The steering failed on the Star Line ferry Marquette II shortly after it left Mackinac Island on its 8 p.m. trip to Mackinaw City Friday, September 3. The boat's 32 passengers were not in any danger and there were no injuries, although quite a few passengers became seasick, said Mike North, general manager of Star Line.

With gale warnings in the Straits of Mackinac, waves were running five to six feet high and wind speeds were clocked at 35 miles per hour, he said. The steering failure was caused by a broken coupling and not by the weather.

Mr. North piloted the boat that towed the Marquette II to shore.

“It was very rough,” he said. “It did not make things easy. Just for me to get close to get a line to them, it was difficult.”

They used a 100-foot line to tow the vessel.

“Normally you could steer a boat just using the throttles, but the weather was so bad that night he [Captain Ed Pfeiffelman] wasn't able to navigate the boat, so it was basically dead in the water,” said Mr. North.

“He did the right thing,” said Mr. North. “He stayed there. He called the Coast Guard, the Arnold Line ferries offered to assist if needed, and he was OK until I got there.”

A number of other ferries were nearby, as was the U.S. Coast Guard, he said.

The Marquette II was towed to St. Ignace and a van took passengers to Mackinaw City. The Mackinaw City dock, he said, is not set up to easily tow the vessel to a mooring. Even navigating into St. Ignace was challenging that night, he said.

The boat was out about one and a half hours, estimated Mr. North, who got the call asking for assistance about 8:20 p.m. The towed vessel reached St. Ignace shortly after 10 p.m.

“When we towed them, we had to go very slow, which made the trip long, but if we'd gone any faster, we would have broke the line and we didn't want to do that,” he said. “We were just real cautious and we took our time to get everyone back safely. It was an uncomfortable ride for people, but we were trying to be real cautious and careful with everything.”