Wendella fleet ice-locked, will miss start of its season

(Above) Wendella vessels surrounded by ice and snow at their winter shipyard on the Calumet River. (Photo obtained from Wendella Boats. Click on image to view larger version.)

12-Mar-14 – It is so cold in Chicago this year, a fleet of tour boats is stuck in ice and will miss the scheduled start of its season.

March 14 was supposed to be Wendella’s first day back on the Chicago River, in time for the annual dyeing. April 4 is the new date. This is the first time this has happened in the company’s 79-year history.

According to Wendella’s president, Michael Borgstrom, the entire fleet is stuck in ice that is 20 inches thick at the company’s shipyard on the Calumet River. Even if they could get free of that ice, the boats need to go north on Lake Michigan to get to the Chicago River – and ice on the lake, says Borgstrom, has made that impossible.

The plan is to wait for a break in the weather and then make the trip north.

“Our crew works on the boats every day and they’re chomping at the bit to head downtown,” said Borgstrom on Tuesday.

The river will turn green one way or another. If there is ice on the Chicago River on Saturday, organizers of the event say unless the ice is more than five inches thick, they will break through it.

The dyeing of the river starts at 9:30 a.m., according to greenchicagoriver.com, a website maintained by Chicago Journeymen Plumbers, Local 130, the AFL-CIO union that has organized the event since 1962. The best viewing, say the plumbers, will be between Wabash Avenue and Columbus Drive.