It was a beautiful 60 foot wooden ketch from Houston that was just starting out on a trip around Cape Horn. We met the Captain, Miles Thompson, and shared a couple of meals and sundowners with him and truly felt his deep affection for the vessel. However, we did not share our name selection with him at the time.

Seeing that beautiful classic wooden vessel proudly flying the Stars and Stripes and getting to know the Captain who was extreemly proud of the vessel and the goodwill it brought as it traveled through the Med 15 years earlier and again as it headed for the Cape convinced us we had chosen a good name.

If you want to read about the adventures of the other Lone Star going around Cape Horn click on this link for Lone Star Around Cape Horn.

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As things go with boats we were having generator problems and had ordered a new icemaker so we were at the Bahia Mar Marina for almost two weeks. On one of those days we called Joel and asked him if we could go for a test sail on the Amel.

As I recall he grunted like an offshore fisherman does when he sets the hook, before he said. OKAY . . ., when do you want to go.

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The picture above is in the Saloon of Joel Potter's Amel 54 in Ft. Lauderdale on June 22, 2006. It was taken as we signed on the dotted line for something that we would not see for over two years. The stunned look you see in both of our faces was a combination of excitement and shock at what we just committed to.

After we enjoyed a champaine celebration Joel told us to forget about the boat for the next year and a half. After all we would not get it for over two years!

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