UPDATE: Some pictures from the maiden voyage!
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| Growing up in Reeuwijk, the Netherlands, gave me plenty of exposure to water sports. The town has several man made lakes that were created in the 18th and 19th century when peat bogs were harvested. The peat was dried and used for a variety of purposes including heating. When the holes left by harvesting filled with ground water, the lakes were born. 25% of the city is covered by water, so naturally water activities are huge. We had a "16m2" sailboat, named for the area of the sail on the boat, and I learned to sail at a very young age. |
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| I bought a boat with my brother in 1995, a 1969 Lone Star 15' runabout, with a 1958 Mercury 75HP engine. We tubed and kneeboarded behind this boat for 3 years until after 40 years of service the engine quit while out on the lake. We got the engine running again, but it was never the same, the engine would overheat after a few minutes of idling. We retired the boat in 1998. |
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| In 2003, we bought a 1987 Thundercraft because Greta and I wanted to start enjoying boating again. The boat had some fuel problems. It would run great for 30 to 90 seconds, and then either lose power or die. At first I thought it was a dirty carbureter problem, so I rebuilt the carbureter, but the problem remained. I figured maybe there was a fuel pressure problem with the fuel pump, so I replaced the mechanical pump and lines with a Holley electric fuel pump and braided stainless lines/fittings. While the electric pump improved the problem, it still didn't go away. So I really dug into it, and found a rotted fuel fill line, a cracked backflow preventer, and algae in the fuel tank. In the end it was the algae that caused the problem. It would plug the backflow preventer, and took some time to sink back into the tank. Then when would get sucked into the valve again the engine would stall. Cleaning out the tank fixed the problem. |
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| We really enjoyed boating in 2003, spending a lot of time on the water. I decided that kneeboarding was pretty hard on the body, and a coworker got me hooked on wakeboarding instead. Greta decided she wanted to have a go at waterskiing. The Thundercraft worked, but we wanted something a little nicer, so we bought our Glastron SX195. Here are some more pictures from a trip we made to Des Moines in the spring of 2004. To make more room in the boat and make wakeboarding easier, we installed a Monster Tower with wakeboard and ski racks. We taught Greta's brother Blong how to ski and we think he really enjoyed it! |
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In the fall of 2006, after three years of lots of skiing and wakeboarding behind our Glastron,
we wanted a boat a little more geared towards those sports. In addition we wanted a boat we
could do some wakesurfing behind. The answer after
much research is the Correct Craft SV-211. Here is ours in a
stunning yellow body with black accent stripe!. We're very excited for the 2007 boating season. UPDATE: Some pictures from the maiden voyage! |
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| 2008: Last year the maiden voyage was on April 16th. The lake was still frozen on that day this year due to the long winter, but we had another first for us. The first boat outing of 2008 was on ice-out day. As a matter of fact, we got a great picture of some seagulls standing on the last ice on the lake! |
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| Here are a bunch of pictures and movies that we've shot over the last four years that we've been skiing and wakeboarding. Here are some movies and pictures of one of our surf and ski sessions at the cabin with the new boat. Enjoy. |
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| The latest we've ever been out, wakeboarding on November 9th, 2010. Yes the water was cold, about 45 degrees. |
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