A Weekend Love Story

By Steve and Denise McCune, Southwest Chapter

This story is of course about boating, but it is also about how others helped us to realize our life-long dream to one day own a yacht class boat. A great man once said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” The late great Zig Ziglar proclaimed this profound phrase as he travelled the world teaching people how to be successful. I have experienced firsthand the effectiveness of this tradition through helping others and I would be remiss if I did not credit the success I have enjoyed to those people. 

I met Ava Denise (affectionately referred to as Dee Dee by our six grandchildren) in June of 1984. I courted her on a 1979 24-foot Buccaneer sailboat, that a friend was kind enough to loan me from time to time. Life was good, we fell in love, and were married by November. In 1986 we chartered a 36-foot sailboat from a nice man at Grand Pappy’s Marina and embarked on a birthday cruise around Lake Texoma. We sailed all over the lake, eventually realizing we had no idea where we were. We were lost and darkness made it impossible to navigate. We would not be returning the boat by nightfall, as promised. We dropped anchor and made the best of it. Morning revealed that we were just outside Highport Marina. We figured out where we were, started the engine and left what would later become the first of many anchorages on Lake Texoma. Before steaming back toward Grand Pappy’s we cruised through Highport. In awe of the beautiful yachts, we pledged to each other that we would one day return to Highport with one of our own. 

Over the next ten years everything took precedence over the possibility of owning a boat. But, in the summer of 1995, we purchased a 28-foot 1963 Chris-Craft Cavalier which was berthed at Lake Country Marina on Eagle Mountain Lake in Fort Worth. It was not much, it certainly was not a yacht, but it was ours and we enjoyed it with our three young children and friends. It did not take long to realize that boating was an expensive hobby. We gave her back to the gentleman who sold her to us on a note and returned to our life before boating.

By 2006 the kids had grown up, God had blessed us with some semblance of financial independence, and we decided our fondness of boating had been put off long enough. We purchased a 34-foot Hunter sailboat from La Vida Starships in Lewisville, Texas. Less than a year later, we moved into a larger 40 Ft Hunter Legend.  We finally had our “yacht” and wasted no time moving her to our new weekend home at Highport Marina. 

I have always had a penchant for buying and selling things. It is just one of those things I do. When challenged with naming our new yacht, Dee declared without hesitation “you might just as well hang a For Sale sign on her, you’ll have her sold in 6 months.” Since she is always right, we did just that and she was aptly dubbed Fore Sail.

We sailed Fore Sail all over Lake Texoma, which is no small feat. Lake Texoma is 89,000 acres, has dozens of marinas and many cool places to anchor and hang-out with friends. But as good as it was to sail it was almost as much fun just hanging out with our dock neighbors. I truly believe the nicest people on the planet are boaters.  

I mentioned kids and grandchildren earlier. As awesome as they are, they just did not have the appreciation for sailing that us older folks had. So, in the summer of 2011 we ventured to the dark side. We acquired a 42-foot Carver Aft Cabin Motor Yacht.

Her name was Weekend Love, and we wasted no time moving her into her new berth at Highport Marina. It is important to point out the nice gentleman who sold us Weekend Love allowed us to defer final payment until we sold Fore Sail. Who does that? How could he have known what it meant to us?

Looking back, I cannot imagine my life without my parents, my sweet wife, children, grandchildren, friends, and of course boating. The memories and the life-long friendships forged, along with the great times on Lake Texoma with those friends and my family, the faithful relationship with my Lord and Savior; these things all add up to an unimaginable life.  I am indeed humbled and truly grateful. None of these assets would have been possible without the unselfish actions of others. 

I could not tell the story about our 88 Carver, Weekend Love, without telling the story of how she came to be our dream boat. Looking back, each step of the way, someone helped us realize our goals. I know we could not have realized this awesome Weekend Love dream of having a Yacht class boat and the beautiful life that accompanies it, if it had not been for unselfish people that helped us. Thanks to you all (you know who you are). You enable this dream to become reality, and we can never thank you enough.