Michigan to chicago trip help!

[Shife]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Since this boat is restored, I would make a few sea trial trips before the Lake Mich crossing. Just to shake out any bugs!

What could possibly go wrong on a boat that as of a year ago was a bucket of parts...


Anywho... I was doing the Mills race last Friday (Mills Trophy course) on Lk Erie and ran into this at approx 41*41.400'N 083*13.000'W:

http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=137771&catid=45

The largest piece of debris was about the size of a school bus and built of 4x4s and 2x6 lumber. The area was littered with 2x4s, 4x4s, shingles, sections of walls, etc.. I even saw two vinyl windows with the glass panes still in them float by.

We were traveling at 7.5kts upwind and would have suffered damage if we had hit them. This was in a heavily built 40ft offshore racing sailboat. A Scarab with the throttle down would be sitting on the bottom after hitting debris like this. I delivered a 38ft racing catamaran from PIB to the Clinton River late Saturday and we encountered random 2x6 boards and dead heads all the way to Grosse Ile.

Seeing as I've yet to make a GL crossing without seeing a dead head of some sort, be sure to take that earlier advice about pointing the boat towards ChiTown and opening up the throttles with a bit of caution.

Still curious as to what the contents of your ditch bag are...

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Yeah i was going to do the Mills' this year, however had a wedding that weekend and we had to skip it.....

Ditch bag= flare gun, large 4X6 neon orange "floating tarp" (used for signaling), hand held VHF radio, whistle, 10' of line, 2 butterfinger, and a pt of jackdaniels.

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Yeah....i did end up getting a GPS out here that a buddy is going to let me take next week, it has lake Michigan on it.

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Note- T minus 3 days till the big trip!!!!! Pray for good weather~!~!




I also had a thought to add a small hand held mirror to my ditch bag....



Will include full write up along with TONS of photos of the trip come Sunday

 

[Dick Sorensen]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Been thinking about your trip....take lots of pictures so you can share. Smooth sailing.

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Well, this is my last post till Sunday night when we get back.....OK lets be honest im going to be dead tired Sunday night, I'll post the photos Monday morning...We are leaving St Joe's tomorrow morning around 7 EST, so while your all drivin into work think of us!! Sunday is a chance of isolated storms...hopfully seeing as how weather men are awful and Sunday is 4 days away, maybe the weather will change by then. I'll document the entire trip and look forward to posting it all for you. wish us luck, pray for good weather Sunday!!

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Do i have a good story for you......



We made it, were back, boats back at the dock behind the house! We have tons of photos and a great story,


so tomorrow i will put it all together in a write up...for now we relax......

 

[JasonCarp]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

nice cliffhanger!

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Well the GREAT CHICAGO ADVENTURE story went like this:

We pulled the boat Wednesday night so we wouldn?t have to deal with it Thursday after work. The crew met at 5:30pm Thursday after work, there were a total of 7 of us(left to right),Brett, ME, wife julie, Jake Margret, Marcus, Eric(not pictured), (just a bunch of yahoo warriors really?).

We towed the boat with Bretts 08? Tahoe (which is fully loaded) and we packed all our gear into the cuddy in the boat. This worked out perfect; everyone had plenty of space for the ride. We brought a 2 ton jack, breaker bar, grease gun, tier pressure gauge, spare tire, and temperature gun, in order to ensure we would be able to fix a blow out if needed.

We tailored the boat from Grosse Ile, MI to St Joe?s, right down I-94, we used the trucks build in TV/DVD player and watched the movie ?she?s outta my league?- (just an awful movie). We got to St Joseph?s around 10 PM (it was rush hour and we took our time, stopping every 45 mins to check the hub temps (all were around 100 degrees). Below are photos from our stops:

On the road we had to check out the forum!!!!

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

We trailered the boat from Grosse Ile, MI to St Joe?s, right down I-94, we used the trucks build in TV/DVD player and watched the movie ?she?s outta my league?- (just an awful movie). We got to St Joseph?s around 10 PM (it was rush hour and we took our time, stopping every 45 mins to check the hub temps (all were around 100 degrees).

When we got to St Josephs we ate some dinner at Applebee?s and put 120 Gallons in the boat??ouchhhhhh.

Had to reset the pump!

It was about 12:00AM and everyone was dead tired considering we all worked that day, and had sat in a car for 3.5 hours hoping no one would fart?..We slept at the Red Roof Inn in Benton Harbor.
The next morning we got up at 6:30AM to trailer the boat down to the launch and hit the water around 7:00-7:30AM.

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

After getting her in the water we went over a ?safety plan? and discussed what each crew member would do incase of an emergency. THEN WE PUSHED AWAY FROM THE DOCK FOR OUR TRIP TO START!

We launched on ?Marina island? in St Joseph, so we had about a 15 min boat ride out to the lake, we passed through two bridges, and then we saw our challenge, LAKE MICHIGAN!

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

go figure, this Taiwan hunk ah junk was working that morning?!

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

We motored past the coast guard station, towards the St Joseph light, and wouldn?t you know it was pretty calm seas~!

We were in 2-2.5ft seas leaving St Joes, we did run into about 3-4 ft seas about 12 miles out, but that was only for about 20 mins, and then it cleared up. But let me back up and say something?..(J HOWARD) you posted a photo of your friend?s boat fishing sometime last week, well, I think we passed them as we were headed to Chicago Friday morning. We passed them around 730 8 AM Friday morning, check and see if they were out there fishing, I just saw the boat that looked identical to that rig and though? hmm J Howard knows this guy, small world?.
Anyway, we stayed at a steady 35 36mph the entire way! We just jumped over any waves she could throw at us! As some of you said, we lost sight of St Joe only 9 miles off the coast, (it was a hazy morning and the sun was directly behind us and made it impossible to see land).

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

About 38 miles off the coast of Michigan we ran into a freighter, nice seeing him as for he was the only thing we had seen after losing sight of St Joe?s only 9 miles out.

After passing the freighter and an hour and 10 mins into the trip we FINALLY saw the shadow of the buildings on the horizon.

We MADE IT! 1hr and 39 mins! Steady 36/35 MPH!! 8:45 AM Chicago Time

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

After taking group photos about 2 miles off shore we then proceeded to go around Navy Pier and then into the locks.

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Well, its 12 AM and i gotta work tomrrow, i'll continue the write up tomorrow.....

 

[marlboro180]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Glad you had a grand time. Your pics, however, are too grand. Re-size so we can see em in 1 screen.

Edit*** Nevermind, I just zoomed my browser out.

Good thing you beat the storm!

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!

Unfortunitly, my camera died when entering the locks, so i dont have photos of us going through the river as of right now, the people i was with have plenty of them. I will post them when they give them to me, but for now i just wanted to get this post up.

We then we cleared to go through the locks! We traveled 2 miles down the Chicago ride, passing the water taxi and all the tourist boats. It was a perfect day. After going through the River we preceded back out of the locks and north 2.6 miles of the City to Belmont Harbor . Just a gorgeous yacht club, nice and quite, we have a dock right next to the club house on Lakeshore Drive. We then unloaded all of our gear out of the Cuddy and covered the boat up. ?Job well done Mission Impossible?, - after all it was only a box of parts a year and a half ago?

There she sits

So after leaving our baby, we enjoyed the rest of Chicago . After all, it was only 11:00AM on Friday?..let the party begin!
Friday night we went downtown and at a ?Dicks?- real a-holes here ;-) and they made some pretty funny hats for us?..Then we went and hit the bar scene for a while, all to end the night around 12AM?.talk about a longggggg day. ?.
(Keep in mind it was perfect weather alllll day Friday). Saturday morning at about 3AM we got hit with a hard storm, but by morning we were all dried up and ready to start the day

 

[jserb]

Re: Michigan to chicago trip help!