RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, On the evening of May 11, 2011, veteran sailor Peter Kovats and two friends sailed from Montrose Harbor onto Lake Michigan to celebrate his sixty-second birthday; and
WHEREAS, While monitoring the weather reports from a yacht club on shore, Peter's wife, Mary, contacted her husband to warn him that a fast-moving storm was approaching from the west; and
WHEREAS, As darkness fell and a violent squall set in, Mary Kovats watched as a stream of boats returned to the harbor, but not the nineteen foot Peter Pan, captained by her husband; and
WHEREAS, Mary Kovats became increasingly worried when she was unable to reach any of the men via cell-phone and immediately decided to follow her instincts; and
WHEREAS, Mary Kovats, a Rear Commodore for the Chicago Corinthian Yacht Club and an experienced sailor in her own right, quickly commandeered a power boat and enlisted the help of two fellow yacht club members, Jacob Karlin and David Stix; and
WHEREAS, Remaining calm, but acting with great dispatch, the trio embarked on a hastily-assembled search and rescue mission and fought their way out of the harbor into a hailstorm of buffeting winds, high waves and lashing rains; and
WHEREAS, Approximately a mile off Irving Park Road, Mary Kovats came upon her husband's boat which was found overturned and empty; and
WHEREAS, Searching hundreds of yards farther out into the darkness, Mary Kovats finally located the three men who had been floating in the thirty-to-forty-degree water and had begun to suffer from hypothermia; and
WHEREAS, Fire Department officials estimate the men had been in the water for forty-five minutes and would have perished in another thirty minutes; and
WHEREAS, Assisted by her fellow yacht club members, Mary Kovats pulled her half-conscious husband and crewmates from the frigid water and into the safety of the motor boat; and
WHEREAS, Mary Kovats, a public school teacher and a daughter of the late Chicago Tribune reporter and news editor Denis Quinlan, displayed great leadership and courage in accomplishing this successful rescue; now, therefore
BE IT RESOLVED, That we, the Mayor and the members of the Chicago City Council, assembled this eighth day of June, 2011, do hereby commend Mary Kovats and her two fellow yacht club members for their remarkable composure and heroism; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to Mary Kovats, Jacob Karlin and David Stix.
AlderrfSaA - 14th Ward