Rowing in Chicago, "a beautiful sport."

Ann Kinnealey goes for a row.

     Fishermen are known to be wise, sometimes uncannily so — even the urban anglers ringing Lincoln Park Lagoon.

     “It amazed me that the fishermen started calling ‘Annie! Annie!’” said Ann Kinnealey, recalling herself rowing past them. “I wondered: How do they know who I am?”

      We were dockside at the Lincoln Park Boat Club on a recent Sunday, admiring her sculling shell, resting upside down on a pair of slings, its hull a shade of rich nail polish red that glowed in the morning sunlight.

     The answer was apparent: “Annie” was painted on the hull. A tipoff. Other answers about rowing were not so easily obtained.

      “Use your imagination,” said Lev Sklyanskiy, an instructor at the club. “How much does that boat weigh?”

        I scrutinized the long, thin craft. Factored in that it was probably very light, so the polite person would err on the heavy side.

     “Ahh ... 100 pounds?” I guessed.

     “And how long is it?” Kinnealey chimed in.

     “It’s ...” I stalled looking at the thing. Easily two stories tall. “Fifteen feet long?”

     “Now try to lift it,” Sklyanskiy said.

     Together, we raised the boat easily off its rests: “29.9 pounds,” he said. And 26 feet long. Ouch. At its widest, 14 inches — no estimation there; I used a tape measure.

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