Preseason

March arrived like a snow lion with hours of lake effect snow created by cold air blowing off the unfrozen Lake. It's enough to make one think of Florida--something I've vowed never to do. Generally I write about Speakeasy or, at least, something to do with water but preseason baseball games have begun and Spring can't be far behind. Besides, I just learned what a Lady Godiva Pitch is--a pitch with nothing on it. Here's another one. A Linda Ronstadt Pitch is one that is so fast that it blew by you (as in Blue Bayou). Don't blame me. I've got cabin fever. 

How Speakeasy Got Her Name

As soon as I started contemplating owning a boat, I began working on her name. Names are important to me. I thought of the elements: the sky and water and wind. One morning while I was still half-asleep, the name Starwave fell from the heavens, you might say, and splashed into the waves, so to speak. Immediately I envisioned the name painted on her hull. I saw a flag waving in the breeze emblazoned with three stars above a scalloped wave. When I realized that my design was a dead ringer for the flag of Aargau--the Swiss canton of which I am a citizen, this similarity solidified my choice.

Starwave spoke to me but not to anyone else. Conversations went like this:

“I’ve chosen the name for the sailboat I plan to own someday.”

“Really? What?”

“Starwave.”

“Huh.”

No one understood the name Starwave.

Then I met Bob Bilhorn who has circumnavigated the globe on his 47’ Stephens sailboat Tally Ho. One day as he and I sailed up the Chicago shoreline, Bob explained why a boat’s name must be easy to recognize and remember. When sailing in Indonesia, Tally Ho had pulled up alongside a huge tanker. After exchanging names and pleasantries, the tanker filled up some empty jerry cans with diesel fuel and lowered them down. The boats parted ways.

Not long after, a huge motorboat approached Tally Ho at great speed. Bob immediately radioed on Channel 16,“Tally Ho here to approaching unidentified motor vessel. What are your intentions? Repeat Tally Ho here. What are your intentions?”

The boat veered off. Bob explained, “I knew the tanker monitored Channel 16 and would remember our name and come to our rescue, if need be.”

Scratch Starwave.

By now, Mark and I had joined forces and our boat’s name should reflect our PartnerShip. Maybe Tango Two - we love to tango. Or Jazzbuoy - Mark loves jazz. What if we combine – Bethmark or Mkbeth

Then one morning, a new name dropped from the heavens.

I nudged Mark and whispered, “Speakeasy. The name for our boat.”

“Perfect,” he replied.

You see, my company is Speaking Unlimited, Inc. My book is Speaking Globally. Mark works in the building whose dome housed Al Capone’s notorious speakeasy The Stratosphere Club.

So Speakeasy she is. Easy to recognize and remember--in case we are ever approached by an aggressive unidentified vessel.

In the meantime, we say, “Knock two times and come aboard.”

Ice

In December there was a nearly 2-foot snow fall followed quickly by a thaw and then a deep freeze. Ice. I borrowed a neighbor's car to get to the yacht yard so I could check on Speakeasy. She was in good shape. The new cover was nearly bare, which meant that the snow that turned to water had run off before the freeze. This was not the case on Speakeasy's yard neighbor, Tally Ho!

Tally Ho has circumnavigated the globe, but calls Chicago home. She's a 47' Stevens with golden masts--easy to spot in the yard. The wind had blown off some of her tarp covering. When I looked more closely, I saw her owner, Bob, fussing with the tarp that had torn in several places. He was worrying about replacing it. Bob welcomed me aboard and I could see that a torn tarp was only part of the problem. When the snow thawed, the heavy, wet snow sunk and stretched the plastic tarp between its support rods, which were made of PVC pipe. Huge pools of water must have formed during the thaw, because what we saw now was huge blocks of ice sitting on the deck. Some of the support rods had snapped under the load. The two largest blocks of ice were hundreds of pounds each.

Bob gave me a hammer to break up the ice. After a few minutes he gave me a sledge. After much pounding we were able to slide smaller 10-20-pound boulders of ice overboard until the deck was clear. Bob bought me lunch for the trouble and went back later to deal with the tarp.

Getting through the long, cold winter...

Sitting at my walnut dining table in this high-ceilinged loft in Printer's Row, I'm contemplating getting through the long, cold Chicago winter.  Two weeks before Christmas eve, the streets are covered with snow; however, the sun has shown today.  Now the last rays of afternoon are warmly reflected off the Donahue Building across the street.  But the warmth is an illusion.  I've been out today, and it's cold. Our 9 foot Christmas tree stands tall like the mast on Speakeasy. Lots of little lights glow like the stars did when we sat close together in our cockpit and gazed up at the summer heavens. At Crate and Barrel I found little wooden sailboats complete with canvas-like sails.  Now our tree is sporting ten of them.  They make me smile.  Would a brisk wind set them off for sights unknown.  No.  But my memory keeps returning to our amazing summer.  The summer from Harbor to Harbor that I should be writing about.  We talked about a book.  Mark diligently and creatively posted blogs on an almost daily basis.  I, hesitant to leash my unedited words for the world to see, didn't really blog.  Maybe you could say I plogged.  But after a conversation last night with playwright Rob Koon and an evocative holiday message from Shirley Nice, I have decided to write and post.  Scary but eventually maybe freeing.  

So here I sit with visions not of sugar plums but of harbors.  Many harbors.  I'd never entered towns from the water before.  I'd always arrived via plane or train or car.  It's different when you approach with waves lapping against the hull, sand dunes in the distance.  Then a lighthouse either port or starboard side.  The channels appear so narrow.  Especially when the waves are high.  Intimidating.  Frightening to approach land?  Oh, yes. I'd been forewarned by my knowledgeable brother that it's better to ride out a storm than to hurry in to a safe haven.  We didn't actually encounter any torrential storms, but we did experience wet and windy arrivals.  That's when Mark would take the helm.  I would silently pray that we would make it into the channel without banging Speakeasy on either side.  The farther into the channel, the calmer the waters and I became.  After several such arrivals, I knew I had  to take my turn. I had to steer Speakeasy into safety. And I did!  Just remembering, I'm smiling broadly. Accomplishments are important.  Goals achieved are valuable.

Maybe I will survive the long Chicago winter by writing about our warm and wonderful summertime adventure.  I will try.  Starting here.  Starting now.  Now I will publish post it. Come on, a little nudge.  Like that time we got stuck trying to anchor.  Mark hung on to the boom and rocked back and forth while I put the engine into reverse and forward and then we were free.  OK,  let's free this up. 

Storage

Each boat has a similar list of storage and winterization tasks, but each boat is different too. To prepare for winter storage, I collected information from Columbia Yacht Club members, fellow sailors in the yacht yard, the yacht yard manager, and the Internet. The Mad Mariner featured a winterization series of articles that was very helpful. I also learn quite a bit from Practical Sailor and the Yanmar engine manual. What got me started was a bit of advice from Wayne, a harbor neighbor, whom we had first met in Leland, MI on Windstar. Wayne suggested that I hire a mechanic for an hour to show me what is to be done and how to do it. This I did and it was an hour that saved me days of time later.

I still was very worried about winterizing the sea water system and changing the oil on the engine. As the mechanic showed me, I must run the engine without the benefit of a large lake providing cooling water. Instead of the lake, I must use a bucket and garden hose. The very thought frightened me to death. It had to be done for two reasons. First, the oil must be warm before it could be pumped out and new oil replaced. The engine would have to run for about 5 minutes to get it to operating temperature. Second, antifreeze must be sucked into the system so that it would not freeze in the subzero temperatures of a Chicago winter.

I went to the yard, climbed into Speakeasy, exposed the engine compartment, and studied the hoses until I knew what each one did. I followed each hose from intake to output--fuel, "fresh" water (coolant), hot water, exhaust, and sea water. I removed the intake hose from the sea strainer and rigged a second hose from it to my bucket. I prepared the garden hose with water from the yard's supply. I practiced how I would start the engine by sticking my head through the starboard hatch where I could reach the binnacle where the starter switch and kill pull were located. I went through starting and stopping in my head. I set a timer so I'd know when to stop the engine. Finally, it was time to do it. I turned the key, pushed the switch, and then opened the garden spigot. I looked carefully for signs that the water was diminishing in the bucket. Yes! Yes, water was being sucked from the bucket through the engine. I knew it was alright, but the 5 minutes of running the engine from a bucket were agony.

I purchased a small pump prepelled from a drill to get the old oil out of the engine block. After a few false steps in which I pump little but air, I got the hang of it an empty most of the oil from the engine. I changed the oil filter, and filled the the engine with fresh oil. I started the engine once again to pump the oil through the engine and then topped it off with more fresh oil.

I needed to start the engine one more time to suck RV antifreeze into the sea water hoses. For this step, I needed a helper to watch the output on the port quarter. Fortunately, there is always a friend at the yard. I was especially lucky because Wild Thyme was right next to Speakeasy and her owner, Wally, was busy installer her storage cover. Wild Thyme is a Catalina 30 that spent the summer tied to a mooring ball just next to Speakeasy in Monroe Harbor. The two boats knew each other well. I poured a couple gallones of pink RV antifreeze in my bucket and started the engine. I watched the fluid decrease in the bucket until I heard Wally yell--pink fluid was coming out of the exhaust port. I killed the engine. That was that. The engine wouldn't be started again until spring.

My mechanic suggested that I put a couple gallons of RV antifreeze in each of the two water tanks and pump it through each of the faucets--galley, head, and swim platform. I had read that one didn't want the smell of RV antifreeze in the hot water tank in in the spring, so I attempted to bypass the tank by removing an intake hose and plunging bungs into the openings. This was an utter failure. All I managed to do was fill the bilge with antifreeze as it sprayed out of the the hoses. I set this job aside for a couple weeks until Beth returned from Switzerland where she was working. We decided to bypass the tank next year. This year, we would make sure the hoses were filled with antifreeze. I replaced the hoses to the water heater and began the pump. We checked each faucet to make sure it ran pink.

Finally, I tacked the head. Previously, we had flushed the holding tank with fresh water a few times during out final pump out of the season. Since then, the head hadn't been used. During our final cruise to the yard, we used a bucket instead of our fine toilet. Again, I followed the advice of my mechanic. I drained the fluid from the commode, catching it in newspaper. Once I cleaned the area and replaced the valve, I poured RV antifreeze in the bowl and pumped it through the hoses to the hold tank.

The last chore was to get a cover on Speakeasy. We were having the local sailmaker create a canvas cover for her. The alternatives were to have the yard shrink plastic over her or rig rectangles of canvas over her. Canvas covers are expensive, but they last many years and there is no plastic to add to the trash stream each spring.

I took a deep breath and hoped that Speakeasy would be fine over the cold, windy, snowy winter.

Worth It

The markets have been crazy this year and have recently crashed. Since a boat is a hole in the water in which to toss money, one might ask was buying Speakeasy worth it. In order to purchase my share of Speakeasy, I liquidated my stock in Apple, which I'd held for a decade. I thought it was time to get out and within a couple of months, I was proven to be correct. I don't miss the stock and I truly enjoy Speakeasy, my partner, Beth, my new sailing friends, new adventures, and new memories. Ron Lieber wrote an article in the New York Times, which summarizes how I feel about spending on Speakeasy. A couple splurged on a boat. They are in middle age and their two sons are heading off to college soon. They wanted to make good memories with friends and family before there were only bad ones to remember.

River

The Chicago River is known for little among the great rivers of the world, but it is known for how engineers reversed its flow. The river once flowed into Lake Michigan, but because it was Chicago's main sewer system for many years, engineers reverse the flow so that it would head toward the Mississippi instead of the Lake. Reversing the flow required some changes. One change was where the mouth would be--a few blocks north. Another change was to raise the level of the river at its mouth so that it would flow inland. This wasn't too hard because the river barely flowed at all. A lock was built and still maintained just south of Navy Pier.

Speakeasy was ready to head to the yacht yard for the winter. Unlike previous seasons when Speakeasy went south with the migrating fowl, this season she would head inland on the Chicago River. The River goes through the center of Chicago, which has many heavily traveled streets that have bridges that cross the river. One of the bridges is an Interstate Highway. Twice each week, these bridges are raised to allow masted boats to pass. On one of these days, a beautiful Saturday, we boarded the Monroe Harbor tender for the last time this year, pulled the bridle from the mooring can, and motored to Columbia Yacht Club to pick up a crew.

Of our nine crew, only Susan had ever made this trip. The first stop was the Chicago Harbor Lock where we would enter about 4 feet lower than we would exit. Being rookies, we got to the lock in plenty of time to wait for other boats to catch up. Once through the lock, we waited for the first bridge to raise. The bridgeman waited while laggards came through the lock. This would be the first of 21 bridges we would pass through. There are 38 bridges on the River. The trip would take about 5 hours to go about 40 blocks.