By Tom Oncken
Mother Nature had her way with us during this annual meet scheduled from April 12th through April 14th. Those who decided to arrive early on Thursday enjoyed boating in some beautiful weather during Friday. All of those who chose to arrive late on Friday had a good time Saturday visiting with fellow members while watching it rain as the temperature dropped. The weather pattern was really strange particularly on Saturday as a circulation was spinning waves of clear skies in between repetitive bands of cold rain. At first, it would be storming and the next minute it would be clearing. Unfortunately, a constant clearing did not occur until later on Saturday afternoon after temperatures dropped into the mid-50’s. Some boaters did not even bother to launch.
Chapter President Adam Finn and First Lady Susan Finn arrived early on Thursday along with Joe McCauley, Cornelia Kuffner, and Chip and Marilyn Rathbun. These couples enjoyed dinner together at “Doc’s” in Marble Falls on Friday night. The following morning, they began to launch and run around in their boats.
Several individuals arrived early on Friday and were able to enjoy the nice weather. Glenn and Lee Seureau brought their 13’ Riviera Fowler duck boat powered by its 1977 Johnson 7.5HP and had it running again. Dave Samstag did his fair share of running on the river on Friday with his Marchetti hydro with its nicely rebuilt Mercury Mark 58H outboard. Earl Gerloff with Jackie Johnson and their furry companion, June, brought their 19’ Lone Star aluminum hardtop boat powered by its 1978 Evinrude 115HP. The V-4 was accompanied by a smaller 1957 Evinrude Sportwin for backup. I understand that Earl and crew spent the night in the Lone Star both Friday and Saturday while they were at the meet. These youngsters are true pioneers! I think I will stick with the condo.
Louis Rothermel and I traveled up on Friday with his boat in tow. Mike, Emma, Tommy, and Charlie Oncken followed us pulling Mike’s little Elgin boat affectionately named “Jerry Rig” with a 1970’s Johnson 15HP on the back. The motor was on loan from my neighbor and member, Jerry Ball (also former owner of the Elgin boat). We got a later start than anticipated, but we managed to stop in Spicewood and have our usual BBQ feast at Opie’s. We arrived at Heart of Texas Lake Resort somewhat late, so we made a decision to wait until morning to launch the boats. That turned out to be a good decision.
Saturday morning started out with a bad omen. As we got up on Saturday ready to go play, we looked out the window and noticed that Tony Robinson’s boat looked a little strange. We could see the bow sticking up above the docks, but we could not see his outboard at all. We went quickly to the docks to discover that Tony’s bilge pump had failed to run during the night, and as a result, the boat filled with water and his Mercury outboard was totally submerged.
If not for the ropes holding the boat to the docks, the boat may have gone to the bottom. I would like to commend a number of members who ran down to the docks and immediately began their rescue of Tony’s boat. Trailer straps were placed beneath the boat and between the two sides of the docks. While Tony got into the boat and bailed with a bucket, the helpers cranked on the straps to slowly lift the rear of the boat up out of the water. Ironically, Tony flipped the switch to the bilge pump, and although the battery, bilge pump, and entire outboard were under water, the bilge pump started pumping again. Somewhat miraculously, the sides of the boat eventually were lifted high enough that the boat started floating again and the bilge pump finished the job. After loading the boat back on its trailer, it was obvious that Tony’s boating for the weekend was over as he began efforts to drain water out of the motor’s powerhead. The last thing I noticed was water still dripping from the distributor. Needless to say, Tony had a great deal of work ahead of him. By the time we were finished with saving the boat, the weather began to look ugly.
After the rescue, a great number of us went to the local Crazy Gals diner for breakfast hoping to return and start boating. Unfortunately, by the time we got back, the wind picked up, rain began to fall, and temperatures began to drop. The rain was sporadic, so we got an opportunity to look at the things that John and Cindy Slator brought to sell at the meet, and we got an opportunity to visit with our members and bond with each other, but nobody was rushing out to run their boats.
Glenn Seureau spent a little time traveling down the river in his duck boat searching for some of Tony’s items that had floated away during the boat incident. Our thanks to Glenn as he was successful in recovering the items lost.
As usual, Meatball Murray along with Caroline Holton, who live just down the road in Kingsland, brought a number of boats and vehicles over the weekend. With Meatball, you never know what is going to show up in the driveway and this year was no exception. He and Caroline drove up on Saturday in a beautifully restored vintage hotrod roadster. What a great car!
Jim Lancharic was accompanied by his daughter, Natalie Lancharic, and they brought a couple of Jim’s restored outboards for display. Since the covered area between the condos was not being used as our Saturday dinner spot, it proved to be a nice safe place to display Jim’s motors. Jim, we were very happy to see you in attendance and you did a great job on those two outboards!
A few brave souls decided to run their boats on Saturday. James Smith (Al Smith’s brother) ran a Feather Craft aluminum boat powered by a McCulloch-built Sears 75HP outboard. Bruce and Mary Miller along with their grandson, Ian Guynes, braved the crummy weather in their 1973 Sea Ray 17’ fiberglass boat powered by its original Merc 115. Joe McCauley was also seen scooting around in his Stinger powered Glastron fiberglass boat. Earl Gerloff and Jackie Johnson decided to take their Lone Star for a run as well. The unsettling weather kept some of us from even launching our boats. Mike Oncken, Louis Rothermel, Jim and Rosalynn Norbeck, and Steve Seale elected to leave their boats on the trailers.
By the time the weather finally settled down, it was time to get the Saturday night dinner ready. For a contribution of $10, Spyke’s Bar-B-Que was the fare for Saturday afternoon. Our thanks to Adam and Susan Finn for arranging for the late afternoon meal. Thanks to Cindy Slator for providing a great dessert and to the members who donated their condo rooms to host the meal since using the outdoor covered area was not very appealing with the wind and temperature at the time.
For those who did not leave early on Sunday, the weather cleared up and allowed those remaining to launch the boats and have some fun on the water. In spite of the generally poor weather for the weekend, we had a rather large turnout. If I counted correctly, we had 49 (50 if you count June, our outboard mascot puppy dog). Others in attendance not mentioned elsewhere in this article included the following: Greg Ganz, Andrea Robinson with foster children, Monica, Max, and Natalie, Scott-Atwater Al and Katie Smith with children Addison, Abigail, and Levi, Sarah Smith (Al’s sister), Izaiah Rodriguez (Al’s cousin), Abigail Urban-Norbeck, Victoria Urban-Norbeck, Holly and John Weimer, and Michael Worley. Please forgive me if I have overlooked anyone and accept my thanks for your attendance. Your presence is what this club is all about. The motors and boats are just toys to most of us and we like to share that experience with others.
That is all I have to offer for now. I hope you all plan to make it to the October meet at the Heart of Texas Lake Resort. We need to keep our fingers crossed and hope for better weather.
For all the pictures submitted surrounding this event, please follow this link: http://www.texaschapteraomci.com/gallery/spring-wet-meet-at-the-heart-of-texas-lake-resort/