MPR’s Lorna Benson talks with Marlin Bree, a boater who was among a few unlucky people caught on Lake Superior when hundred-mile-an-hour winds whipped up 30-foot waves on July 4, 1999. The storm on Lake Superior was connected to the massive blowdown in the BWCA.
Early in the morning of July 4th, Bree launched his small hand-made boat “Persistence" from Grand Portage. He had been waiting there for several days hoping the fog would clear, finally lifting on that morning. Bree says it looked like good sailing weather and the forecast was calling for the hottest day of the year.
The Boundary Waters–Canadian Derecho (also called the Boundary Waters Blowdown), produced straight-line winds of up to 100 mph, which uprooted and toppled nearly 500,000 acres of the BWCA's trees in a massive blowdown. It began in Fargo mid-morning on July 4, 1999, and plowed at a northeasterly angle across the state. It mowed across northeastern Minnesota, crossed into Canada, and fizzled out in Maine the following morning, traveling 1,300 miles and lasting 22 hours.
Transcripts
text | pdf |
SPEAKER 1: Well, that meant go. Let's go. I've been waiting for this. So we started scooting out of Grand Portage, heading Northward into toward the mouth of Thunder Bay across the Canadian border, and scooting in and out of patches of fog, which were in fact diminishing.
But in the meantime, up on the Sawtooth mountains, there was this crown of bluish fog that was just lying up there. And that bothered me. And also there was an ominous feel to the air. Something was happening. I couldn't tell what. But I was heading in the direction I wanted to go, and shortly I would be at my destination, which is Thompson island, a small, very small island guarding the mouth of Thunder Bay from the open waters of Superior. And I was on the open waters of Superior.
SPEAKER 2: So how long had you been out that morning before it started to rain?
SPEAKER 1: I was out about three hours or so and then-- but before it started to rain, I had my radio on. All good boaters keep channel 16 open, which is distress and everything like that, communications. And I starting to come within radio range of Thunder Bay Coast Guard and I heard this klaxon sound going on, which I'd never heard of before. And the sound severe weather warning, something like that, followed shortly by mayday, mayday, mayday. This is something that sends a chill up every boaters spine. And then I got the report, sailboat overturned. Three boaters in the water. And I was wondering what is going on?
SPEAKER 2: How fast did this storm hit you? It hit very suddenly. The sky turned dark and suddenly there was this wall of wind shoving us faster and faster. And the wind hit the back of the boat. So we got pushed out to sea. It simply pushed us faster and faster until suddenly we stopped and I flew forward and things fell on top of me.
And we were in deep trouble because the mast was not coming out of the water. We were just lying there, teetering. An odd feeling to be laying on your back, your feet above you, sort of waving back and forth, and you're thinking, we're going over. We're not coming back.
And what's more, evil sensations came through my mind that the boat would go over on top of me. I'd be entombed by my overturned hull and I'd have to somehow swim down and out and then go atop the hull, which would be overturned, heading toward the middle of Lake Superior in all that terrible storm.
SPEAKER 2: How long did you end up fighting this storm?
SPEAKER 1: Oh, it must have been over an hour, hour and a half or so. Through many adventures-- I finally got out into the cockpit and decided the only thing to do was to wrestle the storm. I simply got up on the high side of the boat and used my weight and leaned as far out as I could. And nothing was happening for a while, but then the storm relented a bit. Later, I learned that there were gusts up to 110 miles an hour. This is what the newspapers call the storm of the century. I had discovered superior's version of the perfect storm.
But storm winds like this could not last forever. It went down perhaps to 80 miles an hour. And at that point, my weight of roughly 170 pounds began to tip my ultralightweight sailboat back up. And once I started to get the mast up, then I could get the rudder back in the water and we can start getting some control.
I still needed to find Thompson Island, and I could see it over there in the distance. And I knew somewhere in there was a Cove, a little harbor that would give me the shelter. So I decided to duck out of the shelter, spar, run along some needle-like rocks over to Thompson. And I overshot the Cove. I just couldn't pick it up. I thought, what's happening?
And all of a sudden the storm was coming after me again. This was the second storm, if you will, or a continuation of the first. All I knew was back over on its side, I was back trying to wrestle the boat up. The engine was now out of-- in and out of the water. The rudder was not responding. And again, we fought the good fight.
And finally I just charged through this cut, as it's called. And there I ran into the really high waves that I had not had before. By now, the storm had had a time to build, freshwater builds very quickly, and we ran over one wave and down into the next, and the third one caught us good. The bow speared the wave. The wave rolled over the top of the boat, and the boat became a submarine. And the water, green water, roared back into the cockpit and hit me in my face and chest. And it's very, very cold water.
SPEAKER 2: You thought you were-- you were done for.
SPEAKER 1: Well, I thought I'd better get off of that, that lake. I thought I've made a mistake. We're not going to live here my boat. So again, I timed the waves, turned around and roared back to the cut. And this time, coming up the South Shore of Thompson, the small cove was there, and I got in there.
And as I got in there, I finally heard the Coast Guard Radio and they were calling persistence, persistence, Coast Guard Radio calling persistence. I realized that they were looking for me and they were concerned. And the only thing I could think of to say is, I'm sorry, I've been a little busy. They seem to understand.
SPEAKER 2: At this point you had a decision to make.
SPEAKER 1: Yes.
SPEAKER 2: Go back to the port and get your boat out of the water and go home or go on.
SPEAKER 1: Yes. Well, I'd come to sail this freshwater archipelago, and it seemed like a good idea to go on. We'd hit the storm and survived, were well-tested now. Never knew exactly what my boat could do. But now that we'd had some decent winds, we know a little bit more about the characteristics of the boat. And so I simply proceeded onward, Northward and eastward into this marvelous area. And the storm winds stayed, stayed with me. Though it was an unseasonable year of high winds, storms, and fog. Up there, they now refer to it as Marlin Bri weather.
SPEAKER 2: Do they really?
SPEAKER 1: Oh, Yes. They name it after anybody that's unlucky enough to do-- I found a reef off CPR harbor. Ran aground on it. That's Marlin Bri reef, in local boating terminology. Oh, yes, out there, that's Marlin Bri reef. Yes, he piled it up there.