Sailing on “Dawn Treader” from Detroit MI to Milwaukee WI
We are 4 guys who love sailing. We started this blog to document our preparations and experiences from the sailing trip we undertook in 2006.

Our main purpose was to share with our families and friends about the trip and to provide a single access point to resources like marine weather tracking along the way of our trip.

Along the way we were posting directly from the boat using a cell phone. Also we had a team of people who helped us from ashore.

We are already home in Milwaukee since May 5th, 2006.

You can use this map to see where we were. Click on this image below to go to the map page (it will open up in a new window). There you can use all the interactive Google Maps features, including zoom, pan, street map, satellite image, etc. You can zoom in really close for example to see the Mackinac Bridge.

Click on the map image to go to the interactive map page.

 

As of May 5th 2006, Dawn Treader is back home in Milwaukee, WI. You can read about our arrival on this post. Soon, we will be posting more information about the trip with pictures.

Here is the original trip description from the planning phase:
Dawn Treader was located on the hard near Harrison, MI. We plan to splash and provision on the 28th of April, and depart on the 29th. Our first day of sailing will be navigating through the shallows of Lake St Clair, into the North Channel and up the St Clair River to Lake Huron.

Our first planned stop will probably be Port Huron or Port Sanilac. Over the next few days, we plan to make our way up the western side of Lake Huron to the Straits of Mackinac. After we cross the top of Michigan, the plan is to come down the western Michigan shoreline to somewhere around Ludington or Muskegon, then cross to the Wisconsin side between Sheboygan and Milwaukee. Our destination is McKinley Marina in Milwaukee.

The trip is around 600 miles, and we plan to use whatever combination of sail and motor we need to keep moving 24 hours a day, with two or three overnight stops along the way. If conditions are ideal, the trip will take around 6 days, but asking for 6 days of ideal weather on the Great Lakes is like asking for 6 days with no hike in the price of gas - probably not going to happen.

We have several contingency days on the back end in case of weather or mechanical delays, and if we would get a long bout of unfavorable weather, we will put the boat in a slip somewhere and continue on at a later time rather than compromise safety. As luck (or bad planning) would have it - we will have little or no moon for our journey, which will make the night sailing a little more interesting.

With 18 days to go, I am busy calling marinas to see which ones will be open for fuel, and plotting our course so that I can get waypoints entered into the GPS. The GPS will serve as our primary navigation aid, and the boat is also equipped with Loran, which will back up the GPS. We will have a pre-plotted course that we plan to sail, and we will take a dead reckoned fix of our position every hour on paper charts as a backup in case of a failure of our electrical systems.

Preparations
Every preparation we have made both to the boat, our gear, and our route is based on a cautious and respectful view of the lakes. Life jackets, food and water are givens - anyone with a boat has those things - our preparation goes well beyond that.

Two gps receivers with all the course waypoints stored, as well as every harbor along our route.

I have contacted every harbor along our entire course to determine which ones are open should we need fuel or a place to hole up if the weather deteriorates.

We have a Loran receiver as a backup in case of gps failure. I have purchased paper charts and chartboooks on which I have plotted our course, and on which we will plot hourly position fixes for the entire trip as an additional backup.

We have foul weather gear for extreme conditions. We have jacklines secured from the front of the boat to the rear, so that during the night and any time during the day when conditions are not favorable - in addition to our pfds - we will be attached via harness and tether to minimize the risk of an overboard situation.

We will each wear a waterproof strobe or led light, whistle and a knife at all times on deck to be prepared if the unthinkable should happen.

I have prepared, not just for this trip but in general by reading extensively, taking classes on heavy weather sailing, coastal navigation, sail management, boating safety and others.

I have spent hours going over the boat - replacing hoses, filters, wiring, vhf radio - anything I thought may might be a possible trouble spot.

All this has been a substantial investment of time and money - enough that spending a couple thousand dollars to truck the boat back would have been the prudent route from an economic standpoint - but it’s a sailboat - and I’d like to sail it!

Clearly our destiny is in God’s hands, but we will complete this journey because we prepared for it - because we gave the Lakes the respect they deserve - not because we hoped for the best and got lucky. While it may not be a pleasure cruise - we do intend to enjoy it!

- Scott