Your Own Sailboat for Two Hours Off Navy Pier
Two hours on the lake with the whole boat to yourselves, a licensed captain at the helm, and the route up to you.
Six seats leave from Navy Pier Marina, and you pick who fills them. The charter is priced by the boat. A party of two books the same two hours as a party of six. A US Coast Guard licensed captain handles the sailing. The rest of the trip is open.
Point at a landmark and you sail toward it. Stay quiet and the captain reads the wind and picks the line. Either way you are back at the same dock two hours later.
Departures run at 10:30 AM, 1:00 PM, and 3:30 PM, seven days a week through the season. The boat is a 36-foot Catalina with a wide foredeck and a cabin below deck. Bluetooth speakers, the Navy Pier facility fee, and taxes sit inside the price; food, drinks, gratuity, and parking do not.
Private Sailing on Beautiful Lake Michigan - Navy Pier, ChicagoTwo hours, up to six passengers, leaving from Navy Pier Marina. 5.0 from 73 reviews.www.viator.comWhere the boat goes
Wind direction sets the route first. Your preferences set it second. The captain names a handful of landmarks the boat can pass: the east end of Navy Pier under the Grand Ballroom, the lake side of the Adler Planetarium where the Doane Observatory faces the water, the original colonnades still standing at Soldier Field, and Queen's Landing with Buckingham Fountain behind it.
The listing says some, or all, of them, and the wind decides which. None of these are stops. The boat sails past without tying up, and nobody steps off until you are back at the marina.
The lake keeps its own landmarks
Two structures out on the water compete with the skyline here. The Chicago Harbor Light stands at the end of the breakwater, a white tower under a red roof, close enough to photograph from the deck. Four Mile Crib sits much further out, and reaching it comes down to wind and the two-hour clock.
Who is at the helm
The day-sail boat is a 36-foot Catalina named Bernard, built in 2004 and set up for singlehanded sailing. Six passengers is the ceiling and it does not move. The US Coast Guard sets that number, and the operator counts infants against it.
Captain Mike Blanchard holds a Coast Guard Master 100T license with a sail auxiliary endorsement. He is also a member of the Great Lakes Single-Handed Society, which admits only skippers who finish one of its solo challenges singlehanded. The society's registry dates his membership to 2015. His own bio names the Chicago-to-Mackinac challenge, a course of 287 nautical miles.
Pack for wind and a cooler
Food and drink come from you. There is a cooler on board, and the operator asks you to plan on eating off your lap. Glass is prohibited, wine and champagne bottles are allowed only inside a protective container, and drinking happens from plastic cups. Alcohol is permitted in reasonable amounts within Illinois law, and the operator's FAQ is blunt about what unreasonable looks like.
Footwear matters more than it sounds. Heels, dress shoes, flip-flops, and boots may get you asked to take them off before boarding; sneakers, boat shoes, and bare feet all work. The operator also sets a minimum age of 10, warns that the lake runs cooler than shore, and suggests 15 to 20 percent for the crew when the sail earns it.
The marina sits off East Grand Avenue, and the basin runs along the north flank of Navy Pier. Gather outside Gate D, then text or call the number on your confirmation, and someone comes out to walk you down to the boat. Parking is on you, and the operator points at Navy Pier's own parking page for it.
The operator asks for 48 hours of notice, twice the window shown at checkout. Cancel inside 48 hours and half the charter is charged; inside 24 hours, or as a no-show, the full amount is. Arriving late shortens the sail at the same price. Captains hold the weather call until the day of departure and offer a refund or a reschedule when they stand the boat down. Sailing runs from Memorial Day weekend through Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Boarding takes a few minutes once someone meets you at the gate. Two hours later the pier is back under your feet, and everything Navy Pier holds is a short walk from where the boat ties up.