Thursday, launch day.

Launched the boat about 11 am Thursday. and took it to the Marina.

There it is nestled between two 24 foot beauties.

Alongside another Gar Wood.

That's me.

Going like mad.


This boat is a 1919, with a WW ONE Liberty Engine, out of an airplane.

We arrived.

We're at King's Beach. Left my home at 2 AM, picked up the Funny Farmer at 7 AM in SLC, and arrived at our motel at 8:30 PM. It was a real workout for my 30 year old Olds.

Boat Show List

The list is published. There are 79 boats. Eight of them are boats built after the end of the wooden boat era, which ended in 1968. These boats are newly built replicas, built as late as 2007. The oldest is a 1915 30' Launch. Seven of them are Gar Wood. Some of them are worth a quarter of a million dollars.

Her Clothing

My lady must travel with clothing.

More pictures in the water.

Next week to Tahoe!

I'm Ready for Tahoe

The boat is ready for Tahoe. She is named and painted. The towing car is ready.

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is her birthday. I wanted her to be my Valentine from the very first night I saw her on that dance floor in September, 1963. At first she was very cautious. She didn’t remember me the next week. (I think she did, but didn’t want to act too excited!!) It took me two months to get a date. She gave me all kinds of excuses, chances for me to back off. She had five kids. No problem. She was on probation. Huh? (She was a widow going thru probate court.) But I didn’t let up on her. Finally I could come to her home for Sunday dinner and meet her children. Now, today, her children are my best friends and my most favorite people. It was in November, 1963.


I courted her a year and two months before we got engaged on Christmas day 1964. We planned our wedding for July 12, 1965. We went on a two week honeymoon thru Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington and back home to Idaho.


Then we had 42 years, 2 months and 5 days together. I’ll admit that ever day was not a honeymoon, we had our problems. She had to forgive me 70 times 7. But they were good years. I helped raise her children and we had a beautiful child of our own. Then 21 grandchildren, 17 greatgrandchildren.



She got a teaching degree and taught 5th grade for 27 years. She held many Church positions and worked beside me in the Temple for 15 years. She endured the lose of a son and a daughter, her parents and two siblings.

When she left me for a better place September 17, 2007, I was numb for awhile. And I didn’t know how much I really loved her, until she after was gone.

I hated to let her go. But she was in so much pain. When I realized that she was gone, I didn’t dare touch her or talk to her for a few minutes, I was afraid that I may wake her up, because she didn’t want to stay. I wonder if she watched me hesitate. She came back and talked to two of her daughters and let us know how much she loved us, that the Gospel is True, and that it was time for her to go.

She was born February 14, 1933 to a poor but hansom mechanic father and a beautiful housewife mother in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Lived 56 years in the same house. As the area grew, she belonged to 3 stakes and 3 wards, and never moved. She had 2 acres of beautiful yard and flowers. She loved her children first; her home, yard and flowers second; her cat third; and then me. She is now "Heavens Master Gardener".

I love you Darlene, my Sweetheart, my Valentine. 'Til we meet again.

My Boat is Entered

My boat, THE OTHER WOMAN is entered in the Lake Tahoe Wooden Boat Show. It is called the Concours d’Elegance. It is held in June 2009 from 18th to 21st, Thursday thru Sunday. The boat must be in the harbor of the Sierra Boat Company, Carnelian Bay, Ca (north shore) on Thursday. It will be judged on Friday or Saturday. Saturday evening is a barbeque dinner, and they will announce the winners. Sunday afternoon at 2 PM, the peoples choice award will be given, and we all "roar" out into the lake, and then I’ll go home.

Wish me luck, but really, I am one of 75 other boats just as beautiful as mime. It will be fun just being there.

Epilog...the Love Affair Continues

Did you notice that my first post about this boat was titled, "The Beginning of a Love Affair?"
"Affair" means other than your wife. Read on to see where this is going.

Now that the boat is finished, I am making plans for next summer. I will be going to local lakes near here and in Utah for exposure. I mentioned that I will be going to some boat shows. Tahoe, Coeur d’Alene, Lake Oswego, up near Seattle, to name a few. I needed pictures, I actually needed to finish by October so I could find water in a lake. And I didn’t want to turn it into an ice breaker.

My motto with hobbies is, no deadlines. As soon as you "have to get it done", it becomes a chore. So I spent more time at the shop, without making it a deadline. If I didn’t get it done, then there was always another year. But I finished it with about 3 weeks to spare, you know, water was still in the lake.

You’ve read the chapters and seen the pictures. As I went from one day to the next, I could hardly wait for morning to come. Yet if other things needed to be done, or a trip to see my grand kids, there was no urgency. But there was one thing I noticed that bothered me a little. I was anxious to get one step done, so I could start on the next. I wanted to get the framing done so I could start putting the bottom planks on, etc. And each night when I went to bed, I planned the next days work, seeing in my mind what I would do. I used to fly instrument approaches in the airplane the same way. In my mind. All the steps. Before I was in the plane.

You saw the beauty of that boat. I still can’t believe that I did that. I knew it had to be near perfect, but I am so surprised that it is.

A boat is a girl. A boat needs a name. I wondered what I would name it.

You may know that I was partially retired. I had no set working hours, just get the job done, which was managing a grain elevator. I was actually teaching the bosses son the drill. And his wife to keep the books and inventory correct. As they learned more, the less I worked. I had been doing this for 7 years, and I fully retired at the end of 2007.

So when I started on the boat in the spring of 2006, I had a lot of time for the boat. Now I didn’t neglect my wife. When I retried, she didn’t want me home all the time anyway. You know, like one of her friend’s husband, in his boredom, he rearranged her recipe book!

We teased each other a lot. I always had a hobby in the evenings. I built things out side, a garage, bridges, a grape arbor, a covered walkway for her vast yard, helped build flower gardens, etc. But I always came in from my model railroad, or my model planes, etc. by 9 PM and spent the last hour and a half before bed with her. Talking, rubbing her feet, laughing, watching TV. When I got my first computer in 1988, and spent so much time on it, she gave it a name. She called it "Meg" (It was a "Mega-Turbo") It had that name on the front.

So one day she teased me and said, "You spend more time on that boat than you do with me."

Now I had my name.

THE OTHER WOMAN

Here is my beautiful wife with her brother at 3 years.

Here she is at 17 years. Here she is at 45 years.

Here she is at 61 years with her lucky husband.

Here she is at 69 years.

I would never step out on this wonderful woman.

Here is the boat at 59 years.

Here is the resurrected boat.

Here is my resurrected wife. You know, the prime of life.

They are both so beautiful.

And that is the last thing I need to do on the boat. I’m having a graphic artist paint it on the transom later on.

I am going to expand these chapters and pictures into a loose leaf folder to display at the boat shows. So this gave me a start.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Read you on the blog, I am the OldBoatGuy.

The Grand Finale #12 of 12

I took the boat back to the shop, put it on the floor so I could work on it easy and here are some pictures. I painted the white stripes, installed the chrome, seats, ceilings, etc.

This was on 1 October 2008

On 7 October 2008, I took it again to the lake for the pictures I needed for next years boat shows.




Next to a beautiful woman, isn’t that the most beautiful thing you have ever seen? Well, to me anyway.

My freind Randy took some of these pictures.

Movies. Launching.

Short trip around the lake.

My friend Randy is driving.

There’s your boat ride.

All three times I was at the lake, people came to see it and talk about the boat. They saw it while driving by. They were older men who remember them from their younger years or owned one. One of them was a prior owner of this boat. This is the only mahogany planked wooden boat in Southeastern Idaho.

In 2008 I spent 685 hours. Total of 2 years 6 months and 2 days. Total of 1674 hours of which 145 were spent on the engine and 88 on the trailer. If my time is worth $10 an hour as an apprentice cabinet maker, that’s $16,740. The other costs were in the thousands also.

The next boat would take me less time. But I don’t think my legs or shoulders will hold up for that much work again. I would love to do another boat, but.........