Author Topic:   My sailing week not too long Tom D CL16 Member posted September 08, 2003 04:08 PM             Here is my story of mu week at Mullet lake in Upper Michigan. Thanx for your patience. Sorry about the layout!  Mullet Lake 2003 On Saturday August 30, 2003 the group headed north from Lansing Mi to Mullet Lake. Mullet Lake is a 17,300 acre lake a few miles south of the Mackinaw Bridge. I am the designated boat person so I took all the water craft. On top of the pickup was the 17' aluminum canoe, in the bed I had the homemade plywood D4 dinghy and of course on a trailer I had KatieAnn my CL16. We arrived shortly after noon and began to unload and settle in. Kevin my Newfie buddy were going to sail KatieAnn from the launch back to the cottage. My brother in law Don drove us down to the launch area. Newf and I rigged and launched the boat. A good stiff breeze was blowing from the south. Started the motor and were ready to push off, the shear pin on the motor was broken. After a few expletives we shoved off from the very short dock with the paddle and were ready to sail. The jib downhaul was not rigged correctly and we had very bad sail shape. The jib was brought down for later adjustments. With the main only we were making good progress heading north toward the cottage. Forgot to release the topping lift so we didn’t have great sail shape but the boat was moving along very nicely. The waves were only 18" with some bigger so we were content to sail with main only. We sailed around for a several hours and headed the 2 miles to the cottage and docked KatieAnn. Sunday after church I tried 2 marinas and a hardware store to find shear pins for the Merc 3.3 no luck. In the afternoon we went sailing. We were headed south into the wind. We thought we would chase a Catalina 22 that left just before us a few cottages away. Both headed into wind and we were after them. After about 45 minutes we could tell we were gaining. We were closing in very fast and were anticipating an overtaking when Newf checked his watch. Damn we had to head back or be forever grounded by being late for dinner. We both agreed we would have caught the C22 in a few more minutes. What a feeling of power that we were actually catching the bigger boat. The run back to the cottage was very relaxing. Main out to one side genoa out the other board up and two old dudes smiling all the way back. Monday afternoon Kevin and I again hit the water. We sailed about 3 ½ hours. We took many very long tacks to relax. The wind was moderate to light and sometimes variable. We had trouble trying to stay on a tack due to wind variations. The day was great though not as exciting as chasing the Catalina 22. So far 3 days at the cottage and 3 days of sailing. All good things will come to an end. Tuesday was group pontoon boat day. We rented a 22' boat with a 50 hp motor. Mullet Lake is part of what is called the inland waterway. Starting at Lake Huron at Cheboygan following the Cheboygan river to Mullet Lake, 9 miles the length of the lake into the indian river to Burt Lake (17,120 acres) 6 miles on Burt Lake then into the Crooked River to Crooked Lake. The total trip in over 40 miles and only 18 or 19 are on the lakes without wake controls. It was a great day and all of us had fun. Ten hours on the water is a long time. A little rain and mist on Mullet Lake 2003 (2) Wednesday morning. We lazed around all morning. The pontoon had to be back before 4 so we headed out to return it. I took well over an hour to cross the lake and follow the Indian River to the marina No sailing for two days. O well I will get out again. Thursday was cool and variable breeze, this is a group vacation. The group went to Mackinaw City for the day. It has a lot of neat shops and cleverly build outdoor mall area. This is where most of the shops and restaurants were. I any of you are familiar with Mackinaw Island fudge several of the makers have shops in Mackinaw City. It is fun to watch them make the fudge and there are a least 20 varieties. Eating it is better. I very seldom buy souvenirs but I found a tee shirt that had “Jesus said Take the boat to the Water”. It has some other small print but not religious or obnoxious. I hope that by starting a day with the new shirt the spouse will understand I NEED to go sailing. Friday the wind was very light but Kevin and I were determined we would sail no mater what. We also had to move the boat to the launch site to load up for the trip home Saturday morning. We tried to get from shore but needed a little paddling to get away from the tree line. Once away we were able to sail quite nicely. Jan (Kevin’s wife wanted to sail) we tried to return to shore but could not get there without paddling. She waved us off and out to the lake we went. We sailed for about 3 ½ hours on the southern end of the lake and finally returned to the ramp where my truck had been parked earlier in the day. For a group vacation with only 1 sailboat and 2 willing sailors 4 days on the water was great. Any one of the days was probably more that I got sailing all summer locally. The motor broke several more shear pins. I don’t know what the problem is and it never ran. I had a new pin in and mounted it on the D4 and started it up. I slipped into gear and started out. About 10 seconds into the run the pin broke and this one was from the Merc dealer and an authorized part. Anyway the D4 can be powered by the 3.3 but it is a little out of balance with just me and the motor. I had a great sailing time and plan on many more. Thank you all for wading through my sailing week. I enjoy reading about your trips and experiences so please keep them coming. This summer we seem to have a lack of sailing tales. Great Sailing Tom Distel ntodd Member posted September 09, 2003 02:36 PM             Sounds like a great time Tom. I went out on Huron the weekend of 8/23-24. we got the snot beat out of us both days. My dad is too old for that stuff. I know this because I'm 30 and I was hurting for 6-8 days after that weekend. We also went over to Sarnia and got on all the Tall Ships that weeekend. That was great! We didn't have to wait more than 10 minutes to get on any of the boats. We even got to go below on four of them. There were hour long lines and no access below in Bay City. as usual the bridge traffic was insane going back. Glad to hear you had a good time on your group vacation.

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