Endeavour Journal

James Caird

2012-05-25T18:18:47Z

The dinghy (aka "The James Caird") is in the water. (Google it if you don't know the story of the James Caird. You owe it to yourself).

104th CYC Race to Mackinac

2012-02-21T18:14:48Z

We submitted our entry into the 104th Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac. We'll be starting in the cruising division on July 20, 2012. Follow us here, or on Facebook or Twitter, to follow along. During the race, Twitter will be the best way to follow us and the race. @Endeavoursails is our boat; the hashtag #CYCRTM will pull up most race-related tweets.

My talk at Strictly Sail Chicago

2012-01-30T15:21:55Z

My friend Kyle Ewing and I gave a talk at Strictly Sail Chicago on Saturday. We spoke about doing your first Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac in the Cruising division. We also touched on other options for distance races in the Chicago area that were appropriate for cruisers and newer racers. A PDF of the presentation is available on the Mac site.

Karma Presentation - Cruising the Mac

2012-01-13T16:29:39Z

Emmy and Matt are speaking at Karma Yacht Sales' Open House tomorrow, January 14, from 11:30 - 12:30 pm. Our topic is "Bucket List Update: Race to Mackinac from a Cruising Sailor's Point of View."

Details are here. The event is free; we encourage you to come out and talk sailing! The other speakers are Perry Lewis on sail trim and Roy Cohen on diesel engine maintenance.

For those of you who attended, our presentation handout and the safety & seamanship checklist are available for download; click on the links.

Carl Buddig Please Sponsor Us!

2012-01-11T15:36:30Z

We learned a valuable lesson from our first Mac. With the best of intentions, we had a friend 'cater' the race for us, preparing frozen meals that we could reheat. In retrospect we underestimated the challenge of thawing these, preparing them, and cleaning up afterwards. Our friend Mark's solution is simple - Carl Buddig Sliced Meat.

So if anyone out there is from Carl Buddig Co., we're interested in talking sponsorship. We imagine something like this:

Speaking on Saturday 1/14

2012-01-09T18:48:49Z

Emmy & Matt will be speaking at Karma Yacht Sales' open house on January 14, 2012. We'll be talking about a cruiser's perspective on doing your first Chicago Mac race.

Come down and join us! It's a fun event, and it's free.

RSVP here.

Folding prop

2011-12-22T17:03:19Z

Endeavour is in need of a folding prop. Anyone with any thoughts, suggestions or ideas, let us know.

Photo from the Mac

2011-09-16T16:21:20Z

This is a great photo of our boat, taken by Steve Mathias on Karma, of Endeavour in the 103rd Mac on Sunday afternoon, shortly before the storm hit.

Clan MacGregor named official scotch of Endeavour

2011-09-12T21:36:48Z

I am pleased to announce that The Clan has been named the official blended scotch wiskey of Endeavor.

Click on the image for more information.

Verve Results

2011-08-24T19:17:15Z

Picture courtesy of Todd Woelfl (click to enlarge)....or not. The Verve Distance race start was posponed due to storms that blew through Chicago Saturday morning. We got all the way to the start line before being turned around and sent back to Belmont. We waited out the storm and actually got started about 1:30 pm.

This was problematic in that the RC did not shorten the race course. As a result, there was no way we (or virtually anyone else) could have completed the race by the 4:30 cut-off.

We nonetheless sailed on. We made it to just north of Evanston in light winds before the time limit expired. It was probably just as well, as we had a bit of a difficulty geting our chute up, putting us solidly towards the back of the pack.

Results are available here. "TLE" means "Time Limit Exceeded."