Man jet skiing across Lake Michigan to raise money for body armor for Chicago police

By Todd Feurer

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    CHICAGO (WBBM) — Most Chicagoans who want to go to Saugatuck travel by car, but one man left Chicago for southwest Michigan on a jet ski.

Frank Giannelli is jet skiing 100 miles across Lake Michigan for “Get Behind The Vest,” the effort by the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation to raise money to provide life-saving body armor to police officers.

Giannelli zipped off from the Chicago Yacht Club around 7:15 a.m. Thursday, getting a water salute as he moved out of port.

This journey has been a year in the making.

“I actually bought my jet ski about a year ago, and the two ideas came together, and there it was,” he said. “I’ve been riding my bike, hitting the gym. It’s a little harder on the legs, the up and down, but that’s really the conditioning. I started conditioning about two months ago.”

Giannelli should be arriving in Saugatuck by late Thursday morning.

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