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Capt. Jason Cracraft looks out the window of the Sykes’ pilot house.
The MCP Boat Blog is presented by the Mason County Historical Society and its Port of Ludington Maritime Museum.
By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief
Editor’s note: For the past several years, I have made it a personal mission to tell the stories of the Great Lakes maritime industry and, especially, the people who work aboard its vessels. As someone who has spent much of my life watching, photographing and studying these ships, I believe their stories deserve to be told.
Documenting the industry is important for preserving its history, but it is equally important for its future. Great Lakes shipping plays a vital role in our nation’s economy, and its continued success depends on attracting new generations of skilled mariners.
Recently, I spent five days aboard the SS Wilfred Sykes, a 1949 steam-powered freighter operated by Central Marine Logistics. This series explores the ship, the work it performs and, most importantly, the people who keep it sailing.
ABOARD THE SS WILFRED SYKES — Maritime history runs deep in Capt. Jason Cracraft’s family.
His grandfather, Capt. Bruce Masse, was part of the final generation of Chesapeake & Ohio Railway carferry captains in Ludington and later helped lead the SS Badger into its new era under Lake Michigan Carferry.
Cracraft’s mother, Deborah Nord, worked aboard the Badger, as did some of his aunts.
Today, Cracraft, a resident of Hamlin Township, carries on that family tradition from another Great Lakes pilothouse. He is master of the 678-foot SS Wilfred Sykes, one of the oldest active steamships on the Great Lakes.
But becoming a captain was not necessarily the plan when Cracraft first stepped aboard the Sykes more than 20 years ago.
In fact, there really wasn’t a plan at all.
“I never really had any plans for what I wanted to do in life,” he said. “I just started it and liked it.”
Cracraft was born in Scottville and spent parts of his childhood in Mason County, Cedar Springs and Holland before returning to Ludington.
Wilfred Sykes backs its way toward the Port Dolomite dock.
Ships were always somewhere in the background.
His mother worked in housekeeping aboard the Badger for about 15 years. Her sisters also worked aboard the carferry. Their father, Bruce Masse, had spent his career on the Ludington carferries and eventually became one of the fleet’s captains.
Masse was among the veteran railroad-era mariners who returned when Lake Michigan Carferry revived the Ludington-to-Manitowoc, Wis. service in 1992. He served as the company’s head captain and was master of the Badger when passenger and vehicle service resumed.
Despite the family connection, Cracraft did not initially set out to follow his grandfather into the pilothouse.
Before going to sea, he worked at factories around Ludington and Manistee and did landscaping.
His stepfather, Franklin Nord, helped steer him toward the Great Lakes.
Cracraft had shown an interest in working aboard the Badger.
Capt. Bruce Masse
“He goes, ‘Oh no, no. You go out and work on those freighters if you’re going to work out on a boat,’” Cracraft recalled.
So he did.
Cracraft, known as “Opie” on the ship, obtained his merchant mariner credentials and contacted the company that operated the Sykes.
There was no elaborate career strategy.
“I pretty much called this company,” he said. “‘Hey, you need anybody?’”
A couple weeks later, the answer was yes.
On Aug. 1, 2005, Cracraft joined the crew of the Wilfred Sykes.
At the time, his mother was still working aboard the Badger. Occasionally the two steamships would cross paths and mother and son would talk by cellphone from their respective vessels.
For Cracraft, the Sykes became home.
Cracraft helps chip paint on the deck.
He started at the bottom, working on deck — chipping paint, maintaining the vessel and learning the jobs that keep a Great Lakes freighter operating.
There are essentially two traditional routes into the pilothouse of a Great Lakes ship. A mariner can attend a maritime academy, such as the Great Lakes Maritime Academy in Traverse City, graduate with the required sea time and credentials and begin a career as a licensed officer.
Or, a person can work his or her way up through the ranks.
Cracraft took the second route, traditionally known in the maritime industry as coming “up through the hawsepipe.”
He liked deck work.
“I probably could have got to this point much faster, but I really liked what I did,” he said.
He accumulated the sea time necessary to become an able seaman and continued learning the practical side of deck operations, including line handling, navigation, safety and eventually steering the ship.
Cracraft commanding the ship from the pilot house.
The progression requires years of sea time as well as examinations and additional credentials before a mariner can become a licensed mate.
For Cracraft, that process took nearly 15 years.
He earned his mate’s license in early 2019.
Even then, there was another obstacle. A Great Lakes deck officer needs pilotage endorsements for the waters where he or she will navigate. That means demonstrating knowledge and completing required trips over particular lakes, rivers and connecting waterways.
At the time, the vessels Cracraft was working aboard were not making enough trips through the St. Clair and Detroit rivers for him to obtain the pilotage he needed.
So he left the Sykes.
It wasn’t because he disliked the company or the boats.
He simply needed to advance his career.
“I just had to tell them, ‘Hey, you’re not doing what I need you to do for me right now. I’ve got to go get some stuff done,’” he said.
Cracraft sailed briefly for American Steamship Co. and later worked aboard the Joseph L. Block. He then spent about two months aboard Interlake Steamship Co.’s Kaye E. Barker, making the river trips necessary to earn most of his remaining pilotage.
He returned to the Sykes in September 2021 still needing one portion of the Detroit River.
Sykes loading limestone at Port Inland.
Then weather intervened.
The Sykes was headed to the Rouge River when a September squall brought heavy rain, lightning and nearly zero visibility. Instead of stopping at the Rouge River, the vessel continued downstream and into Lake Erie before turning around.
The unexpected trip gave Cracraft the final section of river experience he needed.
The next time he went home, he completed the testing and obtained the pilotage endorsements necessary for the routes his company operated.
His progression accelerated from there.
Cracraft worked as second mate and then increasingly as first mate aboard the Sykes. By early 2023, he had accumulated enough qualifying sea time to test for his master’s license.
In November 2023, he earned it.
He first sailed as captain for about a month and a half during the spring of 2025.
Then, in April 2026, following the retirement of the Sykes’ senior captain, Cracraft was named the vessel’s permanent master.
More than 20 years after walking aboard as a deckhand, he was responsible for the entire ship.
“This is the best job I’ve ever had,” he said. “I really do love this job.”
It is a significant ship to command.
Stern of the Sykes
Built by American Ship Building Co. at Lorain, Ohio, the Wilfred Sykes had its keel laid Nov. 1, 1948, was launched June 28, 1949 and entered service for Inland Steel Co. on April 19, 1950.
The 678-foot-long, 70-foot-wide vessel represented a major advancement in Great Lakes shipbuilding. It was the first new American-built Great Lakes freighter constructed after World War II, the first laker built with a 70-foot beam and the first designed to carry more than 20,000 tons.
At the time of its launch, the Sykes was the largest vessel on the Great Lakes, earning the traditional title of Queen of the Lakes.
More than 76 years later, the Sykes remains a working freighter.
The vessel is powered by steam turbines supplied by oil-fired boilers, driving a single propeller. Unlike modern vessels equipped with controllable-pitch propellers and bow and stern thrusters, maneuvering the Sykes requires techniques rooted in an earlier era of Great Lakes shipping.
Cracraft said that is part of what makes commanding it special.
“A steamer is a whole different animal,” he said.
When an engine order changes from ahead to astern, the propeller must first stop turning in one direction before beginning to turn the other way. The Sykes also has no stern thruster.
“You’ve got to wait for that propeller to stop and then pick up momentum and start going backwards,” he said.
It requires a captain to anticipate what the ship will do before it does it.
For a mariner who spent years working every level of the deck department, that knowledge is not merely theoretical. Cracraft has handled lines, chipped and painted steel, stood watches, steered the vessel and served through the various deck officer positions.
He understands the work taking place hundreds of feet behind and below the pilothouse because he once did it himself. In fact, he still performs many of those duties, which is one of the reason he has earned the high level of respect among his crew.
“You’ve got to take pride in it,” he said. “You’ve got to do the things that other people don’t want to do.”
The Sykes currently carries a crew of 23, including a cadet from the Great Lakes Maritime Academy.
Like most Great Lakes sailors, the crew spends long stretches away from home. Cracraft said the schedule generally works out to about 60 days aboard followed by about 30 days off, though actual rotations vary depending on relief crews, vacations and operating requirements.
For someone considering a maritime career, Cracraft said the hardest part may initially be adjusting to that time away.
“It’s hard being away from everyone,” he said. “But once you get over that hump … it’s a good living.”
For people interested in becoming licensed officers, Cracraft said the maritime academy route offers clear advantages. Students can earn licenses and extensive navigation training while completing their education.
Michigan is home to one of the seven American maritime academies. The Great Lakes Maritime Academy is located on the campus of Northwest Michigan College in Traverse City.
He also remains an example of the other route.
A person can still start on deck, learn the ship, accumulate sea time and work his or her way through the ranks.
“If you want to just have a good job and be out in nice weather and have a little adventure — and the rain and the snow and the ice, it is kind of like an adventure — we’re all in it together,” he said.
Cracraft’s life aboard the Sykes also includes one somewhat unusual maritime hobby.
Cracraft often plays the bagpipes.
He plays the bagpipes.
He started learning around 2018, about the same time he was studying for his mate’s license. Cracraft realized he was spending too much of his off-watch time watching television in his room and decided to find something else to do.
After watching a video featuring a bagpiper, he became curious.
He ordered an inexpensive beginner’s package that included a practice chanter, music and instructional material.
He stuck with it.
About eight months later, he bought a set of bagpipes in Traverse City.
While working aboard the Joseph L. Block, he would walk as far forward as possible and practice in the windlass room where he was less likely to disturb his shipmates.
The pipes still travel with him.
Now that he occupies the captain’s quarters aboard the Sykes, he said he can close several doors and practice without subjecting the entire vessel to a concert.
The crew, he said, seems to enjoy it.
And why the nickname Opie?
“I’ve got red hair and freckles,” he said. “From the very first moment I stepped foot on a ship someone called me Opie and it has stuck.”
For all of the history surrounding the Wilfred Sykes, Cracraft said what matters most to him is that it remains a working ship and that he is now part of a long succession of sailors who have kept it operating.
“There’s been generations of people that have worked their way up on this boat,” he said. “To be part of that, and to be a steamer captain … it’s a really unique experience.”
There is also something especially meaningful about commanding a vessel on Lake Michigan.
Cracraft grew up along its shoreline. His family worked on it. From the pilothouse of the Sykes, his job occasionally takes him past the place he still calls home.
“I get to go past my hometown,” he said. “That’s one of the things that really sticks out.”
And while Cracraft is happy aboard the Sykes, another steamship remains in the back of his mind.
Someday, perhaps much later in his career, he would like to command the ship his grandfather once did.
The Badger.
“I’d like to use a little bit of this experience, or learn some more, to try to captain that Badger someday,” he said. “Way in the future.”
It would bring a family maritime story full circle.
Capt. Bruce Masse once stood in the Badger’s pilothouse carrying forward Ludington’s railroad carferry tradition.
His grandson now stands in the pilothouse of another historic Great Lakes steamship, having worked his way from the deck to the captain’s chair.
And, perhaps someday, that path will lead Jason Cracraft home to the Badger.
Tomorrow: Part 4: Aboard the Wilfred Sykes: Part 5. Chef Greene keeps the Sykes crew fed… and happy
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