Work Continues at Chicago Sailing

Here are a couple of shots of Donnie and Charlie working hard to sort out a skied halyard. This is a real pain to sort out and a timely reminder to all involved as to why it is very... very.... VERY important to never.... never.... NEVER let a halyard out of your hand unless it is secured to something.
What sometimes happens is that the weight of the halyard will pull the end of the halyard up to the top of the mast or even worse out of the mast altogether (with the help of those onboard) and either the mast has to be taken down or if we have to send someone up the mast to feed a wire down through the mast and then lead a new halyard through. Here you see that we have used the main halyard on our J30 Bonzai to haul Charlie up the mast in a 'Bosun's chair' and 'heeled' the J24 over towards the J30's mast so as to be able to reach the top of the J24's mast. This method saves us having to get a crane to take down the mast on the J24 and about an additional 2 ours work!!


This is a time consuming and sometimes very frustrating task (ask Charlie or Donnie) and can be avoided by sailors making sure to 'make off' or secure halyards at all times and also NEVER pulling a line or halyard that you are unsure where it is coming from.

All in all this took us about 2 hours from start to finish.

You can't beat the Friday evening sail!

Today was the most wonderful evening for a sail... add about 12o new sailors from The Lincoln Park Young Professionals, some great Vodka and Champagne drinks and you get a wonderful time. All participants were treated to a sail on the lake and some entertainment from our colourful captains and instructors.

Wild winds and crazy rain at Chicago Sailing

Today at Chicago Sailing we were treated to some of Chicago's notoriously quick changing weather. We had heavy, heavy rain and some wild thunderstorms. Here you can see the rain pouring down by the bucket load. It was too wet to move so we stayed inside the houseboat watching the great natural display.


After the rain stopped we walked up to the underpass at Lakeshore Drive only to see this. The pass was flooded with some cars stalled out with their doors nearly covered up.

Kicking off the Summer

What a better way to start the summer than a day on the water? These 5 friends are getting ready to head out for another beautiful summer day on to the lake. Here at Chicago Sailing we sometimes may be a little short on wind, but we are never short on fun!



5 big boats all lined up on the dock, what a shame! These boats were meant for cruising, not sitting.

Empty Docks at Chicago Sailing....

Today was a wonderful day for a sail, upon our return to the dock we realised that we had a practically empty dock. This is great for everyone, our dock staff are happy as they can catch up on some workshop and maintenance work while our office staff have time to continue with our scheduling. The instructors love it as they are on the boats out on the water.

Mother's Day at Chicago Sailing

Mother's day was special for us all at Chicago Sailing even more so for these lovely folks below.
Here we see Anne with her daughter Melinda and husband Kent. They had a wonderful charter aboard one of our J30's - Bonzai. We are happy to report that Anne said that her cruise was 'the best mother's day gift ever' and that she can't wait to go sailing again.

Here we have Dyson and Kimo with their mother Johanna. Johanna and these guys along with their father also had a nice cruise on Mother's day... we hope to see them all down here again soon.

Congratulations to Annie Miller's class on their successful graduation from Basic 101. We would like to wish them all the best in their future sailing adventures and are looking forward to seeing them out on the water this season.
Here we have Annie (in the yellow) with her class that was made up of Scot, Murali, Phililp and Jeroen. You can also see Annie's dog Layla tugging at Philips rope that he was using to practise knots.

There really is something about early morning

One of our favorite times is the calm before the storm.... that peaceful time of the day in the early morning when the sun is just rising, the birds are awaking and people are about to get out and about (and the phones have not started ringing like crazy yet!).

Here we have a shot taken early this morning, although the harbor is still filling up you can see many boats already in their docks. After Memorial Day we expect to see many more.

First off this morning was Brent Breithaupt and his crew aboard our J24. These guys had a reservation for 8am and were anxious to get on the lake early to watch the city come alive.
If you fancy early morning cruises or sails we will be happy to open up our operations earlier, just ask.

We were graced with one of our four legged sailors also today- Bella. Bella is Stephanie's dog. Stephanie is our new Marketing Coordinator who is away in Vegas for a wedding this weekend (maybe her own, she has been quiet so far!?). Bella is our designated Guard Dog this weekend... she will lick you to death if you are not careful.
Here you see Bella before she went out sailing for the afternoon.... yes dog's are allowed here at Chicago Sailing.

Lessons Continue in Mid- summer like conditions

Today we had some private lessons take place and one Basic 101 which is running each morning from 9 – 12. The instructor for both classes is Alex and he has been reporting light wind conditions more like mid June with winds between 2 and 10 knots each day. Tomorrow is forested for 15 – 20 out of the North so we have a feeling that the classes are in for some serious fun sailing tomorrow.

Here we have Alex and his evening private lesson going through a little theory before they venture out on the water.

They were on the water from about 5pm - 8pm and were lucky enough to get a great view of the sunset from the vantage point of the lake.

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Glorious J30 Sailing!!

What a wonderful day Tuesday was! We had winds from the South west between 9 and 20 knots with very small waves. The cooler was full and the crew were anxious to get out on the water for the first time in 2007.


As always we asked our sailors to take loads of photos and be sure to email them to us.... and guess what? This time they did!!

Here we see the crew sailing towards Michigan which was their initial plan until they realised that the beer would not last all the way.








The crew told us of 'Glorious Sailing' and of how great it was to be out on the water again. 'Sailing makes the summer in Chicago' was one comment.

We would have to agree with them on that point. It really is great to be able to get out on the lake in T-shirts and shorts in early May. Let's hope that this is a sign of the summer that lays ahead.

Nothing beats being out on the Lake!!

This is our favorite shot... just like the Corona add running at the moment except that it is more realistic..... the bottle is empty!



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A proposal, a swimming instructor and great sailing

What a day we had today! Sunburned happy faces, smiles, laughs and good times at Chicago Sailing.
It started off bright and early with three full boats going out on Club Sails. All boats returned (we always like when that happens) and the reports were of some amazing sailing conditions. 'Awesome', 'Amazing' and 'Far out' were some of the many good terms used.

Here you see our J22 'Catach' sailing back into the harbor. This boat was out for a private lesson with Rob as the instructor.

While we normally advise against sailing in the harbor as Rob was onboard we didn't mind too much and also as the boat was out of gas they really didn't have much of a choice. Imagine my surprise when i saw Rob fall off the back of the boat while he was instructing. As is normal in these situations it had happened before i even realised and Rob was back onboard even quicker than he had fallen off! It may have something to do with the frigid water.

Luckily for me i had my phone with me and was able to capture the moment as he got back onboard.

Typically when someone falls overboard (especially at this time of the year) they do not stay in the water too long. Once I saw that Rob was safe and uninjured the laughter came... and did i laugh!! Well done Rob, and congratulations on the first instructor swim of 2007.



This afternoon we had another proposal, this time onboard one of our J22's. Congratulations to Jeremiah Lange and his new fiance. We would like to wish them all the best in their future. Hopefully they will always have fun memories of Chicago Sailing and come back to sail with us in the future.
For the record (and for those of you that are thinking of popping the question) we have a 100% record for proposals at Chicago Sailing.... not one declined yet.

We had a french invasion this afternoon with the arrival of one of our long time customers
Thierry Faure and his crew of fellow french sailors taking out one of the J22's for a spin this afternoon... Thierry promised to take along his drapeau tricolore next time to fly off the backstay.

Early Sunday morning.... gotta love it!

This shot was taken at about 7am this morning.... we think its one of the nicest times of the day at Chicago Sailing...... the calm before the storm.

A lovely Saturday at Chicago Sailing

65 degrees and climbing at this point. Classes are continuing and our boats are busy leaving the dock for some perfect sailing. Today we have three Basic 101's taking place and a Refresher 121. With this warm weather and 10 – 15knots out of the west the sailing conditions are close to perfect.

Here we have two dedicated and hard- working Chicago Sailing staff members getting Jaffica ready for her first sail of the day.

Brian Morrow and his crew of sailors can be seen aboard Hebejebee enjoying a few apres sail cocktails.... they are still on the boat, hopefully we won't have to carry them off. We asked them how it went.. "Ton's of fun on the water!"- Andrew + Brian, "Party like a rockstar on a Hunter 326"- Andrew, "This Rocks..."- Leann + John.

We would like to thank Brian and his crew for getting out and enjoying the fine weather... not to mention the cocktails they shared with the Chicago Sailing crew... always appreciated.

Just as we were closing up this evening we had a special visit from some past customers of Chicago Sailing. Unfortunately we forgot to get their names... but there story is one to be told.
Last year they took a charter aboard one of our Hunters and upon their return they were engaged. A year later they are now happily married and wanted to stop by to get their photo taken as they forgot to take one the day of their charter.

Congratulations again.... two successful marriage proposals and counting for 2007. We like to think that there is something in the air down here.

A wet and rocky day at Chicago Sailing

People often ask us what to we do on days like today, when it is wet, windy and not a great day for sailing.
Well as you can see from this photo it is dark, wet and windy here at the harbor. We arrived into the houseboat at 9am and as it is so windy on the lake (about 17 knots out of the North East) there is a bit of a swell coming into the harbor. Firstly we do a check on all the boats and make sure that they are correctly moored at the docks and have not suffered any damage throughout the night. We are happy to report that all are in good condition. Once that is done we brew a nice big pot of coffee, sign in to the computer system and get to work!

As for us in the Houseboat... well lets just say that we are a bit dizzy. As there is a swell coming into the harbor we are gently rocking around on board our floating houseboat. At the start of the season it takes all of us a few days to become used to the motion of the office. Yes we know, we are very lucky to have a floating office, but it does take a bit of getting used to.

So this morning we are busy taking reservations here at the houseboat, today alone we have scheduled two Basic Sailing 101 courses, a Catalina 390 charter for May and a Refresher course for May.

Donnie and Chad are here on board the houseboat with me (Ronan). Donnie is busy sowing (a man of many talents is our Donnie) our cushions for inside our J30 - Traveller. We had them cleaned for the season. Unfortunately though it is a tedious job to get the covers back over the cushions as the foam firstly has to be wrapped in plastic sheeting and then the covers led over the foam. Luckily for Donnie he is on the last of 16 covers. He vows that he will not be doing this again and will personally find anyone that stains the freshly cleaned cushions!!


Here we have a photo of one of our new staff members for 2007- Chad. Chad started a couple of weeks ago here in the office and is getting used to life aboard a floating office.

Chad is one of our team of Reservation assistants/ schedulers and is busy taking calls today. Chad is a MA student at University of Chicago studying the history of religion. He is taking a much needed break from academics for the spring and summer. Chad has done a few sailing trips in the past (he sailed with Ash Hoffman one of our instructors from Connecticut to Maine) and is looking forward to doing a lot more with us this season. Chad will be with us all summer and will be only too happy to discuss the merits of the many religions that he has studied in the past...:).

Congratulations to the first graduates of 2007

Chicago Sailing would like to congratulate some hard core sailors on their successful graduation from our Basic 101 class. They braved the conditions last weekend to venture in the freezing temperatures and heavy winds, they even braved the chili we had for them upon their return.

Here we see Sanjay (Instructor) with James, Jacob, Mike and Palwasha upon their graduation. We were hoping that they would give their instructor the traditional ducking in the water but fortunately it never happened.... maybe next time they are down sailing with us they will sneak up and push him in.... for all those prospective students out there it is the greatest compliment you can pay your instructor.




Here are the other first graduates of 2007 . Bob is the instructor in the middle with Wendy and Julia on his left and Andy and Eric to his right.

Congratulations again to all of these graduates, we hope that we will see them out on the water very soon and putting their new found skills to good use.

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Snow, driving sleet and freezin temps!!

We at Chicago Sailing love our new office location here at Belmont Harbor. We know how lucky we are to be in the harbor and to be able to look up from our computers to see the harbor and the view of the city..... most of the time that is.

Here is a shot from the harbor entrance this morning
The winds were gusting to about 35 knots with waves of 7ft - 9ft rolling straight into the harbor. Our office was like a leaking sieve, rocking and rolling around the dock about to break free. We managed to secure all of our boats and find the offending leaks (not before they had found the way to our computers and phone systems) luckily we averted any damage and nothing exploded.
Needless to say our Basic 101 class that was scheduled for today was canceled and will be rescheduled for next week.

Let's hope this weather moderates and summer returns soon.
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We are open, can Spring be far behind? - Alan Veenstra

This past week served as a reminded us of two important truths. First, sailors are a hearty sort. With the worst opening-day weather forecast ever, we called each of our Basic 101 students to offer them the opportunity to postpone class for a week. To their enduring credit, all of them declined our offer and voted to proceed as scheduled. Let us all give a round of applause to Eric Bohms, Julie Chluda, Wendy Carlstrom, Andy Kucharski that's them on the left with their instructor Bob.



And to Jacob Olesen, James Manning, Michael Vernale and Palwasha Ghizalam for braving the elements to join us in this grand adventure that is sailing (that is them here on the left with their instructor Sanjay). As we told them Sunday, they have lots of better days ahead; it could hardly be otherwise.

Here you see Bob's class warming up inside the houseboat with some of Ronan's special soup.

We remained humbled by the unpredictability of weather, especially at this time of year in Chicago. This week it is snowing, but 50’s are expected by Friday!

Chicago Sailing was host to a display of romance on Sunday as well. David Tabet chartered Hal’s Pal for a romantic sail down to Navy Pier with his girl friend, Gina. The relationship did not last the trip. By the time they returned Gina was no longer his girl friend, she is now his fiancee’! Chicago Sailing charters have become an increasingly popular venue for marriage proposals. Their captain, Ronan Adams remind us that our success record remains at 100%.

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Launching the J24 in Montrose

On a very cold and grey Thursday afternoon some of our hard working crew went to Montrose Harbor (next harbor north of Belmont) to launch our J24 for the season. The J24 was stored outside in an enclosed pen for the winter where we had her covered with a snug tarp braving the Chicago winter.

Willie, Donnie and myself were the brave crew (there was supposed to be a 4th crew member who will remain nameless that was scheduled to help us but forgot to get out of bed) to do the work.
Launching the J24 is a little bit nerve racking. We have to first move the trailer to the crane- not easy with only three of us and then lift the J24 above our heads and off the trailer. This is where things get a little scary. Scary because the boat could drop off the crane and fall on us, not too mention the damage that would be done to the boat. As the J24 is quite a bit heavier than the J22 a fourth person is vital to safely move the boat from above the dock to the water. So we pushed, we shoved, we roared and we screamed and we even cursed... we even resorted to willing the boat to move into the water (you can imagine what was being said about the fourth crew member that did not turn up to help us).

Eventually...
we managed to get the crane turned and the boat into the
water. Here you see Willie and Donnie very relieved and getting to rigging the main sail for the sail down to Belmont.

Once the boat was safely in the water we rigged her up and Donnie and Willie sailed her to Belmont. Usually we would sail the boat single handed but as the water is so cold at this time of the year we only allow two or more sailors. This is in case of a man overboard situation, with the water at only 38 degrees a person in the water does not have long to survive.




Soon they were off, main only as it was quite windy (i think it was just because they were too lazy and cold to hoist the jib) and before long they arrived at Belmont.

One more boat launched, one less headache to deal with... and on we go.

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Splashing the big boats- April 3rd 2007

Today we braved some funky weather forecast which called for rain and thunder storms and the possibility of a weather window for a few hours so that we could launch our J30's and Hunter 326's.


Bleary eyed Chicago Sailing staff met at our workshop on Diversey at 6am to drive up to the Wisconsin/ Illinois border where we keep the boats during the winter at the Great Lakes Naval Base. Things did not look good as we were driving up, it was dark, cold, wet, windy and there was lightning ahead of us... we were not even sure if we could launch the boats even if we wanted to.


Luckily for us the weather broke and we actually got some blue sky and sun, it truly was amazing. We prepared the boats for launching and soon they were in the crane and ready to be splashed.
It was not long before our crew arrived on the train from Chicago.



We had about 12 sailors that joined us for the trip. When they took the train from Chicago there was a big thunderstorm about to hit but they elected to make the trip anyway in the hope of some good weather and a great first sail of 2007. They were not disappointed!

We set off into what we thought was a southerly wind of about 15knots, this meant that it was right on our nose and it was going to take us quite a while to sail the 30 miles back to Chicago (the dinner plans were being put on hold!!). After about an hour the wind started to clock round to the east which suited us perfectly as we were able to sail on a close reach all the way to Chicago. It was glorious sailing, and not even cold. We were well prepared with thermal underwear, down jackets and wet gear and we did not even need them. What a perfect start to the season.

Here you can see Chris Oles trimming the main on Traveller and Jen helming as we were sailing down to Chicago. Chris and Jen were part of the to brave the Chicago thunderstorm and take the train up to meet us at Great Lakes. Thanks to Chris for remembering to take along a nice case of beer for the trip... it was a welcome addition to the crew!!

With the good winds we ended up moving along quite quickly and arriving at B- Dock in Belmont at about 5:30pm- YUP! - we too were amazed. Amazed at the wonderful first sail that we had, amazed that the weather cooperated so well and most of all... amazed that we did not freeze!

Chris summed it up brilliantly...

"It was one of those perfect sailing days that you
talk about for the rest of the season."

Cheers,
Chris

The first of many we are sure...

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Houseboat Delivery - April 1st. by Ronan

On April fools day bright and early the Chicago Sailing Team met to take our houseboat/ summer office down the river. We were very lucky that it was quite a warm day all be it a bit windy and even more lucky that the engines started (and kept running) thanks to some hard work by Alan.

We had a crew of eager sailors for the first river trip of the summer, and even a few pirates joined us.

We departed at about 11am and started making our way down the river and through the city. The views from the river are truly amazing, you get a completely different perspective of city life.















We motored down the river and through the Chicago Lock and got through without any problems.

It was when we exited the lock that things got a little hairy due to a lot of wind blowing up some short steep waves that were bouncing back from the Navy Pier breakwater.

While we did not lose anyone we all had a bit of a scare and rocked and rolled around for a couple of minutes before we were able to turn north and have the seas behind us.

Once we got past Navy Pier it was wonderful, cool beers, good company and a fun boat. Some more pics are below.







Here you see Captain Scott multi- tasking, he is able to eat, drink a beer and even steer the boat..... truly a credit to Chicago Sailing.









On the right you can see Alan and his son Jack. This was Jack's first river trip and from the smiles on his face that day we are sure there will be many more.










We have a suspicion that Jack may have even had his first real crush on a girl...
Here he is with Crystel who was delighted to mind the Junior Veenstra.




As we neared Belmont we could see some 420's that were doing some sailing in the harbor as the wind was gusting up to about 25 knots so it was a little blustery for them to be going out to the lake at this time of the year.

Once we pulled into Belmont we saw one of the 420's capsize with the crew hitting the frigid 39 degree water..... we felt sorry for them, but not so sorry that we were able to take a couple of shots of the boat and its precarious position.

Here you can see the view from the bridge of the houseboat. There is one boat capsized with the crew holding on to the daggerboard.

They were not long in the water, soon the boat turned back up they hopped in and sailed off.... only the pride was injured.

You have to give it to the hardy souls that do the frostbiting at Chicago Yacht Club, it is not unusual to see them out there in bitter cold conditions in early April.


Our delivery of Squid was a great success with everyone enjoying the trip, the boat being safely delivered and secured ready for her stint as a floating office from now until the end of October.


Thanks to all that made the trip!! We are already looking forward to the return trip.



Next on the agenda for this week is the launching of our bigger boats from Great Lakes Naval base on the Wisconsin/ Illinois boarder. This promises to be a fun (and cold) trip down on Tuesday.

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