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Aquavit

8/6/2012

Our Morgan 33, Aquavit, has been happily cruising the waters of Green Bay this year, as our captains enjoy exploring Door County. She's been to Washington Island and anchored off of the Strawberry Islands and Peninsula Park. She's explored the harbor towns and inlets up and down the bay. Really, the boat's been having a pretty smashing summer.

Buried in her hold is a little barrel of aquavit. Indigenous to Scandinavian countries, aquavit is a caraway based spirit. The Norwegians, being a bit quirky, have long placed special reverence on aquavit that has been shipped to Australia and back. The temperature changes and motion involved with a trip that crosses the equator twice is supposed to imbue the spirit with certain subtities of flavor. This "linie" aquavit is greatly prized.

As this is Aquavit's first year sailing north to Green Bay we decided to follow on this tradition. We filled a small barrel with unaged aquavit, to be shaped by the flavor of the season! Come the fall, when we open the cask, the spirit should taste of the spirit of the lake and the summer of 2012. That is, of course, assuming no one finds and drinks the cask beforehand...

We had a little party in Monroe to christen Aquavit.... A good time was had.

Ed tried to convince everyone that we needed a virgin to pee on the boat to make the christening official and avoid any possibility of irking the gods of the lake. Eventually, however, he came around to the fact that we had no virgins available who held any interest at all in peeing on a boat...

Marilyn went with the more conventional approach, showering the boat with champagne as horns and sirens where blared to ring in the boat's new name.

The restoration crew, of course, was on hand. Mark and Chris were instrumental to Aquavit's transformation. Mark's work on the forward hatch, especially, really pushed the boat to a new level. Charlie had a hand in the painting (okay... he had a hand in putting up the masking paper) And, Karl, did a little sanding on the edges. There's a lot to be proud of and these guys aren't shy about claiming it!

The Strzelecki sisters always have a good time.

Perry was finally able to retrieve the bottle of aquavit he won in the drawing from Strictly Sail

Some of the Northwest Sailing Association crew was on hand. When John Bardin heard that we had lost a crew member for Aquavit's sail north the next day, he stepped in. "It's a sailboat," he pointed out with noted English charm, "it would be a shame to leave her sitting on the dock!"

And the next day, Aquavit was off... leaving Monroe behind to explore new cruising waters a bit further north on the lake. http://www.olsonsclassicyachts.com/door-county.html /door-county.html

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One in!

5/14/2012

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Marilyn Anne went in the water Friday and was sent up to Monroe on Sunday. It's something of a production, moving a 13,500 pound craft into the water. This year, all went off smoothly.

The copper colored bottom is a trade mark of VC-17, the bottom paint we use. Once in the water it will eventually mellow to a darker gray. For a while, however, the bottom is pretty stunning in its own right.

This year, we repainted her yellow boot stripe a deep blue. Change can be a good thing; we're really happy with the way it turned out.

It takes at least two men to operate the travel lift, three are better. The guys who work in the East Chicago yard are very skilled at what they do. They also, tend to be pretty colorful characters. Beadle, Paul and Hijito are Teamsters and entertaining Teamsters at that.

Sometimes, in life, you have to walk the plank....

Once she's in the water, a good deal needs to happen before she can be moved. Fuel, water, cushions, etc, need to be added. The rigging needs to be adjusted. And, of course, the sails need to be put up.

And, she is off, en route to another season at Monroe!

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Spring came early...

4/10/2012

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Spring came early in Chicago this year, which is never a bad thing, particularly when you're a sailor.

Spring commissioning is our busiest time of year. There's a lot that goes in to getting the boats ready and much of it requires semi-decent weather.

Most teak finishes won't set properly unless it is above 50˚, the same goes for fiberglass. Some of the work we do requires it to be dry as well as "warm". And, then, of course, you have to convince the crew that they want to spend the day working outside in weather that would make a duck wish he had a raincoat.

It doesn't sound like much, but you'd be surprised how hard it can be to come by a three day window of decent weather in a Chicago spring.

With the weather we've been having, however, we're ahead of schedule and that means we've been pondering all of the little projects that often get pushed aside. Paper Tiger is being repainted and there's talk of putting in teak cockpit soles. If you want us for anything, you'll be able to find us working away in the boatyard.

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Sterling

3/26/2012

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We're pretty convinced that Sterling cleans half the sails in Chicago.

We first ran into him when we went to retrieve our sails from one of the more prominent sail lofts.... "I'm sorry, Mr. Olson" the perky clerk said, "but you're sails aren't ready."

"What, but why?!" Charlie asked, "I called yesterday and someone who sounded a lot like you told me that everything was set. They'd been repaired and cleaned."

"Well, yes," the clerk said, "they're ready, but they're not here."

"Well," Charlie went on, "that brings up a whole new set of questions.... where are they?"

"Sterling has them," she said.

We tracked Sterling down in a little building on the South Side and have been relying on him ever since. Cutting out the middle man cut down on our sail storage/repair costs. But, the real prize was meeting Sterling. He knows more about rigging and sails than anyone we've met in the city. He's the sailmaker the racing outfits call on when they want the job done right.

He's also a really good guy and a heck of a lot of fun.

Sterling can be a hard man to find. At one point, his loft had a sign and an awning. That was before he got into a disagreement of some sort with the Bureau of Signage and Whatnot and down came the awning and sign.

No one quite knows the details of the disagreement, but it doesn't really matter. The people who use Sterling know where to find him.

Wherever Sterling goes, you will usually find Fernando.

Not only is Fernando a great dog in general, but he's a professional athlete (well, a semi-retired pro...). A Spanish Water Dog, Fernando was a pretty serious competitor in jumping events (http://www.ultimateairdogs.com/). He even had his own truck to haul around his number one fan.

You get the idea that these two make a pretty good pair.

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First Post!

3/15/2012

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Well, here we are, trying out the blog.....

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Aquavit

One in!

Spring came early...

Sterling

First Post!

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