“You’d think you had seen it in a movie...” 2200 - Muskegon, Michigan. By Matthew Maples

I was surprised to see her, seeing as I came on deck, morning tea in hand without any expectations of anything unexpected. My hopes for a relaxing wake-up lasted for about a moment after I sat down – for I then stood in surprise! I had to squint to make out her form in the dawn; her expansive, un-split sails were silhouetted black against the morning sun - a form unmistakable to me; that of my old ship, the Brig Niagara.

But her, here and now? We thought she was miles away, having pulled away from us early in the race. Well, whatever we thought, it was clearly wrong, for here she was, a mile away on our port and closing - coming straight for us! With all the bravado of a privateer of elder days she traversed the sun before crossing our stern. Mere minutes later, she tacked, bringing herself on a course parallel to our own off our starboard quarter. This may have been a race, but there was little we could do but helplessly watch the nimble Niagara close the distance. 

“Now you’ve done it” I said to Daryl Sherman, who was pre-occupied with the shutter of his camera, whirring away photographic salvos with abandon. “We now have a navy warship after us! You must have annoyed them by shooting at them with your huge camera!”

Indeed, the Niagara ran us down, eventually brining herself up alongside us, no more than three ship-lengths away. It felt like we were playing out a scene from a Patrick O’ Brian novel as we watched this re-created War of 1812 brig chase us on open waters. Finally alongside us, the Niagara made her own finale by firing one of her starboard 32-pounder carronade guns: “Thud!” – The gun was loud enough that one could be excused for believing that they had fired a real shot! It was even loud enough that our mate, Harko, vaguely remembers a boom of a noise in a dream he had. The Niagara then tacked again, putting her on a course to finish the race.

Our time to finish the race would not be so forgiving. This short contest, about 120 miles in totality, ran parallel to the western end of Lake Michigan. An early westerly wind blew us and most of the other ships too far to the east of finish line (which was only a handful of miles wide). Unable to simply sail through the line from north to south, we had to tack our way across it. Unfortunately, our plans were fouled by a wind shift after our tack, causing us to miss the finish by line by less than a mile – agonizingly close! We then had to circle around the finish line almost completely before a favourable wind allowed us to cross it – a delay that cost too much of the day.

Regardless of the troublesome finish, this fourth and final race of the ASTA 2010 Tall Ships Challenge series was memorable, in particular for its beginning. For ourselves, we sailed off our anchor in Sturgeon Bay and then busied ourselves with hoisting our canvas aloft. Sail after sail was set as we manoeuvred to the start. As the race began, we were so busy trimming our canvas that I had no opportunity to look beyond our ship…but when I did it was a sight to remember! Right off our port, in close proximity was the Roald Amundsen, the Niagara, the Pride of Baltimore II and Denis Sullivan!  I have been in many tall ship races, but never before did I see a beginning in which the whole fleet was neck and neck, stacked together closely, all pushing their ships and crews for performance to pull ahead. It was that sort of “epic” start you want to see in a tall ship race, but nearly never do!

We have a lot to be proud about from this last voyage; we travelled from Green Bay, down the coast of west Lake Michigan, then up again to Muskegon strictly under sail. From the sail off our anchor, to the race, and entering Muskegon Lake we tacked, manoeuvred, and made our way with nought but wind and muscle! We only resorted to our “Iron Sail” (engines) to dock our ship on our final approach in Muskegon harbor.

Now if we can just keep that luck for our short trip to Chicago – our grand finale to the tall ship festivals this summer on the Great Lakes. We will be accompanied by WGN’s Jamie Bange and her crew to put us on TV – so stay tuned for our smiling faces!