It was finally arranged. We had planned a sailing trip across Lake Michigan from Wilmette harbor in Illinois to South Haven, Michigan and, after a year of waiting, the time had arrived. Our craft was a twenty-nine-foot wooden sloop built in the thirties and bought more on hope and devotion to sailing than on the meager sum my father paid to haul the hulk away. Though run down, it had a cabin that could sleep four and all the necessary facilities such as a head and kitchenette for extended voyages. After a year of weekend labors, the old man’s old man was ready to grace the mighty waters of modest Lake Michigan.
The crew consisted of myself, my best friend Tom, my father, and a good friend and client of his, Mr. James Maclean. It was Thursday evening, the first week of June 1972. When, after loading the supplies and making a final check of the boat, we shoved off. Our destination lay at the end of sixty-eight miles of water. The weather that night was ideal – not to sail in, but just to be in. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky nor a breeze for the sails, so we would have to motor across. We estimated our motoring time to be twenty hours and divided the time into five-hour shifts. Tom and I had the eleven to four am shift.
It was as in a dream. The moon was in hiding and the stars, so more numerous in the absence of obscuring reflections, dazzled the heavens. Away from the throes of civilization, in the warm embrace of night with only the soft crushing sound of water mingling with the burbling of the engine to fill in the silence, the mind finds an almost womb-like peace and time for reflection and meditation.
We reclined on cushions on either side of the cockpit, taking turns steering the tiller with our feet, navigating by the reference point of flickering lights from the shore-side metropolis of Chicago as it slowly sank in the horizon. As we reminisced on our shared past and dreamed, to the extent of our awareness, of the splendors of existence and the secret mysteries of the cosmos, we hoped, with lazy grins, that some of the answers lay at the end of a bottle of scotch. The universe was alive and, sharing with Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler and Einstein in their cosmological quests, we strained our imaginations through the black sea above and floated with the stars on the lost music of the spheres. As we neared the end of our shift, we celebrated the midpoint of our journey with a toast to Bacchus and Neptune, and little could we imagine that, in forty-eight hours in the very same waters, we would be in a battle for our lives.
Lake Michigan is infamous for its sudden changes of conditions caused mainly by the meteorological effects of warmer air over land meeting the cooler air over the lake. This unpredictability gives it personality; one day it can be utterly calm with mirror waters that return you reflection as one would a greeting, and the next, a fiery temptress slapping away the fresh advance of an indecent ship caressing her waters with its hull.
The next morning, nearing Michigan shores, we awoke and climbed on deck to joint Jim and the captain for breakfast. The lake was a beautiful panorama. Light breezes were rippling the water, making it a glorious expanse of twinkling sparkles. In the distance was a magnificent schooner in full sail probably headed towards the larger port of Benton, which lay some fifty miles north of our destination. We all had a go at swimming off the boat but the water was a bit too cold for our liking so we stretched out to tan and discuss everything under the sun.
When someone attempts something improbable and fails, that’s chance or ill-luck, but if that unlikely goal is, by luck, reached, it becomes a demonstration of skill. We could scarcely hide our hubris when our navigational ‘skills’ had put us only 100 yards south of the entrance to the inland harbor.
We were a little disappointed with South Haven; it turned out to be a small, quiet, generally uninteresting lake-side town. We spent Friday and Saturday toasting on the beach, sailing up and down the coast on brief excursions, swimming, and talking with some new friends from the boats moored next to us.
We awoke on Sunday to fog. We had planned to leave in the morning and, with the wind that had slowly developed the day before, make it home by late evening. We set sail in an attempt to damn the weather and leave anyway, but as we compiled the weather reports it was to be impossible. A storm system had developed and was due to clear in a day or so. As the winds picked up, the skies darkened and it began to rain. We spent the rest of the day frustrated in the cabin, reading and listening to the weather updates.
Sunday night was an ugly one. The four of us crammed the cabin to capacity. The rain drummed incessantly on the deck and made the air inside damp which unleashed an ugly orgy of rotten odors from the bilge, the old decaying wood, the seals, and the engine. At 5:00 am Monday morning my father woke us up (or told us to stop trying to sleep) with the information that the storm had moved far enough away for the weather to begin stabilizing. With a yawn we donned our rain gear and unpacked the sails. The sky was a dull grey, the waters were choppy and chilly gusts blew out the west. We shoved off at 6:00 am. At that time the latest report from the Coast Guard weather broadcast was for waves four to six fee over the next six hours, winds and waves diminishing to calm in the six hours after that. Outside the protective confines of the harbor, we crashed head on with the surf. It had begun to drizzle, and there was a constant roar from the foamy white caps crashing upon us, one another, and the shore. With the waves breaking on our bow, we made slow time in motoring out far enough to set sail. We hoisted both the main and the jib to the wind. Since the winds were blowing in an easterly direction, we had to tack in large angles off our course. The series of tacking, if plotted, would form a compressed zig-zag line weaving eventually towards Wilmette. We calculated our effective forward motion to be around three miles an hour, about that of our first crossing. Scanning the horizon was a dismal sight with turbulent grey waves and a lighter grey sky. At first, we had been a little excited at the idea of sailing into the foreboding weather but we soon settled down to the strenuous task of sailing our tossing boat. We divided the labor, with one person handling the tiller, another managing the sails, and one keeping an eye on the compass and troubleshooting any difficulties encountered on our frequent jibes. The fourth person rested down below, awaiting his turn when it came time to rotate.
At 7:30 am, we tried to make a breakfast. At first boiled eggs were tried but the pot kept being thrown off the stove (which was mounted on hinges and supposed to compensate for the shifting attitude of the boat) by the slamming of the waves. We ended up eating sandwiches which immediately became soggy and fell apart in the drizzle. The weather kept getting worse. The winds were becoming fiercer and the boat was keeling at a steep angle. The waters were becoming so turbulent that the waves slamming against the side of our boat would occasionally send a column of water splashing over us. There was a real danger of being swept overboard, so we tied ropes around our waists and lashed them to the cleats. At noon we picked up report indicating changing conditions but, before all pertinent information could be given, a wave swept over the edge, flooding the cockpit and drowning our portable radio. We were in a dilemma: Without the radio we would have little idea on what to expect. We were all discouraged and the question of turning back was proposed. I was weary of our slow progress but we calculated ourselves to have covered one third of the distance and decided to keep on going. Tired, hungry, and seasick past the point of nausea, we lusted to get back home to comfort. 12:30 pm, twenty-five miles from shore, in a land of massive, undulating, foamy swells of liquid under an alarmingly dark sky of billowing green clouds, we were definitely entering a storm.
The sailing was becoming increasingly difficult and there was little rest to be found in the heaving cabin. Sometime after 1:30 pm, after seven and a half ours of sailing, our troubles began. I was down below gazing into the lake’s depths through a submerged porthole, wishing to be back on land, when suddenly the boat was violently thrown further on its side, sending everything inn the cabin flying. Shouts came from on deck and I shot a glance out the hatch in time to see everyone frantically trying to keep from falling overboard and struggling with the lines. Water came poring in over the runner boards into the cockpit and into the cabin. We had been hit by a tremendous gust of wind with no preparation to let the sails luff. I went out on deck to help out. The storm was upon us with howling winds, making it necessary to shout to be heard. Eerily, the clouds in rapid motion seemed to be exploding downwards as if being stepped on from above. Rain started coming down in sheets. We had torn our jib and it whipped furiously around the shrouds into a tangled mess. Moreover, the stress on the main sail had caused the mast to strain its forward shroud. This metal stabilizing metal chord attaches to the bow through an extended boom called a bowsprit which, in turn, is secured by two metal chains attached the hull at the water line on either side of the bow. One of these chains had broken. After cutting loose the jib, my father attempted to reattach the chain but the boat, now powerless, was tossing so violently in the waves that it was impossible. I went down below and began clearing water out of the cabin with a pail. Jim tried to start the engine but it was inoperative. Tom came back and joined me. We started laughing uproariously at how miserable everything was.
As we took turns scooping water out, I suddenly noticed that the water level had been rising. Fighting panic, I called my father over. We all observed the water slosh back and forth for a while and, sure enough, the water level in the cabin was perceptively creeping up the sides of the bunks. With the rate we were taking on water, the boat would sink in less than fifteen minutes, and with a two-ton keel, it would sink like a rock. We immediately tossed all floatable objects from the cabin onto the deck to possibly fashion into a raft if we were forced to abandon ship. We were approximately at the center of the lake, with at least thirty-five miles to the closest shore. In the event that we would have to go into the water, since we had told no one of our plans, we could expect to be in the water for days, and at 50 – 55 F, survival was a question to consider. My father theorized that the breaking of the chain relieved pressure on that area of the hull and caused us to pop a seam. We scrambled around and found two large plastic pails. We took a hammer and tore up some of the floorboards so that we might dip our buckets deeper into the bilge. This had to be done because we had to keep as much buoyancy as possible to ride high enough in the water to not be overcome by the waves. There was something particularly disturbing in seeing the planks come up. There was something in seeing the exposed ribbed framework laid indecently naked, exposing the fragile one-inch-thick series of planks comprising the hull, and separating us from a struggle to keep from drowning. We formed a bailing team with two of us kneeling in the water on the floor, handing buckets up to a third man on deck. My father, with the most experience, piloted the craft. We had no choice but to turn back. Even though we were at the half-way mark, we would make much better time by sailing with the wind instead of against it. We let the main out ninety degrees off our port and were on a perfect run, and the speed buoyed our spirits. With the strong wind from behind, running faster than the swells, we would slowly climb atop mountainous crests and glide down into deep troughs. It could almost have been fun. We were bailing out between five to ten gallons per minute which was increasingly hard to bear, even with frequent rotations. The hours passed. After a while I felt very little of the strain – I was too tired. The thought of the boat going down and us flaying around in the water kept us going. We became automata with simple motions of scooping up water and emptying pails which we repeated past the idea of counting.
We were moving at around five knots or six miles an hour, and every twenty minutes or so someone would have calculated the time to cover the distance we had yet to go. Slowly the numbers decreased. Four o’clock, twenty-three miles to go, the blisters on our hands were raw. Five-thirty pm, fourteen miles to go, our legs and arms were wracked with frequent cramps. It would intermittently stop raining, and the rushing sound of surf on our hull kept us hypnotized, entranced with our duty. Our weariness was reflected in our monosyllabic grunts of communication. 7:00 o’clock and land. We had worked hard for it and now it was ours. Land. We took turns standing atop the cabin to catch a rolling glimpse of the worshipped sight. We emerged from our spell and began laughing and joking about our ill fortune. As we pushed on, the shore became a constant sight, and soon thereafter we made out landmarks indicating the entrance to the South Haven Harbor – dead on the mark. There was now no question of our navigational skill.
As we neared the harbor, Jim lit a flare and tried to gain attention of someone in the Coast Guard station on the shore. During our crisis, Jim and my father were mostly reserved, and I had wondered about their thoughts and how all this had affected them. I guess I was given some sort of answer by having to inform Jim that molten material from the flare was dripping onto his hand.
We let out yells of triumph as we cleared the breakwaters lining the entrance. Someone ran out of the station and we told him our problem. He would get aid. Shortly before entering, we stopped bailing and soon things were floating off the bunks. People came out on their decks and called to us, asking if we needed any help – which should have been obvious with our boat only one and a half feet out of the water. We were thrown a line and pulled up to a dock. People came running to us, many with their portable hand pumps. We all were quite elated and babbling out portions of our adventure to the crowd of people who were helping us clear out our boat. A Coast Guard boat pulled up abroad side and lowered in a huge pumping hose and, in a moment, they had our had our craft dry and riding high in the water. They had also arranged to get the boat dry-docked. Tom and I stumbled off onto the dock. We were reunited with some friends we had met earlier and told them of our exaggerated adventure. From being on the lake so long our sea-legs were still with us and it felt as though the dock was tossing as our boat had. That feeling lasted through dinner and into the night at our hotel. Someone tossed me a beer that had been unloaded from our boat; I noticed that the can had started to rust. We were all beaten, tired, and starving but, standing on that dock, I couldn’t think of any other time when I had felt so good.
