The big lakes are nothing to screw with. The ore carriers are 7 and 8 hundred feet long
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=cddtyqQNHtM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8FaotwbMdw&feature=fvwrel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzi_WI5VWcs&feature=related
My husband is from Cleveland. When he was young, he used to think Lake Erie was an ocean because he could not see across it. I used to laugh because I was born on the east coast and could not imagine a lake being as dangerous as an ocean.
Then I heard about the Edmund Fitzgerald and the dangerous seas across all the Great Lakes. I don’t think its funny any more. The lake weather is not as predictable as the ocean hurricanes. The people who brave those lakes in the storms have a very dangerous job to do.