Old School

[redhotsommer]

I am hereby stating my claim to OLD SCHOOL status. 2012 will mark 10 summers of performance boating for me. The spring of 2002 saw me alternately training for the Chicago Triathlon and having heart palpitations resulting from the horribly nerve-racking experience of being a new boat owner. I was CERTAIN that every moment my boat sat in the water at Hammond, it was going to sink. After about a month of constantly being freaked out (and religiously cleaning the bottom), I gave in and dropped $10k on a Hydrohoist...which prompted me to worry about IT sinking. Yeah...I was a paranoid individual. And I still am.

I didn't know anybody with a go-fast. I was afraid to talk to the T-dockers at Hammond. Everyone on my dock was either a blow-boater or a cruiser. I didn't know how to dock. I didn't know how to throttle. I busted the microwave and the refrigerator from their mounts the very first time I took the boat to the city.

The next season, I decided to do a COPS run...and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here's some "old school" pics and a chronicle of my years of terrorizing the waters in and around Chicago (and occasionally Missouri).

This is the day it all began: Picking up our 1998 Powerquest 290 at Yacht Basin in Holland, MI. It was 45 degrees...notice Michelle in her ski jacket. We ran it on Lake Macatawa for the sea trial with the previous owner and froze our butts off. I borrowed a friend's brother's Ram 2500 to tow it home as I didn't have a truck myself!