Lake Michigan sailing near Frankfort, Michigan

[Cevin c Taylor]

Jason sharing his Lake Michigan experience inspired me to post about a sail I did back at the beginning of July on Lake Michigan, out of Frankfort, Michigan in my '83 CP 16.   I was with two buddies; we're all pretty much novices.  We launched from a municipal ramp on Lake Betsie, from which you have to travel westward about half a mile, and then through a channel another couple hundred yards or so to an area enclosed by a breakwater.  As we launched, the wind was so strong it literally blew my cap off my head, and blew my flip flop across the parking lot when it came off my foot.  I was a bit concerned about heading out onto Lake Michigan with such a strong wind, but the forecast was good, and we had plenty of daylight left.  There is also a Coast Guard station right in Frankfort, we had all the required safety equipment, and my wife and friends would be on the beach at Frankfort, within sight.

We had trouble starting my 4.5 Hp outboard, and so we decided to sail the whole way, which didn't seem like a problem given the wind.  However, as soon as we got 50 yards out in Lake Betsie, it completely died.  We had to pull out the paddles and paddle down the channel into the breakwater.  We could see the flag above the CG station fluttering briskly in the wind, but we weren't getting any of it.  Out in the protected waters behind the breakwater, we started to pick up some wind.  The breakwater itself is formed by two large steel arms, with a westward opening that is about 500 feet across.  On the north arm there is a large lighthouse.  The wind was coming from the south, and we could see spray shooting up as the waves crashed into the southern arm of the breakwater.  I started to have some second thoughts as we approached the mouth and saw the biggest waves I've ever experienced in my boat.  It's hard to tell, but I estimate they were three footers, with a few bigger than that.  While 500' seems like a lot of space, I was worried about being driven into the northern arm by the south breeze.  However, we made it through with no problem and plenty of room to spare, with my buddy at the tiller.  We were all pleased to see how stable the '16 is, just plowing right along.  It rose and fell with the waves, but stayed right on course and felt solid.  We sailed due west under a beautifully clear sky to put some distance between us and the breakwater.  We took a leisurely sail, ate a bit, and practiced heaving to, which I'm pretty decent at by now.  The waves were still in the 3' range out there, but more like swells, and they were not scary with no obstacles nearby.
At a certain point we decided we had better not get too far out, so we turned around and headed in.  That's when the fun began.  We had been drifting north as we sailed along, and we were finding it hard to make any progress to the south, which we needed to do to make it back through the mouth of the breakwater.  On our SE tack, we did make some progress, but lost it all on the SW tack.  Later, our friends and family on the shore would tell us that they thought we were just intentionally sitting there motionless, practicing some maneuver or something.  Looking back, I think I see our errors.  My buddy was reluctant to reef the sail, and so each time we tacked, we heeled over, fell off a lot, and lost some southern progress as we corrected our course.  I also think he was trying to keep it too close to the wind in the thought that that would help us make more southern progress.  However, it resulted in more leeway (I think), as well as several unintentional tacks, with loss of southern progress on each of those.  At one point we actually took water in over the coaming from one of those unintentional tacks.  That's only the second time that's ever happened to me, and it was pretty exciting, though I didn't get nearly as alarmed as the first time it happened, a couple of years ago.  The boat popped right back up and it all drained out pretty quickly through the scuppers.  Efforts to start the outboard were unsuccessful.  At one point it was pretty comical.  One guy was manning the tiller, I was lying on my side on the port cockpit bench pulling the cord on the motor with my left hand, and the other guy was holding onto my ankles.  I never felt like I was in any danger, but it made him feel better.  

The shore along this area is all nice sandy beaches, and we began to talk of just sailing her up onto the beach in the protection afforded by the northern arm of the breakwater, or just taking her into shallow water and throwing out the anchor.  I really didn't want to give up like that, especially with everyone watching, and objectively, we were not in any real danger.  There was plenty of daylight left, and no bad weather anywhere nearby, and beaching her left us with a final safety valve.  I just didn't want to give up too early.  So, we decided to try adjusting our tacking.  Instead of a 1:1 ratio of SE and SW tacks, we decided to do something like a 3:1 ratio, since we were making southward progress on the SE tacks.  Once we started that, we definitely started to move southward.  Within half an hour or so, we were lined up to shoot through the mouth of the breakwater, with its somewhat chaotic and large waves, and menacing steel arms.  We made it through with no problem, and breathed a sigh of relief once in the relatively calm waters inside.  However, the fun wasn't yet over.  As we sailed along, patting ourselves on the back, we got hit with a gust that heeled us over and made her round up.  It was great to see that it does that when it takes too much air.  After all that wind, we once again had to paddle through the channel back into Lake Betsie (where the @%*^%@#$^ outboard promptly fired up!)

All in all, it was a great experience that increased my confidence in the boat, and to a lesser degree, our seamanship.  Looking back, we should have reefed relatively early; it was just too hard to control the boat with all that sail up.  We should have also been more alert to our northward drift on the outward westbound sail.  Had we sailed WSW instead of due west, we would not have had such a hard time getting back.  I have since bought a new outboard; that one has let me down too often.  According to WUnderground.com, it looks like the max wind that day was around 20 mph, gusting to 30 mph.