Having grown up on Lake St. Clair at the entrance to the Detroit River, Grand Rapids Member Dave Centner is very familiar with the sights and sounds of freighters on the Great Lakes.
A long-distance or open water swimmer, in August Centner will participate in a historic relay swim that will cover 411 miles from the wreck site of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior to downtown Detroit. The event is being held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the ship’s sinking in 1975 and it will raise money for the Whitefish Point Light Station on Lake Superior, a lighthouse built in 1849 that lost power during the 1975 storm.
Centner recently discussed his background in swimming and what makes this event so significant for him.
What’s your background in swimming?
I started swimming competitively when I was seven years old. I swam year-round for various teams and competed in AAU meets throughout my childhood. I attended Grosse Pointe South High School and we were among the best in the state. After high school, I competed in intramural events throughout college at the University of Michigan and during law school at Indiana University. After graduation, I continued swimming daily and basically never stopped.
How did you eventually get into long-distance swimming?
I had a neck injury resulting in a cervical fusion in 2011 which stopped me from swimming for a while and limited my ability to use starting blocks and compete in sprint races. A friend of mine, who has competed in a number of Ironman competitions, encouraged me to take up open-water swimming.
What’s been your experience with swimming in the Great Lakes so far?
Although I have been swimming in the Great Lakes and inland lakes my entire life, it was only recently that I started participating in open-water events. During July of the last two years, I swam across the Straits of Mackinac. The Mackinac Bridge Swim is a challenging 4.2-mile swim that is held once per year. Due to the strong currents, low water temperatures, and strong wind and wave action in the Straights of Mackinac, the event is seen as a bucket list item for many swimmers. The Straights are 290 feet deep and the frigid temperatures require a wetsuit. There’s no place to rest or put your feet down, and the only way out is to signal for a rescue boat or finish the swim and climb out of the water once you reach the Upper Peninsula.
This past September, I also competed in the U.S. Masters’ Big Shoulders 5K Swim in Chicago, which is the largest open-water Olympic distance swimming event in the United States. That swim was almost canceled due to what the National Weather Service described as life-threatening waves and currents. Yes, it was a tough one.
What’s your training like right now and how will that change towards August?
My workouts changed once I started open swimming because I had to get used to swimming long distances without stopping and maintaining a steady pace over a long period of time. As an open water event gets closer, it is also important to practice outside in inland lakes and, in my case, in Lake Michigan to gain additional experience swimming in waves and currents. This “chop training” is an essential part of the preparation.
While it is certainly physical, I have found the real challenge in open-water swimming to be mental. You have to swim nonstop for several hours. Unlike a pool with clear water and walls to grab for safety, open water swimming consists of long periods of prolonged physical and mental exhaustion, coupled with disorientation, darkness, and sometimes motion sickness. Oftentimes it feels like swimming in a washing machine. Due to limited visibility in most natural bodies of water, you need to sight regularly to locate where you are and to avoid danger. Depending on the waves, the goal is to quickly pop your head up, look for boats and other obstructions, and try to stay on a straight line to your ultimate destination.
What stretch of the Edmund Fitzgerald swim are you going to be responsible for?
The Edmund Fitzgerald swim will consist of 68 swimmers from all over the United States plus Canada and Great Britain. My four-person relay will be swimming a 26-mile stretch of Lake Huron from Presque Isle to Thunder Bay Island near Alpena, which is located at the northeast corner of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.
The full 26-mile stretch should take between 14-16 hours depending on the strength of the swimmers, currents, and wind direction and it is in an area of Lake Huron called Shipwreck Alley. Most people don’t know that there are over 30,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, which suggests that the swimming conditions at times can be a little challenging (to say the least). The Lake Superior storm that resulted in the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald was reported to include 30-foot waves.
Having been involved with swimming for so long and having grown up near the Detroit River, what significance does this event hold for you?
When I heard about this historic event, I felt drawn to participate. There are so many things about it that matched up with who I am, where I was raised, and my interests in life. Since I grew up along Lake Saint Clair at the Detroit River I heard Great Lakes freighters and ocean-going ships every night of my life announcing their position to one other. Throughout my childhood, watching these massive boats was almost a daily occurrence. I also love history and have heard about the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald my entire life. All of these factors, when coupled with my love of swimming, came together when I heard about this event and I knew I had to participate.
Do you take any lessons from swimming into your career as a lawyer?
I am a competitive person, and certainly litigation and swimming events are both competitive activities. In both, in order to be successful, you have to be thoroughly prepared, have strong determination and focus, and understand that some things are out of your control. In addition, because this profession is stressful, I have found that swimming regularly and competing have helped me maintain a healthy balance in my life.
For more information on the relay swim, visit the event’s website. To contribute to Dave Centner’s fundraising goal for the relay, visit his sponsorship page.