High school girls get a turn at the wheel of a tall ship
LAKE MICHIGAN | Wave of the future
(Chris Sweda/Sun-Times)
PHOTO GALLERY
Steering a tall ship
With bone-chilling winds wreaking havoc with house-size sails and rambunctious waves toppling folks on deck, it wasn't a good day to let two waifish girls pilot the tall ship Windy.
So for only 15 minutes of a 90-minute excursion from Navy Pier on Thursday, 16-year-old Christie Aeyueng and 17-year-old Aderounke Adekoun had full control of Windy's huge bronze helm.
Quivering against the cold, the two Lincoln Park High School students navigated the choppy waves as they turned the 148-foot, four-masted schooner off its eastward course into the bright blue yonder, westward -- with the Aon Center centered on the skyline.
San Francisco Bay, this wasn't.
And the only thing this tourist attraction shared with the "Three-Day Women's Sailing Challenge" the students recently completed off the California coast was the type of ship.
"When I used to see sailboats out in the water, I never really thought of how they worked," said Aeyueng, of Bridgeport. "Now, that's all I think of."
She has a unique opportunity, recently sponsored by the Chicago Yacht Club Foundation and the Chicago Public Schools' Summer Quest program, to thank for her new obsession.
Through Summer Quest -- which connects students with college-oriented academic, arts and outdoor leadership opportunities -- the Chicago foundation offered to send two girls to the annual challenge run by San Francisco's Tall Ship Education Academy.
More than 200 girls were invited to apply. "Only 16 did," said Summer Quest manager Rhonda Bell. The challenge was not for the faint of heart.
On May 1, Adekoun, of Rogers Park, and Aeyueng, whose essays won them the chance, traveled to San Francisco to board Seaward, an 82-foot, steel-hulled, staysail schooner.
The youngest of a crew of a dozen women arriving from across the country with no prior experience, the girls would over the course of three days take responsibility for every phase of sailing the tall ship -- learning something about teamwork and leadership along the way.
"When we arrived at the bay, there was the schooner docked near a cruise ship. I looked at the cruise ship and said, 'Wow, we're going to be on that?' " Adekoun said. "They were like, 'No, it's the other one.' I hadn't really been sure what to expect."
"Oh yeah, you could say that," Aeyueng chimed in. "She brought all this bath and shower stuff. And I said, 'What's that for? There isn't even a shower here.' "
But no shower for three days was the least of their problems, as they struggled to learn ship lingo, keep up with the other women, wake for 3 a.m. ship watches, and otherwise carry their share of the load, the girls said.
The first day was adjustment time. The second day, hands-on, navigational instruction. The third day was the challenge -- 12 new sailors sailed without help from the open ocean back to San Francisco Bay, threading the schooner through the Golden Gate, Richmond and Bay bridges. "Let's just say we made it," said Adekoun, laughing.
As they sat content to shiver under blankets on this tame excursion Thursday, the girls reminisced about the friendships they'd formed and lessons they'll take to adulthood.
"You're a different person after that," said Adekoun. "It's life-changing."
