After a crazy summer of wedding preparations, Kristin and I were newlyweds looking to get away from it all for a week. We chose a weeklong lazy sailing trip to Michigan aboard Priorities as our simple “honeymoon,” partly because we were tired of planning stuff. While crossing the lake is not something to be casual about, cruising the Michigan shoreline of Lake Michigan is somewhat easy… plenty of nice beach towns with anchorages, marinas, repair facilities, restaurants, and grocery stores.
With Friday’s forecast for south winds (15-25 by the NWS, or 10-15 by SailFlow’s Quicklook), we chose Pentwater, Michigan for our first destination. Pentwater lies about 78 miles northeast (053 degree course) of Milwaukee, which we hoped would be a nice and fast broad reach, perhaps even with the spinnaker. We have been to Pentwater a few times before, and it remains one of our favorite towns… a nice beach, a few restaurants, a good marina, and also a protected anchorage on Pentwater Lake.
By 9am Friday, we were on our way. Initially we started with just the jib and main in an 8 knot south breeze to get away from nearshore wind effects. Despite a two foot swell from stronger winds offshore, Kristin cooked eggs for breakfast on the galley stove. I’m a super lucky guy… my bride was willing to spend a week sailing with me on our honeymoon, and she even cooked for me once we got underway!
About an hour later, we had only covered about 4 miles as we reached a zone of lighter winds with boat speeds around 3.5 knots. Since breakfast was done (I’d do the dishes in a bit), we raised the spinnaker and our speed crept up another knot and a half. Actually, I think the light winds were a transition point between nearshore and offshore winds because they quickly built to south at 15.
With the nice breeze near the top of our spinnaker’s wind range, Priorities flew at a quick 8 to 9 knots for several hours. Sunny weather, warm water (72 degrees) keeping the air warm (upper 70s), and the spinnaker staying full made for a great ride!
A month earlier, while sailing across Lake Michigan alone, I had an issue with the spinnaker sock controls getting loose and fouling on the radar reflector high aloft. I remembered this time to tightly cleat both sock controls this time, but after a few hours it seemed things had slipped a little. Further investigation revealed the spinnaker halyard had either stretched or slipped in the rope clutch, since the sock was now a few inches below the block at the masthead. I was able to tension it further with some creative use of an unused sheet winch, but I knew to keep an eye on it.
By 1pm and about 25 miles offshore, as the city skyline disappeared over the horizon, the wind built just enough to make me want to douse the spinnaker. Though it was doing a great job, the autopilot was working a little too hard and indicated too much weather helm. I also didn’t want the nice new spinnaker to get overstressed, so we lowered the sock.
Now free of the stress of a full spinnaker, the halyard was now super tightly jammed into the block at the top of the mast. It took some coordination between Kristin (in the cockpit) and I (on the foredeck) to get it unstuck, but eventually brute force got it cleared. I’ll have to think about that next time I tension up the spin halyard!
Also, wrestling the sock into the bag on the foredeck in 16-19 knots of wind and 4-5 foot waves is tough work! I was wearing a PFD, tethered to a jackline or cleat, and had a PLB, but I really should get some knee pads…
A little after 4pm, with 28 miles to go and just as Little Sable Point was appearing on the horizon ahead of us, we crossed paths with the cruise ship Victory I headed south for Chicago. I wondered if the small cruise ship had stayed in the lee of the point to avoid the waves… but now was facing the full force of the south wind and waves just as their guests were preparing for dinner.
With 20 miles to go the winds eased just enough to the south-southeast and we raised the chute again. Our only spinnaker is more of a runner than a reacher, so we couldn’t quite lay Pentwater’s channel entrance with the wind shift. However, the 7.5 to 8.5 knots of boatspeed meant we might actually arrive before dark.
The town of Pentwater is actually on the shores of Pentwater Lake, a small inland lake connected to Lake Michigan with a somewhat narrow 120 foot wide entrance channel. Though tall pierhead lights mark the entrance, the channel walls are otherwise unlighted. Factoring in the height of the pierhead lights (half as tall as the mast) and swells moving from the south across the entrance, a nighttime arrival carried additional risk. The anchorage close to town can get crowded, too, and squeezing into a crowded anchorage at night was also something I wanted to avoid.
Well I probably pushed the boat a little harder than I needed to. The speed was nice, though. … my desire to try and lay the channel entrance as much as possible encouraged me to hand steer as much as possible.
With about 4 miles to go, I started noticing a squeaking sound emanating from the starboard steering wheel. It was a new sound, though that wheel had always made strange sounds. A little later, I needed a bunch of right rudder after a puff and turned harder than normal. A loud metal cable snapping sound emanated from below the starboard wheel which definitely was cause for concern.
The wheel felt a little lighter than normal, definitely another concern, but I still could steer. The cable wasn’t broken but I made a mental note to investigate further before heading out again. Autopilot steering was still available, and since it operated separate from the wheels I turned the autopilot back on.
The wind shifted and diminished further, so we decided to douse and motor the remaining 3 miles. We entered Pentwater’s entrance channel as darkness arrived just behind the sailboat Sumi. It had taken us just over 10 hours to cross the Big Lake. Steering felt lighter than normal, but otherwise was operational.
When crossing the Big Lake I like to be flexible with our destination and arrival time, so we planned on anchoring rather than staying in a marina. Any further issues with steering would also be easiest to deal with when anchoring rather than docking in a transient slip in the dark. There’s plenty of room to anchor on the far east end of Pentwater Lake if needed, but we wanted to be close to town for a shorter dinghy ride. Unfortunately, the west side of Pentwater Lake, closest to town, is 40 feet deep and requires lots of swinging room with proper scope.
Complicating things, there are many boats on moorings which don’t swing the same as boats on anchors. There are also “Slow No Wake” bouys mixed in, too. Most of these obstacles are unlighted. Using the radar in this situation is very helpful, even in daylight… radar is very accurate when measuring distance, and even the bouys show up on the screen.
Once Sumi was settled in, we squeezed into a good spot near them. Initially I tried just a 3.5:1 scope (140 feet) with the light wind, but a quick glance on my phone of the incoming weather encouraged me to extend to 5:1 (200 feet) for extra security. With Sumi directly astern of us (our closest point), we still had about two boatlengths (80 feet) of space… closer than I wanted, but not so much I felt we had to move.
Once anchored, things seemed a little out of place ashore. I then remembered that Pentwater had just had some severe storms that knocked out power to a large area… the west shore of Pentwater Lake was still totally dark. Generators ran ashore all night, too, but weren’t bothersome enough to disturb our sleep.
There were thunderstorms that night with plenty of rain, but not much wind. We never were worried about dragging anchor or swinging into anything.
In fact, despite lots of rain that weekend, we still had a great time in Pentwater. Further investigation of the steering system revealed it required immediate repairs… but that’s for my next post.
