Finding Lyric...

We give credit to our friends Cindy & Mike Miller on the s/v Dragonheart  for being the spark that started us toward the current fantasy we are living.  Cindy and Debi worked together and during casual conversations about sailing renewed our enthusiasm for sailing in early 2000.  We had enjoyed sailing for many years on Canyon Lake in our Catalina 27,  Afternoon Delight  in the 1980's and early 1990's, but over the years, our enthusiasm for sailing went into hibernation particularly after we sold the Catalina.  But one thing leads to another; we caught the fever again and bought a 35 foot Endeavour, s/v Maiden America.  We then spent a few fun years sailing the Texas Coast on the weekends (much of it with the Millers).

The reality of having to "pass back through the membrane" and return to the workaday world finally pushed Mike and Cindy into their cruising adventure.  They followed their dream and cruised Dragonheart  for several years all the while keeping in touch with us, and providing "gentle" persuasion (something close to "get you're A@#*S out here!!!).  Finally, after the death of Debi's mother, Merle Strickler, we began to re-examine our lives and decided that pursuing a great adventure was worth the risk.  Since Maiden America  was too small for Debi's standards of comfort and our three pets, we went searching for "the right boat".

We needed enough space for two people, one 60 pound dog, and two cats and …Noah's Ark was not available.  We developed "must have" criteria:  shallow draft, skeg hung rudder, blue water design, stable, safe, large storage capacity, classic lines, aft cockpit and not too much exterior teak (Debi's list).  We lived on YachtWorld.com searching for boats meeting our criteria.  Then, we read an article on Caliber yachts and were impressed with their safety features, design and long range capabilities (212 gallons of fuel, 179 gallons of water).  Thus the Caliber 40LRC moved to the top of our "short list", but we still had to decide between a new boat (with possible "limited custom features") and a used boat.

Our search began in earnest.  We arranged to see a relatively new C40LRC in Kemah, Texas, and then Roy visited the Caliber factory in Clearwater, FL.  The visit to the Caliber factory was great.  Kathy MacDonald did a fantastic job of describing the Caliber approach to the yacht building business and providing an excellent tour of their facilities.  The quality that goes into a Caliber is "first rate".  During this trip, Roy was able to see several used Calibers for sale in South Florida.

We made an offer on a well equipped (but heavily used) 1997 C40LRC following this trip, but fortunately we were not able to reach an agreement.  Then we settled on a slightly used (even "un-named") boat in Connecticut.  After a somewhat drawn-out period of negotiation, we reached a "deal" contingent on a satisfactory survey and sea trial.  Roy traveled to Connecticut with our friend/buyers agent/broker, Dennis Fria, to attend the survey and conduct a sea trial on the 2001 Caliber 40 LRC.  She was truly in "like new" condition, and the sellers were motivated to move back to power boats.  She was so new, in fact, that she still had the factory tags in place and less than 100 hours on the engine.  During a very cold, wet, and very brief sea trial, Roy was even more convinced this was our boat.  We closed the purchase in December 2004 and arranged land transport from Connecticut to Texas.

We still did not have a name and had no strong ideas or preferences, so like all good cruisers, we asked for help from our fellow cruisers.  We called Mike and Cindy who were in Key West and ran some names by them.  They were having "sundowners" with other boaters and said to give them thirty minutes to think of several good names.  30 minutes later we had a list of about 15 boat names to consider.  When she mentioned Lyric, Debi paused for a moment but kept getting more names.  We both liked DeRoCa for "Debi and Roy Canon", but soon realized that "roca" is rock in Spanish, and since we didn't want to name a floating object "Rock", we moved on and played around with Lyric.  The more we thought about it, the better it sounded, and so she was named…Lyric.  Has a good sound doesn't it?  Now the hard part begins…and ends…