Northern Michigan Men to attempt 60-Mile Stand-Up Journey to Preserve Great Lakes

In order to bring benefits for environmental stewardship and strengthen the conservation efforts of the Great Lakes, a group of Northern Michigan men are making efforts to raise $10,000. They are going to attempt stand-up paddleboarding across Lake Michigan to raise funds for the same this weekend.

Andrew Pritchard, Kwin Morris, Jeff Guy, Joe Lorenz and J. Mueller want to embark from the Wisconsin shoreline this weekend. They will attempt stand-up paddle-board approximately 60 miles across Lake Michigan to Frankfort. The sole motive behind this is to raise money for the alliance for the Great Lakes, a Chicago-based nonprofit charity for conservation of the freshwater lakes.

The journey has been dubbed as Stand Up For Great Lakes. The five friends have been learning the art of stand-up paddleboarding since December, but they still believe that the 24-hour journey is not going to be easy for them.

"We'll take breaks, but the objective is to stand-up paddleboard the whole way across. We're expecting it to be pretty difficult. We've been training quite a bit", said Pritchard, a digital marketing manager for Cherry Republic and native of Australia who moved to Traverse City a couple years ago.

Many others have also attempted to cross Lake Michigan on a paddleboard before. For instance, Craig and Trent Masselink and friend Ginny Melby embarked from Milwaukee and reached Muskegon in just 24 hours last summer. Jesse Heib has to turn back earlier this month because of high waves after 17 hours.

Pritchard said that they are in love with the lakes and want to do their bit to preserve them. A charter fishing boat manned by a captain, who Pritchard said is a seasoned Lake Michigan veteran, will follow the group. For the monitoring task and alerts about weather problems, the group would rely on him. A medic will also be present in the boat, but food and water will be carried by the five friends on the boards.