Amateur II Sailing

Last night we celebrated one of the most enjoyable sailing seasons I can remember. What a wonderful team!

That’s a whole lot of battery. Enough juice to make it to the island (I hope).

All legal with our state registration numbers. Last spring, as we were bringing the boat from winter storage and waiting to go through the Chicago lock, the Illinois Conservation Police did an inspection of our boat. The only thing they warned us about was not having our registration numbers on the hull. Problem fixed now.

The starboard pin end was not the place to start in last night's 100 Boats on a Beer Can.

Photo by Kat Orlov

Amateur II is headed to Mackinac Island for the 32nd time!

It’s time for the annual grilling of the Mac Race bacon. Trying Turkey bacon 🥓 this year.

On Saturday, July 22nd Amateur II Sailing will embark on the 114th Chicago Yacht Club Race To Mackinac. This will be the 32nd Mac race for the boat. Co-owner Mike Platzke will be doing his 15th Mac and Felicia Platzke her 7th. Milo Lundblad will be doing his 38th! Will Munson, Will Loux, Johanri Ge**er and Jamie Sunderland will make up the rest of the experienced crew. You can't ask for a better group to sail this race with and we're going to give it everything we have.

You can track our progress via Yellowbrick at https://yb.tl/chicagomac2023. We carry a satellite tracker that updates our position every 5 minutes or so.

Forecast is looking a bit better than yesterday, but it still looks to be a slow race. We might not get to the island until late Tuesday or early Wednesday. Time enough for a drink at the Pink Pony though!

Amateur II team hard at work reviewing all the required safety equipment for this year’s MAC race.

Was cleaning 4 of our 6 Lewmar winches yesterday and noticed that the covers were stamped with the manufacturer date of 1978. The internals are still going strong although the drums are getting a bit worn. Wish we could replace just the drums, but that's not likely on 25 year old winches and we'll probably have to replace them in the next few years.

The rebuilt main halyard didn't last long before the cover broke, so Chicago Yacht Rigging whipped us up a new main halyard the week before the Sailing World Regatta Series Chicago races. Thank you Kristian!

Can you spot the T-10 main halyard and new backstay?

Registration opened yesterday for the 114th annual Chicago Yacht Club Race To Mackinac. Of course, Amateur II was entered into the race. This would be the 32nd Race to Mackinac for A2, the 37th race for Milo Lundblad, the 15th race for co-owner Michael Platzke and the 7th race for co-owner Felicia Platzke.

Our preliminary crew list is a terrific lineup of sailors and we're going to push the boat hard this year to get back onto the podium. Can't wait until July 22nd!

Photo by Clark Bloswick of Mackinac Island News and Views.

New rigging for Amateur II Sailing from Chicago Yacht Rigging!

New Spinnaker halyard. The old halyard was quite chewed up right at the ball/shackle. The new halyard still strips the cover off the top half, but leaves a couple of feet of cover right at the shackle to help protect the line. I also replaced the spinnaker and jib sheaves last fall and that should help as well. You can see the new and old spin halyards side by side and see how the old halyard was breaking down at the shackle.

New traveler sheets. The old sheets were oversized for our windward sheeting main cars. The new sheets are thinner and should allow the windward sheeting cars to release the non-tensioned side with ease. The new sheets are also softer on the hands.

Rebuilt main halyard. The main halyard cover was getting chewed up at the clutch. Kristian moved where the clutch grabs. We are also going to rebuild all the clutches to make sure they are not eating up halyard covers. You can see in the close up where the cover was getting destroyed.