Michigan: a great place to sail

one awesome feature of the state of Michigan (distances according to Wikipedia) is that:

no point in Michigan is more than six miles (10 km) from an inland lake or more than 85 miles (137 km) from one of the Great Lakes.

with all that water around, there are plenty of opportunities to sail: there are yacht clubs galore established on many of the inland lakes, or spread out along the Great Lakes coastlines, as well as sailing clubs and teams at area high schools and colleges, and there is also the occasional sailing school where you could take sailing lessons if you choose.

several of Michigan’s colleges and universities have collegiate sailing teams that sail as members of the Midwest Collegiate Sailing Association, or the college might have just a sailing club, that often uses the facilities of a local yacht club nearby (Sail Michigan has a good list of both).  in the lower part of Michigan, there is both Michigan State University in East Lansing (collegiate team and sailing club) and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (collegiate team and sailing club), as well as several other smaller colleges with teams and/or clubs.  a few of Michigan’s high schools offer sailing as well, but it is not a huge list (again, Sail Michigan has a good list on their website).

most of the sailing schools in Michigan are situated near one of the Great Lakes, but in the Metro Detroit area, you can find the American Sailing Institute, which sails on Kent Lake in Kensington Metropark, as well as Stoney Creek Metropark and Lake St Clair.

you can also find community sailing in Michigan, as the Traverse Area Community Sailing has been operating up in the northwest corner of Michigan’s lower peninsula for almost 20 years now.  I had a chance to visit their facility about a year and a half ago, and was really impressed!  I really wish that the Metro Detroit area had a similar community sailing system set up, as I think it’d be a great way to introduce more people to sailing.

Traverse City isn’t exactly in my neighborhood, though, and I’ve never taken any classes at the sailing schools or clubs around, so I have taught myself to sail by reading some books, and learning by trial and error out on the water.

so over the past few years, I have tried to take advantage of Michigan’s plethora of water, and sail on a variety of the nearby inland lakes (if I can find a public access point), as well as sailing on the Great Lakes when I get a chance.

I’ve sailed several times on Lake Michigan.  two summers ago, I added Lake Huron on a trip up to Tawas Bay – the “Cape Cod of the Midwest”.  and this last summer, I added another one of the Great Lakes to my list, as I sailed a couple times on Lake Erie.

this leaves me with only Lake Superior and Lake Ontario to round out all 5 Great Lakes, although the last 2 will probably be the hardest to cross of my list, as both will entail serious drive times just to get there.

not every sailing trip has been great though – I got stuck in weeds and then had to sail with dead carp floating around me at Kent Lake – with video evidence!

but the nice thing is that there will always be another lake not too far away that I can try the next time if I get too frustrated with the sailing on that lake.

probably one of my best sailing memories is spending a few days sailing on a couple lakes in Michigan’s northwest lower peninsula with my wife.  we sailed twice on the East Bay near Traverse City, and then had an awesome sailing day on Crystal Lake – an absolutely amazing lake to sail on (and perhaps my favorite thus far of any lake I’ve sailed in Michigan).

but, I think a big key to some of my fondest sailing memories is sharing the trip with someone – often times one (or more) of my 3 young boys, or the 3-day trip with my wife (that’s about the only time I’ve been able to get her to sail with me on the Sunfish!), a friend from college, my siblings, even my father one time on Lake Michigan!  here’s a video from a great day of sailing on Lake Michigan – it was a fairly calm day with light winds, and I was able to slowly sail back and forth along the coastline of Lake Michigan, giving short rides on the Sunfish to my kids, a few of their cousins, and even a few adults who wanted to give it a try!

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so does Michigan offer this more specifically than any other state or exotic sailing island in a much more tropical climate? no, not really.  but, for me, the best sailing place is one that I can get to easily, and enjoy the time out in the wind, on the water, and hopefully sharing that memory with someone as well.  and Michigan has a lot of options for getting out on the water – sailing, swimming, kayaking or whatever water sport you choose, no matter where you are living right now.

so even though my boat of choice the Sunfish can get a little cramped with me and 2 kids riding along, or maybe ride a bit low in the water if I’m sailing with another adult, the fellowship of sailing with a friend, or the sheer joy I see on my kid’s face (or that of any other child I’ve had a chance to give a ride on the Sunfish) has been amazing.  my 3 1/2 year old son has already asked me a few times this spring to take him sailing again.  maybe this year or in the near future, I’ll work in racing other Sunfish – the Greater Detroit Sunfish Club is a local club option that seems like a great place to start.

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this post is for the sailing blogfather Tillerman (at his blog Proper Course) who had requested that fellow bloggers write about the “Top Sailing Destination on the Planet.”  as much as I would like to, I just don’t sail nearly as much some of the other bloggers, and not nearly as much or in as varied exotic places as Tillerman has been lucky to sail.  that being said, the post above is my case: Michigan is a great place to sail.

Norwegian geese

this is for the sailing blogmaster tillerman – I need to boost my Norwegian goose hits on The Google (just one post and you’ve stolen my niche market).  but I should clarify that my goose (may she rest in peace) was not Norwegian, but quite likely an Embden goose.  she could at times be a vicious old goose, but she and I both share a fondness for my old Sunfish.

now on the other hand, a more Norwegian goose would probably be the Scania goose (or South Sweden goose).  I’m not sure – maybe they have fondness for Lasers.  or Kirbys.  or whatever that sailboat is called these days.

 

festivus poles & Sunfish masts

so this Friday (12/23) is Festivus, a holiday tradition started on Seinfeld.

for the last several years, I’ve taken a Festivus pole in to work, complete with a home-made stand I made for it to keep it upright.  the Festivus pole is made from aluminum (favored for it’s strength-to-weight ratio), and it usually not decorated.  I had never really made a connection with the Festivus pole and sailing before, but I think that Mr Tillerman was hinting on The Twitter that there is something familiar about the Festivus pole.

I think he was hinting that it bares a striking resemblance to a Sunfish mast.  my particular Festivus pole came from another source (my father-in-law works at a shop that uses a lot of aluminum tubing to fabricate equipment), it is quite a bit shorter, and has a MUCH thicker wall thickness than the typical Sunfish mast.  I left it at work, but I would guess the diameters are fairly close.

I’ve heard stories of Sunfish sailors going sailing in conditions with extremely powerful winds and bending the mast on the Sunfish – maybe this thicker-walled Festivus pole would have made a good substitute.  well, more than likely, it’d probably just force the problem from the mast to the fiberglass and destroy the fiberglass mast step… so maybe the thin-walled Sunfish mast was thin by design, to make it the weakest link and avoid damaging the fiberglass.  then again, I’m probably putting too much thought into this.

anyway, enjoy the holiday of Festivus tomorrow, and the holiday season in general.  here’s a video montage from the Festivus episode if you haven’t already seen it, or just want to relive the fun.

kirby is the prophet?

Tillerman from Proper Course made this comment on my last post about the Super Sunfish:

There is only one Laser, and Kirby is his prophet.

this is what I see when I consult The Google for “Kirby”…. am I missing something?

here comes the sun[fish]

it appears that Sir Paul McCartney enjoys sailing, and recently spent that time on a Sunfish!  he’s down in Rio for some concerts, and took a break to go and sail on the Bay Guanabara, near the beach in Urca.

here comes the sun[fish] and I say it’s alright
little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here

I first saw the article over at the Sunfish Forum, that linked to this article (English translation).  both photos are from that article.

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this post is for tillerman‘s writing project of the month – please please me, with direction to blog about something with a post title using the name of a song by the Beatles, and have it be more or less related to your blog.  after seeing photos of one of the Beatles sailing in a Sunfish, how could I not enter this as my submission?  stop by tillerman‘s blog – Proper Course – for frequent updates from other bloggers who post something about the Beatles.

navigating past the goose, part 2

I have to admit, I shouldn’t have left out such an important detail from our Easter weekend.  no visit to Opa & Oma’s house goes by without a little friendly face time with Mr Goose.  he promptly lets all visitors know their place, and will offer his kind services showing us the way to drive down the driveway as he runs along side (if you didn’t watch the video before, check it out – this goose is crazy!).  and sure enough, he escorted us per usual as we left for church on Good Friday.

I’ve always know that the Goose had a fondness for water, as most geese do.  here he is swimming in the big pond:

but I didn’t realize that the goose has a certain interest in Sunfish sailing as well!

so tillerman… instead of navigating past the goose, I might just need to learn to navigate WITH the goose.

navigating past the goose

ok, this is probably quite a weak submission for the February writing contest about “Navigation” from Tillerman at Proper Course, but after Carol Anne posted about begonias and a rooster, and bonnie at Frogma added that sausage and batturay is a crime, I figured this oddity wasn’t too far off.

last Sunday, I dropped my 2 older boys at my parents house to spend a few days with Opa & Oma (for us, Opa = grandfather, not “oops”, Joe) during their mid-winter school break.  we socialized for a short time, but another February snowstorm was fast approaching, so we wanted to get on the road back home to avoid the heavy snowfall and forecast of a 1/2″ of ice.  the drive home was pretty slow in the sloppy snow, and took twice as long as usual.

but, probably the most difficult part of the drive home was navigating our SUV down my parent’s driveway and avoid running over my sister’s crazy goose.

the goose is allowed to wander freely around my parents yard, and can be a little protective, but is usually willing to let you walk up and pet her.  now that she doesn’t chase the younger kids around the yard, she’s not too bad.  here she is being fed dandelion leaves by my youngest son a summer or two back:

but on Sunday, for some reason, the silly goose walked, and walked quickly, right along side the driver’s side door as I tried to back down the long driveway.

I stopped, she stopped.

I started backing up again, she kept walking along right beside me.

I was afraid she would get caught under the wheel, but she somehow managed to stay close enough to freak me out, but not close enough to get hurt.

I opened the door and hollered at her.  she just honked back at me.

I finally was able to build up enough speed to back into the turn-around at the barn, and was able to drive forward faster down the rest of the driveway, and begin the slow trek home through the snowstorm, sans goose.

then, strangely enough, I got an email with a video from my brother-in-law this morning.  apparently, I am not the only one having difficulty navigating past the goose.

[note: the goose was not run over, and was not harmed in the making of this video.]

sailboat ballet [video]

this is a pretty sweet video of a high school regatta at Community Boating in Boston.

A single photograph was captured every three seconds during the regatta. In the video the frames are played back at a rate of 24 per second. The result is that two hours of sailing can be seen just over a minute and half, which means that time seemingly has been sped up by a factor of 72.

I visited a community sailing center in Traverse City this summer (TACS) and was very impressed with the facility and organization.  community sailing seems like such a win-win system for a community on/near the water, especially with all of the free or low-cost programs that they offer to teach younger children to learn to sail.

HT: tillerman over at Proper Course

how to rig a Laser in under 7 minutes

this video is for Tillerman – I hope I didn’t bother you with my last video post promoting the Finn sailboat. in the interest of equal treatment to the 2 men’s single-handed Olympic dinghy classes, here is a video about Laser sailboats.  Paul Goodison, a British Olympic sailor, shows how to set up and rig your Laser in under 7 minutes:

HT: Montreal Sailing

sunfish sailing: 2025 and beyond

tillerman‘s writing topic of the month is Sailing in the Second Space Age.  my submission (and pathetic attempt at some lame humor) is as follows:

it’s the year 2025, and with the uptick in global schwarming over the last decade or so, the polar caps have melted significantly, causing the level of the oceans to dramatically rise, sadly wiping out much of the coastline cities in the world (the entire state of Rhode Island was among the first to go).

due to the large loss of land area across the globe, and corresponding increase in water surface area, piracy on the waters has increased exponentially.  as a result, maritime defense spending by the government has followed the general government trend and skyrocketed.  dinghy sailing is all but extinct along the coast of the oceans, largely due to the Defense department piracy prevention plan (PPP) outfitting sharks with some frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads…

the lack of safe dinghy sailing along the ocean coastline, combined with a gigantic increase in the price of oil, has led to a major increase in inland lakes sailing.  the popularity of Sunfish and Lasers has been a blessing for the relative ease of finding a nearby yacht club, as they are popping up everywhere, and you don’t have to go far to find a regatta to participate in every weekend throughout the spring, summer and fall.  sadly, the insane practice of frostbiting has all but been lost (global schwarming, remember?).  unfortunately, the huge uptick in interest in Sunfish and Laser sailboat’s has cleaned out all the parts suppliers… but is that really that surprising?!

the Great Lakes has become the new Cape Cod, as vacationers flock from all across the US to the largest bodies of water NOT protected by the PPP (ie, sharks with lasers).  the Great Lakes are not without their flaws, though, as the dreaded Asian carp have infested these freshwater inland lakes.  thankfully, they are not nearly as dangerous as the laser-wielding sharks, and lucky for us – the government has implemented another fantastic new program (the ACCP) for controlling the Asian carp population….

Asian Carp Control Program (ACCP)

the Sunfish sailboat, thankfully, has maintained its simplicity over the years with only the usual and random minor changes.  thankfully, the class voted against the implementation of a wing sail, as the current insanity with multiple sail options: class-legal racing sails, class-legal recreational sails, practice racing sails (not class legal), and the non-class-legal recreational sails is more than enough frustration for now… adding a wing sail was just going to put it over the top.

the Sunfish sailboat, now almost 75 years old, continues to have a strong sailing class, and the total number of Sunfish built approaches 1 million.  strangely, though, I haven’t updated to a new fancy shiny version — I’m still using my grossly overweight Sunfish from the 1960′s – she’s hanging on strong, although I’ve yet to finish a regatta on time. with now 15+ years of sailing experience, I can legitimately blame it on the boat, right?  right?  maybe it’s just my daggerboard banging into those dang Asian carp.

until my next update… help out if you can, and carpe carp.