Great Lakes Sailing

Vessel Name: Charrette
Vessel Make/Model: Beneteau First 38
Hailing Port: Sister Bay, WI
About: We are an experienced Great Lakes cruising family of 4 (boys 16 and 12) who live aboard during the summer months. In addition to cruising, we also enjoy JAM racing as well as Flying Scot one design racing at the Ephraim Yacht Club where both boys are accomplished racers.
Extra:
Charrette is a 1983 Beneteau First 38 auxilary sloop with a fast modern hull shape, a deep fin keel and spade rudder configuration. She is fast, stable, roomy and does not look dated despite being over 25 years old. She is a sister ship to the S/V Bagheera, a First 38 that circumnavigated the [...]
19 August 2008 | Sault Ste. Marie, MI
19 August 2008 | Sault Ste. Marie, MI
19 August 2008 | Whitefish Point, MI
19 August 2008 | Grand Marais, MI
14 August 2008 | Murray Bay, Grand Island (Munising)
14 August 2008 | Marquette, MI
14 August 2008 | Marquette, MI
09 August 2008 | Lower Keewanaw Waterway Indent
09 August 2008 | Lower Keewanaw Waterway Indent
06 August 2008 | Lilly Pond Kewaunaw Waterway Upper Entry
06 August 2008 | Black River, MI
06 August 2008 | Black River, MI
06 August 2008 | La Pointe Harbor
06 August 2008 | La Pointe Harbor Via Bayfield
01 August 2008 | Raspberry Island Sand Spit
01 August 2008 | Rocky Island
01 August 2008 | Rocky Island Via Devils Island
01 August 2008 | Stockton Island
01 August 2008 | Village of La Point, Madeline Island, WI
01 August 2008 | Bayfield WI
Recent Blog Posts
19 August 2008 | Sault Ste. Marie, MI

Summer 2008 Lake Superior Cruise

8/14/08

19 August 2008 | Sault Ste. Marie, MI

Summer 2008 Lake Superior Cruise

8/13/08

19 August 2008 | Whitefish Point, MI

Summer 2008 Lake Superior Cruise

8/12/08

19 August 2008 | Grand Marais, MI

Summer 2008 Lake Superior Cruise

8/11/08

14 August 2008 | Murray Bay, Grand Island (Munising)

Summer 2008 Lake Superior Cruise

8/10/08

14 August 2008 | Marquette, MI

Summer 2008 Lake Superior Cruise

8/9/08

Summer 2008 Lake Superior Cruise

19 June 2008 | Mackinac Island MI
John
We decided to make an overnight passage from our home port in Sister Bay, WI directly to Mackinac Island going "over the top" of the Beaver Island Archipelago. While we knew this would be long and tiring, it saves us from the additional distance of going to Beaver Island as well as navigating through the Grey's Reef area. Since the distance is 120 NM, the plan was to leave around noon for an expected noon arrival the following day. The night before our departure, we asked our nephew Zach who had never really done much sailing before if he'd like to come along and after some thought, he accepted the challenge.

We use various collections of websites to determine weather conditions but our favorite is www.sailflow.com. In addition to current buoy condition reports at various locations around the Great Lakes, it also gives a detailed forecast of wind direction and velocity as well as links to NOAA marine forecasts. We also use www.weather.com for surface maps and general forecast information for the areas that we intend to sail.

Making a single overnight passage, especially at the beginning of the trip, proved to be a bit more of a challenge than originally anticipated. All things indicated that we would be sailing under clearing skies, a full moon and decreasing northwesterlies however this turned out not to be the case. After motoring through the calm all the way to the Rock Island Passage, we were greeted by a southeasterly resulting in a close reach which later became a beat. Next the rain came followed by more calm then a 16-18 kt northwest wind. We reached under jib alone as it was getting dark and this is an easy sail combination. About 2200, a westbound tug pushing a barge went by and we were pleased to see that our new AIS system "painted" him on our Nobeltec display. Since we were basically just south of the shipping lanes running from Green Bay to the Straights of Mackinac, this didn't surprise us completely.

Zach and I decided to go on watch prior to our scheduled 2400 as I was not able to sleep anyway despite my best efforts. It was a very chilly night (in the 40's), but even with the cloud cover, it was fairly easy to see thing with the full moon illuminating the cloud cover. Things were pretty routine and I even managed to get up on deck to hoist the main as the wind retreated to 10-12 kts. At approximately 0200, I spotted a set of lights headed directly our way. It was the classic combination of green on the left, red on the right and two bright lights lined up perfectly.

Initially, I made a gradual southerly course alteration but quickly decided that this would result in sailing very deep downwind, a condition that we were not prepared to do safely in the dark and in the building swells. Moreover, the course change didn't seem to be making a difference. I didn't want to leave the wheel to go down to look at the AIS display and for that matter, didn't even know if the target would paint so we made a sharp, 60 deg. Course alteration to the northeast. Shortly thereafter, we were lit up like a Christmas tree by the spotlight of what now was clearly an enormous vessel. Moments later, our VHF came alive by a voice calling the small sailing vessel 12nm west of the Lansing Shoals Light.

Instantly, Deanna popped up from her sound sleep to answer the call and was advised that we were on a course to cross the freighters bow which the AIS display now clearly depicted. None the less, we advised that we would maintain our course and safely passed the freighter starboard to starboard.

Zack and I maintained our watch until 0430 when Deanna and Stefan came up to relieve us. Just prior to that, I had fallen asleep in the cockpit for what Zack said was only about a minute before I awaked myself with a loud exclamation that resulted from a brief hallucination about running into some rocks. Dawn was approaching and the Mackinac bridge was 25nm away. I went down below and fell into a coma like sleep for about an hour only to be allegedly awakened about passing some freighters of which I have no recollection. In all, we passed or otherwise saw 7 freighters in the straights area. Needless to say, the new AIS system got a workout! It was great looking at the display and determining the course, distance, direction and a host of other information. In fact, using the system, I was able to identify a particularly fast moving freighter bearing down on us from behind and call him by name using the VHF. He answered immediately; I've never be able to get a freighter to respond to me before when trying to identify by description.

After nearly getting run over by (count them) 4 ferries exiting the island, we backed into our slip at the Mackinac Island Marina at 1115.

Post Mortem:

While we were well prepared with warm, winter clothing, wore life jackets at all times and used harnesses and jacklines after dark, we were not expecting such a large deviation from the forecasted conditions. This stretched us a little thin at times yet everyone did a really great job dealing with what had to be done. Clearly, things could have been tougher had someone gotten sick, the conditions deteriorated further or mechanical problems developed.

The shipping lanes marked on the charts really do get used and it is best to avoid them if possible although it isn't always possible. In these areas, an electronic system of collision avoidance is really important. In the past, this meant radar but AIS is now being used by all large vessels in the Great Lakes and is a wonderful technology that everyone should have if they're doing any serious cruising. It is low cost, low power consuming and a good complement/ alternative to radar.
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