Humans of St. Norbert:

“I've been competitively sailing since I was 6. I race with a crew of anywhere from 5-9 people. There was one time we raced from Racine to Menominee. For the first third of the race, we made it to just south of Manitowoc. We had a nice breeze pushing us up the coast. Then, outside of Manitowoc, we see this dark frontal line of clouds. I’ve never seen clouds that dark. Then, I get a text saying, 'This is coming towards you.' It was 80 mph winds and golf ball-sized hail and lightning. I was like: 'We’re going to die!’ So we prepared and then the winds just turned off. We were all sitting on the boat, one sail up, watching the lightning storm. You can bail during these races but you’re expected to sail through it all, so we did. We sailed through a lightning storm with a 47 foot metal pole sticking up the middle of our boat. I remember sitting in the middle of the boat, and it was really quiet. Nobody was talking. Everyone just sat down and tried not to touch anything metal. Then, the wind switched out of the northeast. In Lake Michigan, that is the wind that is known to sink the most ships. It was blowing at 40 mph. So we were going directly into the wind as we’re working our way up the coast in 8 foot waves on a 33 foot boat. The boat was pinned at a 45-degree angle the whole time, which is like the max a boat can take. We ended up bailing in Kewaunee because we weren’t going to put the boat through any more. It was a surreal experience.”
– Jerry Komas ‘20