The following account was written by my stepdad, Jim Grill, who served as a purser and steward on the Lake Michigan car ferry SS Spartan during the late 1950s and 1960s. Jim passed away last year at the age of 85 and my mom found this account.
“It was mid to late September, 1960 at about 09:30. The car ferry Spartan had just arrived at Ludington from Milwaukee. The wind was from the southwest and would be considered light. At about 10:30 the wind really began to blow.
Though late in the season, during that same time, a large, 36-foot pleasure craft was down bound, headed for Chicago. She was just off Pentwater and the seas were quite large. It was around 11:30 hours when, experiencing some engine problems, she sent out a May Day.
At 11:30, the Spartan was departing for the return trip to Milwaukee when she heard the call for help. She radioed the craft to check on their status. The craft’s engines were now running, but her captain wanted to seek shelter in Ludington as the seas were gathering in height. It took the Spartan about an hour to an hour and a half to reach the craft which was holding her own, trying to head into the seas. Upon the arrival of the Spartan, the craft laid close to the Spartan’s port side, so that the Spartan was taking the starboard seas.
The two captains discussed just how the Spartan would turn around to get the craft on its lee (starboard) side for the trip back to Ludington. All of a sudden, the seas threw the craft into the side of the Spartan and the craft’s dingy broke loose on one side. The captain of the craft tried to secure it, but the dingy broke completely loose. For a time, it floated around stern up. Suddenly it was sucked under. It went through the props of the Spartan and even though the Spartan’s props were barely turning — just enough for steerage, bits and pieces of the dingy came to the surface further aft.
It was decided that the Spartan would turn to starboard to come around while the craft lay back a little. Then the craft would have safety on the Spartan’s lee side. But just as the turn was about to begin, the craft got too close to the Spartan’s port side. The craft had trouble breaking away and was right under its bow when the Spartan took a heavy roll to port. The craft’s bridge canvas supports were crushed. An AB on the Spartan was looking out a porthole when this occurred. He later said ” I have never seen fear on anyone’s face as that of a woman on the craft as they rolled to starboard and us to port. She must’ve thought we were going to push them under.”
The captain of that craft gave her twin engines everything they could do and she shot away ahead of the Spartan. To relieve the great tension of the moment, the crew of the Spartan joked that the captain was shooting out for Chicago. But the craft turned and, as the Spartan completed one swing, came back to the lee of the Spartan. Some of the pictures shown here were taken from the upper deck of the Spartan. Others are from the car deck, which was almost lake level. The man on the craft holding the canvas was trying to keep it from being blown away. As the Spartan and the craft near Ludington, you can see the twin stacks from the Dow Chemical plant. Note the wind is coming straight off the stack and, in one case, is being blown down. Skippers on the ferries used to use the stacks to determine just how strong the wind was, in addition to the wind direction.
The Spartan guided the craft to just off the break wall where the Coast Guard crash boat was waiting. The Spartan turned and headed for Milwaukee. It was around 15:00 hours. The Spartan was carrying about ten passenger autos on her top deck that day. A couple of Chrysler cars with fluid transmission and poor emergency brakes did not do too well in the heavy rolling experienced during this event. Needless to say, these autos were banged up with dented fronts, backs, and sides.
A few weeks later the pleasure craft owners wrote the skipper and crew of the Spartan a really nice letter. They thanked the Spartan for their efforts and seamanship in getting them safely back into a port. They also had the letter published in the local paper.
In the ten years I worked on the Spartan, she went to the rescue of at least six pleasure craft.”
Jim Grill, Spartan Night Plankman
Story Submitted by Brendon Baillod
