Delivering a 58' Sea Ray from Lake St. Clair to Holland, Michigan

The Run

Gratitude is a 58’ Sea Ray Sedan Bridge that needed to move from Colony Marine on Lake St. Clair around the top of Michigan to ME Yacht Restoration in Holland. That is a real delivery: up Lake Huron, through the Straits of Mackinac, and down the length of Lake Michigan to Holland, roughly 495 nautical miles broken into three running days. A trip like this puts you on big, open water far from help for hours at a stretch, and the weather across the top of the state in summer does not hold still. This is the kind of run an owner is smart to hand to someone who has done it, rather than learn the hard way what the Straits feel like in heavy fog.

On the Water

Day one was Colony Marine to Rogers City, the long leg at 215 nautical miles. Before departure the engine room got a full check, all fluid levels good, and we topped off fuel and logged engine hours so we had a clean baseline. We pulled out at 0845 and settled into a cruise around 2000 rpm. The boat ran exceptionally well all day, and the radar and chartplotter earned their keep, because Lake Huron socked in with dense fog that did not lift from early afternoon straight through to arrival. Hour after hour of running on instruments. There were very few other boats showing on radar once we were out on the lake, which is its own kind of quiet. I logged a couple of things to keep an eye on: a little water accumulating in the bilge that traced back to condensation and the A/C drain, and some minor play at the port shaft dripless seal at cruise rpm, worth tuning the props and checking shaft straightness in the offseason. We made the fuel dock at Rogers City at 1840 in a steady rain, a solid ten-hour day with the boat averaging about 27 gallons per hour. Marcelo ran the helm well and put her on the dock cleanly in conditions that did not make it easy.

Day two, Rogers City to Frankfort, 155 nautical miles, and we departed at 0945 right back into dense fog. The morning engine room inspection turned up the kind of small stuff you document and watch rather than panic over: a bit of oil spatter at the rear of the port motor that cleaned up and never returned, minor transmission weepage, some fresh belt dust at both motors with belts still at proper tension and no defects. None of it changed the plan, all of it went in the log. The notable stretch was passing under the Mackinac Bridge in heavy fog around midday. With several other vessels showing close by, we stayed just south of the recommended commercial route line and sounded fog signals every two minutes the whole way through. That is not a place to improvise. The bigger call came later. A storm was building to our west, and the whole afternoon was about keeping a close eye on it and making sure we reached Frankfort ahead of it. We made the fuel dock at 1715, one hour before the front arrived. At 1833 Frankfort took a hit of 50-plus mph wind. By 1900 it was calm again. Both the fuel dock and the slip handed us a stiff 15-knot wind to dock into, and the crew handled it, Marcelo on the helm and Kerry on the lines.

Day three was the run down to Holland, 125 nautical miles, and Lake Michigan decided to make us earn it. We left Frankfort at 0900 into 3-to-4’ seas on the bow from a steady south wind, and that built into solid 4’ rollers with the occasional larger set rolling through. Gratitude took it well, a few heavy hits from the big sets but she muscled through with very little complaint. We deliberately ran at reduced rpm most of the day to treat the boat as well as it had treated us. And once again there was a storm to watch, developing to the west the entire afternoon. It broke up enough at 1600 as the front made landfall north and south of us that we slipped into Lake Macatawa and got Gratitude secured at ME Yacht Restoration at 1630, well ahead of the weather that re-formed and hit Holland later that evening. We added fenders forward to protect the hull against the floating dock and tied her off.

Delivered

Gratitude arrived at Holland in great operational condition for a 19-year-old boat, secured ahead of the evening’s weather, with every log sheet, photo, and video from the three days forwarded to the owner and to Colony Marine. That is what a delivery is supposed to look like: the boat moved competently across nearly 500 miles of open water, the weather respected instead of fought, and a complete record handed back so the owner knows exactly how his boat performed. If you have a boat that needs to be somewhere and you would rather it arrive in the hands of someone who has run these waters before, let’s talk about your route.