Boat Marooned At North Avenue Beach Finally Back On The Water 2 Weeks After Getting Stuck In Sand

LINCOLN PARK — After two weeks of being marooned on North Avenue Beach, the vessel “Sea No Evil” has set sail once again.

Captain and owner Lenny Klinger waved his arms in victory Monday afternoon as his boat was pulled past the wooden pylons at North Avenue Beach and onto the open waters of Lake Michigan.

The boat’s removal from one of the city’s most popular beaches brings to an end one of the lakefront’s most curious attractions. It also ends a stressful chapter in Klinger’s life, as the boat captain spent recent days desperately trying to get his boat off the beach under the threat of hefty fines.

“It’s floating! We’re floating, finally,” Klinger shouted Monday as the boat was towed into the water. “Man, I need a massage.”

“Sea No Evil” got stuck on the beach July 19 after Klinger and his passengers were rescued from a stormy Lake Michigan the previous day. Since then, Klinger has been sleeping on his boat to protect it from vandals while calling on Chicagoans to help him get the boat off the beach.

Previous efforts to tow the boat into the water were unsuccessful. But a breakthrough came on Saturday, when Chicago Park District workers used a large excavator to dig the boat out of the sand.

With the Park District’s help, the boat was moved onto the water Saturday and secured to a pier at no cost to Klinger.

“Our team has confirmed that we assisted in extricating the disabled vessel at North Avenue Beach and securing it to the Pier to facilitate removal,” Irene Tostado, a spokesperson for the Park District, said in a statement.

Klinger and his crew of volunteers and tow boat operators had to wait for high wave activity to subside, leading to Monday’s successful tow off of the beach.

Helping to tow the boat into open water was Liam Poczatek, who operates the water taxi service Yachti. Poczatek was also hired to try to tow the boat out last week to no avail.

After harnessing the boat to his refitted Navy Seal utility boat and untying the boat from the pier, Poczatek slowly began towing the boat out Monday, carefully maneuvering through the same wooden pylons off the shore.

“It’s fair to say it’s gonna be a lot easier than Thursday,” Poczatek told Block Club. “We just have to hope the boat doesn’t take on water.”

RELATED: Chicagoans Rally To Help Dislodge Boat Washed Up On North Avenue Beach, But It Remains Stuck

By 12:30 p.m. Monday, the boat was being swiftly towed back into Diversey Harbor, where Klinger docks the boat. Klinger stood in his boat and waved to his supporters on shore, as his long nightmare was over.

“Man, I don’t know how to feel,” Klinger said shortly before the tow. “I just hope this works out. This has been the most stressful time of my life. Everybody’s been sending me Facebook messages, telling me to do this, to do that. It’s just clear none of these people have ever owned a boat.”

The saga began July 18, when Klinger set out from Diversey Harbor with several others on the boat. Large waves knocked out the boat’s electricity and cut power to the engines, stranding Klinger and the others less than a mile offshore, Klinger said.

Klinger ignited a flare, and a responding U.S. Coast Guard vessel rescued him and the other people on the boat. Responders realized that the conditions were too dangerous to tow the boat, so they cut the anchor to let the vessel adrift. It turned up on North Avenue Beach the next day after sustaining superficial damage likely from being thrashed against the wooden pylons near the beach.

“I hit a big wave, and then the engines died,” Klinger said. “The stupid Coast Guard made me cut my anchor and leave the boat behind. … They said, ‘Wherever the boat goes, it goes.’ So it washed up on the beach.”

The boat’s fate was uncertain as of late last week. With efforts to get it into the water unsuccessful, Klinger faced the possibility of authorities towing it away or dismantling it, with state law allowing them to recoup their costs from the boat owner. Boat insurance typically covers most recovery and cleanup efforts — but Klinger’s boat isn’t insured, despite it being the fifth boat he’s gone through in three years, he said.

Poczatek previously told Block Club Chicago that repairs for the boat could amount to tens of thousands of dollars. Along with facing hefty fines from the U.S. Coast Guard and Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Klinger isn’t out of the woods quite yet.

Klinger also needs to replace a prosthetic leg that he broke while trying to rescue his boat last week. But for now the captain was just happy the ‘Sea No Evil’ is back on the water.

“I’ll worry about the other stuff later,” he said. “I just want this to be over with.”

Michael Khrin, who had been assisting Klinger since Wednesday after spotting the boat while setting up nets for his volleyball league Archetype, said he was relieved to finally see an end to the saga.

“This feels actually surreal,” Khrin said. “The boat actually started to float … so now it’s off to Diversey Harbor, and soon, hopefully, gonna be repaired. Just rocking back and forth on the beach is one thing, but seeing it actually on the water, this feels like that one scene from the Pirates of the Caribbean.”