Burromasters Sail to Sheboygan Wisconsin

The Burromasters “sail” across Lake Michigan every year to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, from various ports in Michigan. The name “Burromasters” derives from a joke that evolved many years ago during a radio conversation. Apparently, one of the guys saw someone on another boat and asked it was the other boater’s girlfriend, to which he replied, “No, it’s my burro.”

This trip was originally supposed to be on a Pearson 26 named “Blown Away”, but Blown Away spent the entire spring waiting on a new water pump. As departure neared, the pump was lost somewhere between France and Florida. At the last minute, we decided to take “Ils Sont Partis”, my Tanzer 29 instead.

The crew included myself; Rick, the skipper of “Blown Away”; and Rich, an experienced sailor who spends most of the summer racing on Lake Huron. We left Holland, Michigan about 6:30 PM after filling our water and fuel tanks. When I went to bed around midnight there was just enough wind to sail. About 2:00 AM I was awakened by the Rick at the helm shouting my name. Going up on deck I found that we were heeling over at least 30 degrees and bouncing through 5-foot waves. Rick had eased the traveler to spill wind from the main, but wasn’t sure what to do next. All the shouting also awakened Rich, and he and I reefed the main. That worked for a while, but the wind continued to build and we eventually rolled in a good fraction of the genny and reefed the main down to the second reef point.

Somewhere in the middle of all this reefing, I heard a clanking on the port side of the cabin and looked out to see a turnbuckle flopping around on deck. Popping out the hatch, I saw that the inner shroud on the port side had come unfastened. After a few moments of initial panic and a stern warning to the helmsman against tacking, I tied off and went out to look at the loose shroud. Nothing was broken, but the pin had fallen out of the chain plate. I returned to the cabin and rummaged through the spare parts collection for something to pin it down with. I couldn’t find any spare pins, but a large lag screw looked promising. Crawling back on the deck, I pinned the shroud back to the chainplate with the lag screw and taped it in place with rigging tape. After a little time for reflection, I added a pair of vice grips to further lock the lag screw in place.

My makeshift repair held through the night. In the morning I found the missing pin laying against the toerail. Even with all out heeling and bouncing through the waves. It had somehow stayed aboard. When I went to replace it, I also found the cotter ring that had fallen out an allowed the stay to come unfastened. Apparently the riggers had reused an old cotter ring when they retyped the mast in the spring. The ring had opened, and they must not have squeezed it shut. Seeing that, I quickly checked all the other pins to make sure they were securely fastened with cotter pins. They were.

We arrived at the Sheboygan Yacht Club in time to tie up on the wall and relax a bit before dinner. Not only were we the last boat to arrive in Sheboygan, our 23-hour trip across the lake set a record for the slowest Burromaster passage ever. On the other hand, we actually sailed most of the way. Talking to other Burromasters, it was difficult to find anyone who regularly sailed across the lake. Most of them had come across the lake on a sailboat, but motored whenever sailing was slow or inconvenient, especially when tacking was involved. At dinner Rick remarked that the Badger must be a really big sailboat, as he had met at least a dozen guys who had sailed over on it. When we stopped laughing, we told him, “The Badger is the car ferry!”

The Burromasters visit is a major windfall for bar owners in Sheboygan. The favorite Burromaster bar, a place called Sandy’s, does more business during the Burromasters visit than at New Years. We started out with them, but made it an early night--all three of us were exhausted from out all night sail. We had slept some, but it was hard to sleep while bouncing through five-footers.  The next day, we asked locals what Sheboygan has to offer, and ended up driving up river to Kohler, Wisconsin, to visit the Kohler Company.  Kohler has landscaped its factory grounds to an extent I have never seen elsewhere.  Associated with the Kohler factory is a four-star hotel called the "American Club", housed in a building that once served as quarters for immigrants brought over to work in the Kohler factory.  The American Club offers first-rate accommodations, great restaurants, gardens, and the most friendly, helpful staff imaginable.  We got a crash course in the history of Kohler, then headed back to the harbor.

Our return trip was dramatically calmer than the trip across. We left Sheboygan about 3:30 PM CDT. Just outside the harbor, we found ourselves weaving our way through a forest of gill net buoys. Most of the nets were probably deep enough for us to pass over them safely, but we dodged them anyway. As we crossed the lake, the wind gradually lightened. Most of the way we had a south wind blowing less than 10 kts and flat calm seas. Luckily Ils Sont Partis has terrific light air performance, and we were able to sail nearly the entire way. Most of the trip we were moving at only about 3 knots, but we were able to keep sailing by ghosting from wind patch to wind patch. Crossing the lake, we didn’t see another boat until we were almost to the Michigan shore, at which point we saw a freighter several miles behind us, steaming up towards Manitou Passage. We pointed as well as possible in the light air, and reached the eastern shore of Lake Michigan just north of Port Sheldon.

We tacked south along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan until the wind died completely. Tired by then, we motored the last few miles back to Holland. We arrived at Eldean’s at about 4:30 PM EDT.