Winter Waves on Lake Erie both awesomely beautiful and terrifying

These photos have to be seen to be believed. It shows why 1800 to 8000 ships have disappeared on this lake since the 17th century, most of which were never found.Gerald Sobel, Shpritz, Cal 24-1, Marina del Rey http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/earth/12105981/Lake-Eries-wild-waves-caught-on-camera-by-Dave-Sandford.html

Gerry,The Great Lakes are dangerous places to be in winter, even late fall. Some years ago we had a boat on it's way to winter storage that ended up on the Calumet Harbor breakwall. A J30. 2or 3 were killed, I don't remember exactly, but because I respect the lake, I take my boat to storage before November. I am retired, my crew is also, so we are flexible. I pick a day with winds from the west. That gives me no waves. If it's sunny that's a plus, but it's a trip on a working river. Barges, tugs, you have to be aware at all times. Oh, then there's the O'Brien Lock. Gotta transit the lock to get downstream. On weekdays usually not a prob, unless some barges are close. Then you wait, commercial traffic goes before recreational. The lock is 1000 feet, so it takes some big barges. David Dobbs Cal29 411 On Tuesday, January 19, 2016 4:16 AM, "Gerald Sobel so… [at] yahoo.com [Cal_Boats]" <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> wrote: These photos have to be seen to be believed. It shows why 1800 to 8000 ships have disappeared on this lake since the 17th century, most of which were never found.Gerald Sobel, Shpritz, Cal 24-1, Marina del Rey http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/earth/12105981/Lake-Eries-wild-waves-caught-on-camera-by-Dave-Sandford.html

On 1/19/2016 5:50 PM, david dobbs tm… [at] yahoo.com [Cal_Boats] wrote: > > > Gerry, > The Great Lakes are dangerous places to be in winter, even late fall. It's worth remembering that the most famous shipwreck song of all is Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The Fitzgerald went down in 1975 after breaking up in a November storm on Lake Superior. The boat was 729 feet long. I've been around Great Lakes freighters all my life. They're big boats, big tough steel boats. When I see one in the river channel it's hard to imagine any waves making trouble for such a huge device. Then I've seen photographs of waves breaking over the vessels, green water over the decks, and it's humbling. Another one I remember was the Daniel J. Morrell, another "gales of November" victim, in 1966. This boat was smaller (586 feet) but that's still pretty big when you're looking up from your little sailboat. The Morrell was on her last voyage of the year, and broke in half in a big Lake Huron storm. The stern section kept going a while and the pieces are 7 miles apart on the lakebed. One crew member survived in a liferaft (uncovered) wearing boxer shorts, a pea coat, and a PFD. Dennis Hale, the survivor, began talking publicly about the ordeal late in his life. I heard one of his first presentations and he still couldn't get through it without big pauses to compose himself. There's a video interview here: > https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=Daniel+J.+Morrell&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003 I remember waking up as a grade school kid one November morning in 1958 to news that the Carl D. Bradley had gone down. 33 of 35 crew members were lost. 23 were from the same town in Michigan about 170 miles north of where my family lived. This was a 639 foot boat. Chris Campbell

Chris, I grew up on Grosse Ile, at the bottom of the Detroit River. Those big lake freighters paraded by our front windows daily. When going up or down the Livingston Channel they would pull several feet of water from the channel and put it back as their wakes followed them. Great fun for a kid with an outboard and too much power. I could launch my Aluma-Craft 30+ feet off the waves. Fred Haas 3-30 Nemesis Tacoma “still crazy after all these years." On Jan 20, 2016, at 8:09 AM, ccampbell cc… [at] lsnm.org [Cal_Boats] <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> wrote:

On Jan 20, 2016, at 8:59 AM, Fred Haas <ca… [at] gmail.com> wrote: > Chris, > I grew up on Grosse Ile, at the bottom of the Detroit River. Those big lake freighters paraded by our front windows daily. When going up or down the Livingston Channel they would pull several feet of water from the channel and put it back as their wakes followed them. Great fun for a kid with an outboard and too much power. I could launch my Aluma-Craft 30+ feet off the waves. > > Fred Haas > 3-30 Nemesis > Tacoma > > “still crazy after all these years." > On Jan 20, 2016, at 8:09 AM, ccampbell cc… [at] lsnm.org [Cal_Boats] <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> wrote: > >