I acquired a 1972 Dolphin SR from a neighbor. This boat was greatly loved and well used, but had been sitting on a slowly rotting trailer for twenty years. Everything was there except the tiller. For this I bought a beautiful piece of red oak and began the process of fashioning a new one.

This boat was never registered, but is now required to be due to its being over 14’ long and to laws that may be less than twenty years old. Wow, there’s a lot of stuff about lake front living that isn’t covered in the brochure. I’ll have to fill out about five forms, get a couple of them notarized, and pay a fee before we can harness the wind. Until then “Widowmaker” should remain ashore.

The previous owner told me he decided on “Widowmaker” after she had thrown him a few times. He said a renaming would have to be done ceremoniously if I hoped to avoid the wrath of the lake gods. I would need to select a sacred spot on the lake, pour a glass of champagne on her bow and back away while declaring aloud the new name. Afterward, I was to finish off the bottle of champagne. I was thinking it would be good if the sacred spot was in shallow water, near the shore.

Oh alright, on Sunday, the 13th, I cheated on the whole registration thing. What was I supposed to do? The neighbor found part of the tiller in his garage and left it leaning against our front door. When we discovered it, well... I quickly made the other half out of a broken canoe paddle and cast off. What fun!

I had done some research online to support what my neighbor had told me about maneuvers and such. The day was relatively calm, but that was a good thing considering my complete lack of experience. Using what I'd read and heard, I managed to go into the water only once (so far).

I went out again on Monday—breakin' the law, breakin' the law. On Tuesday, the 15th, my wife took all the forms I had filled out to the DMV and registered the thing. She bought numbers for the bow. Two days later a pocket card came in the mail. Now I'm legal. The registration stickers and title should arrive soon.

While I was out sailing, a local marine service was busily laboring to install a brand new 75HP Honda on the old Party Barge.

With the help of my sister and brother-in-law, we had trailered the boat to the dealer on Monday, the 14th. We put it back in the water the following Saturday and promptly burned a tank and a half of gas running up and down the lake.

With increased activity at the boat lift (hoisting and lowering on a regular basis) it was time to upgrade the cable system. It had always been a makeshift affair with spliced and frayed cables and sharp edges that caused excessive wear at crucial points. We replaced the cables with a larger diameter and eliminated the sharp edges with shackles and thimbles. We also made it safer to grab the cables by covering the loose ends with rubber hose.

We looked at many different brands and styles of blinds for the kitchen windows and decided on the 1 ˝” wooden, but we were unwilling to spend the money on them this year. We opted to paint some cheap plastic shades.

I had to cut down the length and width of both. The length was pretty easy. I hung them temporarily on the wall, disassembled the bottom rail and cord assembly, slid the unwanted slats out, cut off the suspension cording, and reassembled the bottom rail and cord. The width was harder. I brought all the slats together and aligned them as accurately as possible then held them together with a clamp. I marked the length and cut the unwanted portion off with a hacksaw. Then I cut off the top hoist assembly housing and the bottom rail.

Afterward, we hung them outside and my wife painted them. She intentionally gave them an unevenness thereby creating a natural material or bamboo look, which isn't particularly obvious in these photographs.