Coast Guard hoists a sailor off a grounded boat near Green Island

MENOMINEE — The Coast Guard pulled a sailor off a 28-foot sailboat on Lake Michigan on Saturday after the boat lost power, capsized, and then grounded near Green Island.

CBS Detroit, quoting the Coast Guard, said Sector Lake Michigan watchstanders got the mayday on VHF channel 16 at about 6:08 p.m. The boater reported high winds and feared the boat would capsize. Station Sturgeon Bay sent a 45-foot response boat and put out an urgent marine broadcast because he could not anchor and the radio link was difficult. Air Station Traverse City launched an MH-60 Jayhawk. Both crews reached him about 8 p.m.

The Coast Guard said he righted the boat before it ran aground on a sandbar. The water was too shallow for the rescue boat. A rescue swimmer went down from the helicopter and the sailor was hoisted aboard. Emergency medics met him at Menominee Regional Airport, just north of the Wisconsin line. Gregory Grubbs, command duty officer at the Great Lakes district command center, said the rescue showed the coordination of the crews and told boaters to check the forecast, the safety gear, and a working radio. Crews did not see pollution from the grounded boat. Green Island is just south of the U.S.-Canada border in that part of the lake, the station said. The sailor’s name was not in the story.

Two clocks and one airport

Boat, helicopter, airport

The call was 6:08 p.m. The crews were there about 8. The hoist is the part that mattered once the sandbar stopped the boat. Station Sturgeon Bay’s 45-foot boat could not close the last stretch of shallow water, which is why the Traverse City helicopter finished the rescue. Menominee Regional Airport is where medics met him. Grubbs’s advice, check the forecast and the radio, is the Coast Guard’s line for the rest of the fall, not a finding about this sailor’s equipment. No name was released. No pollution was seen. The photograph is a Lake Michigan waterfront. It is not the sailboat and it is not the Jayhawk. The mayday was on channel 16 at 6:08 p.m. The 45-foot boat from Sturgeon Bay and the MH-60 from Traverse City arrived about 8. He righted the 28-foot boat, then grounded where the boat could not reach. The hoist finished the rescue. Medics met him at Menominee Regional Airport. No name and no pollution were in the account.

Sources:
CBS Detroit, “Coast Guard rescues sailboater after vessel loses power in Lake Michigan,” Nov. 9, 2026, https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/coast-guard-rescue-sailboat-lake-michigan/
Photo: The ed17, “Manistique, Michigan lighthouse sunset storm 1.jpg”, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AManistique%2C_Michigan_lighthouse_sunset_storm_1.jpg

Upper Peninsula

Tags: Upper Peninsula · Coast Guard · Lake Michigan · Menominee · Rescue