We are Zack and Jill Hummel (yes, our names really are Zack & Jill). Our story has a fairly typical beginning. Boy from a town of 500 in Northern Michigan (near the tip of the pinky for those familiar) meets a girl from NYC on a study abroad program in college. A few years later, they get married and move to the Midwest where they attend law school, eventually settle and raise 3 kids (and too many pets to list) together. It was a life built around work and children with lots of school and sport events, play dates and hiking — but no sailing unless you count one family vacation when we chartered a Moorings sailboat with a captain and a cook. (Our kids still refer to it as the “best vacation ever.”)
It was all very ordinary until one day when the girl came home from work and said to the boy “It looks like I need to look for another job because my company wants to transfer me to New York.” To the girl’s surprise, after nearly 25 years of marriage, the boy replied “But we should move to New York. We can finally buy a sailboat.” So the girl shrugged her shoulders and said, “I guess it is settled then,” knowing they would move to New York but having no intention of buying a sailboat. Neither appreciated how much that move to New York would change the trajectory of their lives. Over the course of the next 15 years they would transform from a landlocked Midwest couple to a pair of recovering attorneys who entered “seahab” together.
About Captain Zack
With regard to this blog, Jill has told me that writing this is for us, to remember our adventures and experiences, and not really for anyone else. With that said, my reaction to writing this section was “fine, I know about me and there is no point in writing it down for anyone else, because who cares what they think anyway.” Given that I love my wife, and would like to continue to live on Che Figata with her, I have surrendered this fine piece of logic (so I believed it to be) and penned the following.
I grew up in a small town in the northern part of Michigan in an area right along Lake Michigan. Living there, along the water, in one of the most beautiful places on the planet, ruled my interest in sailing. During the summer, people flocked to from “Downstate,” Chicago and even St. Louis. We called the tourists “Fudgies” due to their tendency to patronize the fudge shops that littered the area. An idyllic place to grow up.
As a kid, I recall living in what can best be described as a remodeled log cabin along a bay off of Lake Michigan. Calling it remodeled leaves it a bit short—gets in the way of understanding that there was a two story asymmetric A-Frame attached, a huge deck that faced the water, and multiple ladders for accessing parts of the house. None of the houses I lived in with my parents could be called conventional—more on that later.
The real point is that I was always in, on or around the water—even in winter. The bay would freeze over (now a rarity—my own chronicle of global warming) and I would spend hours out on the ice exploring ice caves and sheets of clear ice along the shore. I recall summer nights going to sleep with the sound of the waves along the shoreline. We swam, boated, fished and even went bow hunting for carp along a stretch of the bay that I hardly left. I think this more than anything fueled my later love for sailing. Being on the water, in touch with nature, was more satisfying than almost any adult pursuit I know of.
In my early teens, my parents bought a neglected 28’ 1947 Palmer Johnson Stout Fella. The boat became the family project—my dad replace about 25% of the hull due to dry rot, we tore up the deck and installed new non-skid, we painted and chromed (yes, chromed) parts of the engine and my mom made cushions, cushion covers, cockpit cover, etc. I had the task of removing the many coats of paint that had accumulated over the years. I always want to own boats with as little to paint and varnish as possible! My family then bought a 36’ Choy Lee Red Lion—restoring the boat to magnificent shape—with custom teak cabinetry that rivaled the original. Very beautiful, traditional and salty boat—too much varnish for me!
My parents’ idea of a family vacation was loading us three kids in and sailing for a few weeks around Lake Michigan. I learned to sail with them—navigation was by compass and taking bearings to plot our course on the charts we had. No electronics—even depth was sounded with a lead line. Oh, and we then moved to an old cherry farm and we remodeled the farmhouse. This is only of note due to the fact that you could go from basement to the top “Crow’s Nest” lookout by ladders—if you preferred—and that the garage was two stories tall so that we could park the sailboat in it during the winter months. My parents eventually sold the farmhouse and remodeled the barn to live in. Lots of unique features such as round master bed in the old silo basin, a 8’ diameter pool in the living room, oval doors, wide plank maple floors, etc., however the salient feature was that the sailboat could then be stored in the house. “Boat Centric” enough for you?
By the time I was a teenager, I was a fairly proficient sailor. My parents even let me take the boat for two weeks with two friends during three separate summers. I didn’t fully appreciate the trust they had in me until I had teenagers myself. I did some racing on the lake and inland lakes as well. Of course, with my father, every sail was a race! We were always tinkering with the trim of the sails to see if we could gain on another boat. I remain afflicted with this disease to this day, as Jill will attest.
Though I loved sailing, life happens. I went away to college, met a girl on a study abroad program in London, attended law school and settled in the Midwest where sailing was not easily accessible. Not much sailing on the Mississippi River near St. Louis. Jill had an opportunity to move to a job in New York. We decided to take the chance and moved East. When the opportunity to move to New York first came up, I immediately thought of sailing and told Jill we could (finally) buy a sailboat. Cue the crickets. I don’t think she thought I was serious.
Of course, when we first move to New York we were busy adjusting and helping our children adjust to very different new lives. I was just glad to have the opportunity to sail on other peoples boats. Things changed when we were invited an overnight sail to Westport, CT with good friends. Jill fell instantly in love with sailing, and commented that maybe we should get a sailboat. I am a bit slow, but I can recognize and seize an opportunity when I get one. Within 3 weeks we owned a sailboat of our own: a 35’ Beneteau. In the four years we owned it, we upgraded the sails—new sails and an asymmetric spinnaker (loved putting the spin up and sailing by larger boats on the light winds on Long Island Sound). I installed newer electronics and Jill made the boat a home for our weekends of sailing and summer trip. We quickly became a sailing couple with a shared passion that evolved in an aligned fashion over the years.
We soon graduated to a 46’ Beneteau, adding bow thruster, generator, inner stay sail, custom interior (Jill has her priorities too!!), etc. Loved that boat and our adventures in it. Going to boat shows, we started looking for the next boat with thoughts of retirement and adventures further afield than the Long Island Sound. We fell in love with the Hylas 56–about which I am sure Jill will write copious amounts. Eventually, we made that dream a reality. In under 15 years we went from being a couple without a sailboat to full time cruisers planning a circumnavigation with the WorldARC. I am so very fortunate to have such a wonderful, adventurous and dynamic woman to share this experience with—I could never do it without her! Unfortunately for you, she decided to write a blog about it—but remember, you chose to read along, so the loss of those precious hours of your life is a self inflicted injury.
About Admiral Jill
Though Zack affectionately calls me the “Admiral,” make no mistake, that is an honorary title only. I am a city girl through and through. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens other than a brief stint in Upstate New York when my dad moved us there to buy a podiatry practice. I grew up in apartment buildings (Lefrak City for those of you who have spent times in Queens) and our mode of transportation was the subway or buses. You are probably getting the picture that I didn’t grow up sailing and you would be right.
But there were some influences that predisposed me to the sailing life. Specifically, my parents divorced when I was young and though my mom moved us back to NYC when I was 4 years old, my dad remained in Upstate New York where my brothers and I spent the summers. Our summers were filled with summer camp where we did a lot of hiking, time on our dad’s and stepmother’s small cabin cruiser that they kept on Seneca Lake and two week stays at a cottage we rented on Keuka Lake after they sold the boat. I was drawn to the water and the freedom of the outdoors. While I have a strong attachment to New York City (and always will) I knew that hiking, camping and just generally enjoying nature would play an important role in my future. I was an “outdoor” city girl.
This is probably why I settled so well into the Midwest. We could still visit NYC to get my broadway and art museum fix but in St. Louis we could be out in the country in a short 30 minute drive. We took full advantage of that with long weekend hikes, playing in rivers and streams and overnight camping trips. (Of course, with student loans that rivaled a mortgage, you couldn’t beat the lower cost of living either.) It was really idyllic in so many ways.
Which is why I was so surprised when Zack encouraged the move to New York so he could buy his sailboat. Sure I knew that he grew up sailing on the Great Lakes and I had heard many stories (many times — with some eye rolling on my part) of his teenage adventures on the Blue Max (his parents’ beautifully restored wooden Palmer Johnson Stout Fella). I also knew that he enjoyed sailing from time to time with a work colleague on Alton Pond. But our life in the Midwest was perfect. After a quarter century of marriage, I didn’t appreciate how much he missed the water and sailing. So I agreed to move to New York and figured that the move would give Zack better access to sailing (on other people’s boats) but I didn’t honestly believe that we would buy our own sailboat.
That changed in 2007, just shy of the 2 year anniversary of our move to New York. As I predicted, we met people with sailboats and became dear friends with a couple who lived nearby in Port Washington. They had a 36’ Catalina and eventually invited us out for a sail across the Long Island Sound for a quick overnight to Westport Connecticut. Despite the fact that engine failed before we made it all the way to Westport and we had to call Sea Tow (think AAA for boats), I found the experience magical. I loved the wind in my face as the boat heeled, the sensation of flying you feel even though you are only sailing at 6 knots, stargazing while laying on the bow of the boat and sleeping to the sounds of water. I can’t logically explain the strong pull I felt to sailing — like a magnet really — but within 3 weeks we bought our first boat, a 35’ 1999 Beneteau.
The rest is, as they say, history. Sailing and cruising became our passion as a couple. We spent every weekend on the boat and took a 2 week cruise every summer. Eventually we decided we needed a bigger boat so we upgraded to a used Beneteau 46. As our boat expanded so did our dreams. There was no single defining moment. Our plans morphed slowly — “wouldn’t it be nice to have a boat in the Caribbean when we retire,” and then “how great would it be to cross the Atlantic and sail the Med,” and, ultimately, “Let’s sell the house, cars, move on our boat full time and sail the world.” And that’s where we find ourselves today. Retired in late 2020, we are now full time liveaboards on S/V Che Figata, a beautiful and very seaworthy Hylas 56. So the story begins.