Strictly Sail Chicago

In the middle of winter (albeit a mild one), the next best thing to a day of sailing is walking around Navy Pier slobbering over beautiful new sailboats, boat electronics, hardware and, ahem, rolling some cocktails!

Saturday morning started as any other; wake up 30 minutes late (0700) because the power went out in my place and the alarm never went off, hop on a motor coach with my crew and crew from s/v Blue Pearl at 0800, have a bloody Mary by 0830 and a beer at 1000. Okay, so that's not even close to a typical morning but it's one hell of a way to start off my first experience at Strictly Sail Chicago!

Besides drooling over boats I cannot afford, I actually came down to Strictly Sail with a purpose. The show is an excellent place to find deals on pretty much anything related to sailing. In my case, I needed an assortment of hardware for my boat to rig a spinnaker. Keeping with my typical MO (modus operandi), I drafted a quick laundry list (spreadsheet) the evening before that contained all relevant hardware information: manufacturer part number, desired quantity, part description and the West Marine retail price. I loaded the spreadsheet to my Blackberry so I could verify any "special" boat show pricing.

I walked over to the West Marine area of the show and immediately noticed some of the teaser deals they were offering. I fell for one and picked up a floating boat hook for $10 (normally $30). After grabbing my new hook, I found Kip, the store manager for the West Marine here in Milwaukee. I told him I had a list of hardware I wanted to buy and he said he had some pricing I wouldn't be able to pass up! After comparing his prices to my handy spreadsheet, I was satisfied the deals were legit. That was easy! I picked up 6 Ronstan Series 30 Orbit blocks, 2' Schaefer T-track, WM Offshore Series auto-inflate PFD, New England Rope 6mm VPC line and New England Rope 1/4" Sta-Set line.

Once the business end of my day was complete, we met Chris and his daughter Layla at the Billygoat Tavern for lunch. After a couple beers and laughs, Chris and Layla were on their way and Chad, Drew and I headed back to the show as my folks and their friends were in route!

We met them at the Flying Scot booth and stuck around for a bit to inspect hull #6000 (my dad has hull #3203). We stumbled from booth to booth, checked out an 86' race boat that was on the floor (s/v Ocean - pictured), chatted with some sailors from Michigan and had another cocktail or two. Before we knew it, 1630 rolled around so the Milwaukee crew had to make a b-line to catch our bus home.

Overall I thought the show was terrific and look forward to making this an annual trip!