(Above) Holly Agra, co-owner of the Chicago company that owns the boat, christens Chicago’s Classic Lady in Manitowoc, Wisconsin on April 28. (Click on images to view larger versions.)

May 16, 2014 – There will soon be six ladies cruising the Chicago River. The company that owns Chicago’s First Lady, Little Lady, Fair Lady, Leading Lady, and Lady Grebe has signed for delivery of Chicago’s Classic Lady.

The 98-foot-long boat was christened on April 28 in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, 170 miles north of Chicago, and traveled down Lake Michigan to the main branch of the Chicago River. Mercury Skyline Yacht Charters announced on Thursday the new boat will start work on May 30, about a week earlier than they predicted last October. Four trips are scheduled that day, starting at 10 a.m.

The boat created jobs in Wisconsin. Burger Boat Company, a 150-year-old company that builds many types of boats but no more than about three per year, announced on October 2, 2013, it would hire about 50 new employees to work on Chicago’s Classic Lady and another contract they had at the time, a 77-foot research vessel for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Docked near the Chicago Riverwalk and the southeast corner of the DuSable Bridge at Michigan Avenue, Chicago’s Classic Lady will take as many as 299 passengers on architecture tours and host private events. It will look similar to Chicago’s Leading Lady, a three-year-old boat with a mahogany and brass interior styled after the luxury cruising yachts of the 1920s.

(Above) A mobile boat hoist carries the 184,000-pound Chicago’s Classic Lady from the shipyard to Lake Michigan.

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