FairWindSail.com
Title
Fairwind Sail Charters
Description
Fairwind Sail Charters, Inc. is one of Chicago's oldest and most respected sailing businesses, founded in 1978 by Capt. Denise McNamara. A legend in Chicago sailing circles, Capt. McNamara was one of the first women officers in the Merchant Marines, holds an Ocean Master's rating from the U.S.C.G., is an avid racer (winning her class in the prestigious Chicago-to-Mackinac Race, as well as numerous Boat of the Year Awards), and a cruising sailor with worldwide experience. Fairwind began as a sailing school, soon gaining a reputation for top quality education geared especially toward sailors wanting to sail larger cruising yachts. In the early 1980s, Capt. McNamara pioneered the idea of time sharing sailing yachts. Under Fairwind’s unique Sailing Yacht Lease Share program, sailors were able to share the use of a sailing yacht with other sailors for a fraction of the cost of short-term rental or ownership.
Capt. McNamara's idea of making sailing yachts accessible to sailors who lack the time or resources to own their own boat has been copied by many imitators in ensuing years, but Fairwind has maintained its leadership role in the Chicago marine community by offering great boats, professionally maintained and cared for by a hands-on owner/operator, in an excellent location and at a remarkable value. In the mid-1980's, Capt. McNamara taught a young lawyer to sail. After completing his sailing lessons, he became a time share skipper in Fairwind's Sailing Yacht Lease Share Program. Over a decade later, in 1998, having sailed with Fairwind as a time share skipper for that entire time, this same sailor, Capt. Ben Sells, became Fairwind’s new owner.
Like Capt. McNamara before him, Capt. Sells brings an exceptional background to his leadership at Fairwind's helm. After leaving law practice in 1991, Capt. Sells opened a psychotherapy practice in Chicago and began writing a nationally syndicated column on psychological issues in professional life. His columns developed a large and enthusiastic audience, and this aspect of his work culminated in two books on law and psychology, The Soul of the Law, and Order in the Court: Crafting a More Just World in Lawless Times. He also has served as editor for two anthologies on the theory and practice of archetypal psychology, and is widely sought as a teacher and lecturer on psychological theory and practice and their implications in current cultural affairs. His "America Tapes," with famed psychologist James Hillman, won him a Gradiva Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, and he is a repeat lecturer at the prestigious Eranos Roundtable in Ascona, SZ. His forthcoming books: The Essentials of Style: A Handbook on Seeing and Being Seen, and Through the Waters: Sailing Lessons for Life, are due out in 2005.
