Category Archives: Waterloo, the boat

Waterloo, a Merit 25, is the boat I own with my buddy, Justin.

The End Of The Sailing Season

By pdo | Published: October 25, 2009
The end of the Chicago sailing season is here.  Yesterday, we dropped the boat off at Goose Island, where it will spend the winter.  Sure, it’s fun to motor up the Chicago River, but it’s a pretty sad day nonetheless. photo credit: mindfrieze There weren’t a lot of sailing posts this year, but there was [...]
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Night Sail

By pdo | Published: October 17, 2008
Well, one main item stopped us from sailing at night from a practical standpoint — our lack of reliable navigational lights.  The wiring’s a mess on Waterloo and it’s one of the larger projects we hope to tackle over the off-season.  If we solved the wiring, the only thing left holding us back would be [...]
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Big sail

By pdo | Published: October 11, 2008
The idea of a gentlemanly sailing trip was kicked around since before the existence of Waterloo.  Perhaps that’s why fishing is so popular — add some guts and blood to the boat trip to turn away the squeamish.  Chris and Josh drove down from Milwaukee on Saturday to do it.  They brought Lisa a peace [...]
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Dream Sail

By pdo | Published: September 21, 2008
I woke up groggy, a little hungover, cold, and disoriented on the boat … intentionally. I’ve wanted to spend a night on in for a while. Next time, I’ll have fewer beers beforehand. The sun was rising and coloring the sky pink which was reflected by the smooth harbor water. Too smooth, actually. There was [...]
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No Wind

By pdo | Published: September 20, 2008
Sailing is good for life lessons: you can’t head directly anywhere.  Want to sail upwind?  Tough shit — you can’t.  You can tack back and forth and slowly crawl upwind arriving where you want to arrive, but you can’t sail into the wind. You can sail across the wind and into it at a 45 [...]
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Monday Evening Guster

By pdo | Published: August 25, 2008
Monday was the windiest we’ve seen on the boat.  Good, strong, 20 kts or so winds with rolling seas.  We stayed in the breakwater near Navy Pier at first, but decided to venture out on our way back.  We got bounced around almost immediately upon passing the lighthouse.  5-foot rollers out of the northeast tossed [...]
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Small Craft Advisory

By pdo | Published: August 24, 2008
Saturday, Sara, Justin, Lisa, and I arrived at the boat at the start of a small craft advisory.  We decided we’d have a rum drink and lunch and see what happened.  Seemed nice enough, the storm clouds looked like more bark than bite, and we figured we were more medium-craft anyway, so we headed out.  [...]
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Sunday Sail

By pdo | Published: August 17, 2008
Sunday the wind was a little stronger and the seas a little calmer.  Chris, Sarah, and I (and Katie, the pooch) went out for a morning sail.  We went north again, tacked through the gap in the breakwater with the light house and sailed north to about the inlet tower off Oak Street Beach.  We [...]
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Saturday Sail

By pdo | Published: August 16, 2008
Saturday was very calm, but the water was fairly rough and we got bounced around a bit that morning and ended up with a pair of sick crew members.  We flew the big jib because the wind was so calm.  We were going pretty well with it south, but had a little trouble getting the [...]
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