New tour boat in Chicago creates jobs in Wisconsin

(Above) Chicago’s Leading Lady on the Chicago River near Wolf Point on October 28, 2012. A new boat similar to this one will start work on the river next June. (Click on image to view larger version.)

18-Oct-13 – There will be more ladies on the Chicago River next year.

The fleet of tour boats that includes Chicago’s First Lady, Fair Lady, Leading Lady, Little Lady, and Lady Grebe is expanding. Chicago’s Classic Lady is being built in Wisconsin and will be delivered to Chicago next June.

The boats are owned by Mercury Skyline Yacht Charters, a fixture on the Chicago River since 1935.

Weighing 184,000 pounds, the 98-foot-long boat will take as many as 299 passengers on architecture tours and host private events at speeds approaching 16 miles per hour. A carpeted main salon will be decorated to create, according to a news release, “an elegant private club atmosphere.”

It will look similar to Chicago’s Leading Lady, a two-year-old boat with a mahogany and brass interior styled after the luxury cruising yachts of the 1920s.

The boat is being built by Burger Boat Company in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, a 150-year-old company that builds many types of boats but no more than about three per year. This is the second big contract in recent months for Burger. In addition to Chicago’s Leading Lady, the company is building the Arcticus, a 77-foot research vessel for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Burger made the announcement on October 2. Vice President Ron Cleveringa told local media in Manitowoc they expect to hire about 50 new employees as work progresses. Unemployment in Manitowoc, located 170 miles north of Chicago on Lake Michigan, is currently 7.1 percent.

Chicago’s Classic Lady will start work in Chicago on June 7, 2014. It will dock near the Chicago Riverwalk and the southeast corner of the DuSable Bridge at Michigan Avenue.