Our Weekender Projects

As a kid I spent most of my summers at Cottonwood Lake in central South Dakota.  It is a humble yet striking lake to be upon.

 It has 70' cliffs over looking it, rock fronted property, prairie fronted property and lots of beach front property.  It also turns green in the late summer if the creek that feeds it slows to much.:(  My family was mostly into power boating so I kinda grew up as a skier, learning to slalom ski at age 9 on Green Lake near Wilmar, Minnesota.

Luckily for me my sister Dahv married a fella that became a great sailor and teacher.  In high school I spent 3 summers with Dahv and Dave and their son D.J. in Yankton, South Dakota.   They lived about 2 blocks from Lewis and Clark Lake and owned a San Juan 21' which they sailed.....ALOT!  Dave was, on regular Saturdays the Navigator/Strategist for one of the yacht club members who was lucky to walk and make spit at the same time.  Dave pretty much told him everything he should do.  Sailing the boat in every way except having his hand on the helm (although I saw him grab it to avoid a collision more than once).  I would tag along and ride the rail as ballast.  I don't think we ever came across the line in any other position than first place in those three summers.  On odd Saturdays when there was no regular race it was the usual custom of the yacht club to have a "Young Skippers" race.  This type of race also includes Dave not touching the helm (frustrating for him I am sure) as the "Old Skipper" is to teach the "Young Skipper" to race...er ah...sail...ah...yeah..race.  For these races we used the San Juan 21' which had a huge rating advantage over every boat there.  The rest of the fleet would be across the line and we would come cutting in a few minutes later and win on the rating.  Only because Dave would not let us lose.  I learned all that I know about sailing from him and fortunately it stuck with me.  As did the Sunfish Dave sold us.  He was also an AMF dealer.  After a few years of less than mediocre college performance I joined the US Navy.  While stationed in San Diego my wife and I bought a 1969 Coronado 25'.  We had Cinney for a few years and near the end of my enlistment we even lived on her for a couple of months.   She was  very seaworthy and roomy but fast for her looks.  We have now been back in our home town of Miller, South Dakota for 7 years.  We decided that it would be fun to build a traditional looking boat that the whole family can use while spending time back at Cottonwood Lake.