Pirates on Lake Michigan have attacked boats and towns during the 1800’s, wreaking havoc and mayhem in their search for booty in regions such as Beaver Island, the Manitous and Grand Haven.

WBBM Newsradio 780 reports:

CHICAGO (WBBM) – While the world watches the Somali pirate drama, there’s a story to be told of pirates right here on Lake Michigan.

Lake Michigan was home to a few pirates from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The headline: Wholesale robbery by pirates on Lake Michigan. The date: October 10, 1855, in the New York Times.

The Times reported on people in the area around Saugutuck, Michigan, “thrown into the most intense excitement by the operations of a gang of marauders, who are reported to be Mormons from Beaver Island.”

But it wasn’t other ships that were attacked, it was land-based stores.

Half a century later – and almost 101 years ago – “Roaring” Dan Seavey took control of a Great Lakes cargo ship and sailed it to Chicago.

He reportedly got control of the 40-foot schooner Nellie Johnson in Grand Haven, Michigan, by out-drinking its captain and crew – then stealing it.

The Sun-Times reports that Seavey “found no fortune in his pirating: He was unable to sell the load of cedar posts in Chicago and was captured back near his home in Frankfort, Michigan.”

LMSRF has put together a survey to learn what racing boat owners and
crews want in racing from organizing authorities, ideas on how we can
grow participation and how we are doing overall. >>>The most important
message we wish to send is to forward this link to all of your crew
members, your fleets, and get input from as far and wide across Lake
Michigan as possible. We can’t emphasize this enough.<<< Results will
be tabulated and shared on the LMSRF website for all of us to learn
from (G-rated responses only!). We expect to incorporate your
thoughts in the 2009 season plans.

Thank you, now here's the link and please respond fully.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=oVlcxmEdZjcg16hfO70Kzg_3d_3d

Sincerely,
Donald Thinschmidt
LMSRF Commodore

 
Now you can show your friends what it looks like when you encounter a dark weather front out on the lake…

This picture captures the ghostly tendrils descending from the gray skies where a gap in the cloud cover is indicated by sunlight highlighting the phenomenon.

The distinctly gothic elements of the cloudy overcast, dark water, and architecture of the distant Chicago skyline on the horizon on a cold and gloomy November afternoon contrasted sharply with Roy Disney’s “Morning Light” sailing documentary playing in local theaters at the time.

Photograph shot on Saturday, November 15, 2008.

another great day

long courses well-chosen to provide more racing, amidst rapidly changing conditions

spectacular views, interesting weather challenges

more later

ZION, Ill. — A body that washed onto Illinois Beach State Park near Zion on Wednesday is that of a missing north suburban kayaker. The body has been confirmed to be that of Walter Doroba, 44, of 4461 Country Trail in Gurnee, according to Lake County Coroner Dr. Richard Keller.
The body was found washed ashore at Illinois Beach State Park just south of the Zion Nuclear Plant just after 3 p.m. Wednesday by a park employee, according to a Lake County sheriff’s police release.
An autopsy conducted Thursday on the well-preserved body determined the cause of death to be drowning, Keller said. Cold weather and chilly waters may have contributed to the preservation, he said.
Doroba was pronounced dead at 4 p.m. Wednesday at Illinois Beach State Park.
Doroba was last seen on Lake Michigan about a mile from the Waukegan Harbor shore about 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 28, according to Lake County sheriff’s police.
Shortly after he disappeared in late October, Doroba’s kayak, life vest and paddle were found by searchers, Lake County sheriff’s police Sgt. Chris Thompson said. Search and recovery efforts were terminated Nov. 1.
Doroba was a novice to kayaking. He had recently purchased the kayak, and Oct. 28 was his first trip on Lake Michigan, Thompson said.
The criminal investigation division of the sheriff’s police is investigating, Keller said.

Source: http://www.nbc5.com/news/14730199/detail.html

In the grim aftermath of Walter Doroba’s death, the Chicago Area Sea Kayakers Association (CASKA) has published kayaking safey information here: http://www.caska.org/safety.htm

Photo by Scott Berry, as seen on WGN Weather Center Blog

This disastrous incident reaches all of us in the Chicago area sailing community, and hits close to home for many of us.

I knew John Finn, and sailed the 1998 Chicago-Mackinac with him, before he owned J/35 Jason. I also sailed one beercan race on Jason, and enjoyed one of John’s rooftop parties which he very graciously hosted.

I did not know the other crewmembers of the ill-fated delivery, and regret that I will never have the opportunity. I am both deeply saddened, and, quite honestly, somewhat outraged, that three lives are now no longer with us.

Amidst the sadness and grief, there are questions surrounding this ill-fated delivery voyage. By all accounts, there were a number of opportunities where better decision-making would have resulted in a safer journey.

Death is too high a price to pay for an activity we engage in only for pleasure. Unfortunately, the hazards of nature and elements beyond one’s own control sometime make that an unforgiving reality of the risks we take.

However, we should not discount the importance of all efforts necessary to prevent danger.

I cannot help but imagine the horror each of the four Jason crewmembers and the Coast Guard rescue team experienced on that night, beginning with the first awareness of the actual dangers involved in the voyage, to the loss of a crewmember overboard, the loss of the boat underneath your feet, and the individual fight for survival in the darkness against water, cold, and the unyielding breakwall.

We can all be thankful for the call to the Coast Guard, and the Coast Guard’s prompt rescue response. Without the wherewithal to make those efforts, the entire crew would have been lost.

My heart goes out to all who are affected by these events.

Erosion caused by dredging and other human activities on the St. Clair River is causing Lakes Huron and Michigan to lose 2.5 billion gallons of water daily, according to a private Canadian study.

Like a bathtub drain, the artificially deepened river is funneling vast amounts of water into Lake Erie, where it flows east to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River before eventually being lost to the Atlantic Ocean, says the study released Tuesday.

Article:

Study: Erosion Causing Lakes’ Water Loss

Aug 15, 4:10 PM (ET)

By JOHN FLESHER

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) – Erosion caused by dredging and other human activities on the St. Clair River is causing Lakes Huron and Michigan to lose 2.5 billion gallons of water daily, according to a private Canadian study.
Like a bathtub drain, the artificially deepened river is funneling vast amounts of water into Lake Erie, where it flows east to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River before eventually being lost to the Atlantic Ocean, says the study released Tuesday.
Sponsored by the Georgian Bay Association, the report acknowledges that drought, evaporation and other factors have contributed to a steep dropoff in water levels on the three upper Great Lakes – Huron, Michigan and Superior – since the late 1990s. Huron and Michigan, considered hydrologically the same lake, are 21 inches below normal and Superior could hit a record low this fall.
“But the erosion in the St. Clair River stands out among these problems as a man-made issue that can be corrected fairly easily and within a relatively short timetable,” the report says.
It suggests covering the eroding areas with rock and installing gates to regulate water flow southward from Lake Huron.
U.S. officials said they were conducting a five-year study that would recommend what to do. The Canadian group and environmentalists in both nations said waiting that long would severely damage wetlands, fish habitat, water quality and Great Lakes cargo shipping.
The Georgian Bay Association, which represents about 17,000 people living on the Lake Huron bay, commissioned a 2005 report on the St. Clair erosion by W.F. Baird & Associates, a coastal engineering firm.
It said dredging, mostly during the 1960s, and other commercial projects on the river’s northern end had caused an 845-million-gallon outflow daily from Lake Huron.
But findings since then show the volume being lost is three times as much – even topping the 2.1 billion gallons pulled from Lake Michigan each day to supply Chicago’s municipal system, said Bill Bialkowski, an engineer who conducted the research.
“We’re seeing drastic, sustained decline in the Michigan-Huron system at the same time that Lake Erie is rising,” Bialkowski said.
The International Joint Commission, a U.S.-Canadian panel that advises both nations on Great Lakes policy, in February began a five-year study of water levels in the upper lakes. The effects of dredging, gravel mining, shoreline alteration and other activities in the St. Clair River will be among the matters examined, spokesman Frank Bevacqua said.
The commission has long known that dredging in the St. Clair – and in the Detroit River farther downstream – was affecting water levels in Huron-Michigan, Bevacqua said. But it’s unclear how big a difference they have made, he said.
“It can’t be all pinned on dredging at this point,” said Scott Thieme, Great Lakes hydrology chief with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office in Detroit. “There hasn’t been enough detailed study to say.”
Great Lakes levels have fluctuated on roughly 30-year cycles at least since the mid-1800s. Thieme said another possible influence is “glacial rebound,” a gradual rise of land masses depressed by glaciers during the Ice Age.
Bialkowski, however, said massive water losses he had documented were “indicative of water loss independent of naturally occurring fluctuations or those due to global warming. Research is showing us that this is a persistent, unpredecented water loss.”
The Lake Huron-Michigan water level plummeted 3 feet between 1999 and 2001. Hot, dry weather – which reduced winter ice cover and boosted evaporation – and erosion on the St. Clair River are probably both to blame, said Roger Gauthier, a hydrologist with the Great Lakes Commission.
“You’ve had climate change plus a change in the outlet, a double whammy,” he said.
—
On the Net:
Georgian Bay Association: http://www.georgianbay.ca/index.html
International Joint Commission: http://www.ijc.org/

Source: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070815/D8R1LSD81.html