It Is a Dark and Blowy Night - Weber Yachts Rendezvous 2022

It is a dark and blowy night. The tight rigging is singing and the dock lines are straining. They make a groaning and stretching sound. We are in a protected harbor and our boat is laying over 10°. Blue Heaven is on the lee side of the dock which is a good thing. We are not grinding on our fenders. Tonight is our second night in Winthrop Harbor. We are attending the annual Weber Yachts rendezvous. Priscilla and I have not spent a night onboard our sailboat since before our Great Loop adventure of 2015/2016. I guess a full year living on a boat is enough for a while. We did sail her to a Weber Yachts rendezvous in 2019 in Racine but we moved on board Bob Dick’s luxury yacht and made our boat available to the Weber Yachts photographer and some other guy. Bob’s wife Joy had recently passed away and this was his first and last cruise on his boat without her. We watched the movie Master and Commander with him on his boat.

We towed our dinghy “Boaty” with us to Winthrop Harbor. Boaty is a Portland Pudgy dinghy and lifeboat and is double hulled and unsinkable. She has a three horse power electric Torqeedo outboard motor. Boaty is named after the winner of an online contest to name the newest British polar research ship. The British Oceanography Centre rejected the winning name Boaty McBoatface and named the ship HMS Sir David Attenborough. Boaty received 124,000 votes and David Attenborough received 11,000 votes. One of the battery powered autonomous underwater research vehicles onboard the polar explorer was named Boaty McBoatface.

I have spent three nights onboard Blue Heaven with the grandkids over the past two years. We stayed overnight on the Fourth of July in 2021 after watching the Waukegan fireworks. Then I arranged an il-fated fishing trip early the next morning. Everyone caught fish but we were all too tired to enjoy it. Lesson learned. The following year the plan was no fireworks and no fishing. The no fireworks was easy because they were cancelled due to a mass shooting in the nearby town of Highland Park at their Fourth of July parade. The following weekend we planned the first cruise for the grandkids to Racine. It is a good location because there is a swimming pool, restaurant, river to cruise in our dinghy and a nearby zoo. The wind gods frowned upon us and the wind was from the wrong direction all weekend. Not to be deterred we had our sleep over on Blue Heaven in Waukegan Harbor and drove to the Racine zoo. There is always a way.

Our view aboard Blue Heaven in Winthrop Harbor.

We are enjoying our time in Winthrop Harbor. It was a quick 8 mile sail from Waukegan with brisk SE winds on our quarter. We staged a car at the Winthrop Harbor marina so we could attend the 50th wedding anniversary party for our long time sailing friends Craig and Day Olney. Craig and Day encouraged us to cruise the North Channel of Lake Huron in southern Canada. We met them there twice. We also met them sailing in the Bahamas and Florida Keys. Two weeks ago we took them sailing on Blue Heaven. The first time I saw them was during a sailboat race when another sailboat crashed into them. I was onboard a nearby boat and witnessed Ed Weller an old WWII Navy commander get disoriented and nearly cut their boat Rascal in two. Ed’s boat hit them at full speed just ahead of the cockpit. One or two seconds difference would have meant serious injury at the least.

Craig and Day Olney onboard Blue Heaven with Admiral Priscilla at the helm.

We returned to Winthrop Harbor and attended the Weber Yachts BBQ at the Winthrop Harbor Yacht Club with our friends Greg and Susie Berner. They spend weekends onboard their sailboat Volante in Winthrop Harbor. Chris Weber hires a world famous BBQ specialist Grillin with Dad for this event. It is worth every dollar he spends. The food is outstanding.

The pulled pork, pork belly burnt tips, steak and macaroni and cheese are the best. Grillin with Dad even made burritos for breakfast the next day.

Chris hired a local guitar player as the entertainment. Craig provides background noise but is was uninspiring except when he sang Tom Petty songs. I volunteered to play ukulele during his breaks which he gratefully accepted. I guess he liked what he heard because his two breaks lasted 30 minutes each. It was a blast. I played my 10 song Jimmy Buffett mini concert to an animated audience.

Johnny Uke playing to a frenzied crowd at the Winthrop Harbor Yacht Club.

I have been a member of the Weber Yachts sales team since 2016. In 2013 I was sitting on the dock in Racine with a group of Waukegan boaters when a fellow stopped by and asked if anyone had plans to buy or sell a boat. In fact I was in the early stages of looking for my ideal Great Loop boat. Chris Weber told us he was unhappy as a car salesman and wanted to become a yacht broker. He found our Great Loop boat on Lake Ontario and spent 8 days helping us bring the boat to Waukegan. That adventure is documented in a separate blog. During our Great Loop trip we met many boaters that were in the market to buy or sell their boats so Chris hired me as a yacht broker. I am currently his longest tenured broker. It is an interesting career. I spend most of my time as a psychiatrist trying to keep deals from falling apart.

This is the Weber Yachts team at the 2022 rendezvous in Winthrop Harbor, Ilinois. I am standing second from the left. I have become the Weber Yachts sailboat specialist and have sold all the sailboats we have listed. This is a great team and I am proud to work with them.

The wind is blowing harder now and the tight rigging continues to sing. We shall see what the morning brings. If the waves are 2-3 feet we will sail back to Waukegan. If the waves are 3-5 feet we will leave the boat here for another day. We are towing our dinghy for the first time which complicates things a little. It is no fun trying to tow a capsized dingy in large following seas. We will use good judgement as always.