I have just recently returned from something of a self-broadening event: roughly 800 nautical miles of traversing Lake Superior, first one way, then another, then yet one more.  It sounds lovely, sailing for two weeks with friends, but ‘lovely’ is not a word that I can honestly apply to this series of trips, of experiences.  No, but it was enjoyable in a more substantial way, in a way that has – I think – matured me and improved me.  What’s more, I’ve done this trip – this very same track – many times before, but this year was very different.

The first stretch was a race called the International, a 98-mile sprint from Thunder Bay, north of Isle Royale, to Houghton, Michigan.  It was the fastest race on record, with the winning boat crossing the line in a mere 11 hours.  Our boat, Straight Jacket, crossed in 14.  That ‘good’ came with some equally impressive ‘bad’: gale force winds for the duration of the race (some participants recorded higher speeds, in excess of 40 knots), and the 60-mile stretch from Isle Royale to Houghton was a beat upwind in 15-20 foot waves, some of them stacked on each-other.   Having been confined in my sailing to the Great Lakes, I personally have never sailed up waves before.  Straight Jacket took on some 1.5 feet of water, and the sheer force of water crashing over the boat was enough to lift and move 250lb men with ease – and even knocked our skipper off the helm twice.  We broke our vang car, and sheer luck held the boom in place.  Three of our six-man crew became sea-sick early on (two violently so), and so the bulk of the race was done by the remaining three, with the skipper and myself trading shifts at the helm.  We didn’t eat, drink, or sleep.  The main leech developed a hole and the #3 job broke two battens from the incessant flogging.  I’ve never seen or felt anything like it – I’ve seen those winds and those waves on Lake Superior a dozen times before, but not so relentlessly and so unfavorable to our course.  Some veterans of the lake rank those conditions among the worst they’ve experienced anywhere – lake or ocean – in over 30 years.

Solid Ground.

What is usually a day of raucous celebration partly fueled by free beer from the local brewery, was a day of quiet recovery, of drying out and licking wounds.  Nobody said much.  Nobody drank much.  There was a lot of sleeping and sorting.  Straight Jacket – like most of the boats – was drenched.  We spent most of our time bailing and mopping, laying our belongings out in the sun to dry (thank God for that), and thinking about the next stage of the trip – a 260-mile delivery to Sault Ste Marie.

Putting the pieces back together.

The race has left its mark on the fleet, on the boat, and on me – but not in a bad way.  I was describing the race to some friends later on, and said, “I’ve done nothing but trash the race and it all sounds so horrible, but it’s actually a wonderful thing; this is the kind of experience that binds people together, creates stories, and we can all look at each-other with the knowledge that we pushed through and made it.”  What it affirmed for me personally is my comfort on boats, my ability to simply ‘roll with it’ – the worst it got for me were some cold wet feet, due to not having any rubber boots with me.  I felt confident, and I would do it again.