Dreyer: 2027 will be next chance to swim across Lake Michigan

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — After aborting his latest attempt to swim alone across Lake Michigan, Jim Dreyer says 2027 will be his next chance to achieve the feat.

The swim — Dreyer’s second attempt this summer and fourth since 2023 — kicked off Sept. 2 in Grand Haven. Dreyer’s goal was to reach McKinley Beach in Milwaukee, an 82.9-mile point-to-point crossing.

Two days later, he announced the attempt was over .

In his account of the swim, Dreyer, 61, recounted a series of issues with navigation and weather.

“The first 24 hours were mostly a navigational nightmare. Anyone watching my satellite tracker may have questioned whether I was drunk. I promise, I was only drinking meal replacement drinks,” Dreyer wrote. “I was all over the place, piling up mileage with limited forward progress, and wasting valuable time with a closing weather window of opportunity.”

He explained that he had trouble coordinating his magnetic wrist compass with the electronic compass that was displayed on his swimming mask. Eventually, Dreyer said, he went “old school,” relying on the wrist compass, the direction of the waves, the sun and the stars.

“For the next two hours or so, this worked perfectly, and I kept a straight line to the west,” he wrote. “I had to put the first 24 hours behind me and get back in the game.”

When his rescue team checked on him around 8 p.m. on Sept. 3, Dreyer said he was in good shape — though he was now facing a longer swim than anticipated.

But things did not go as planned.

“Around 10:00 p.m. (Sept. 3), after only about two hours of everything clicking, the waves came up quickly and turned against me. The marine forecast did not call for this!” Dreyer’s account reads. “…When my team returned around 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday (Sept. 4), I had made almost no forward progress to the west for the past 12 hours. These were truly 12 lost hours, on top of the 24 hours of navigational setbacks.”

The weather conditions over the next few days did not seem promising, he said, so the swim was called off.

“Losing much of my forward progress the first 24 hours due to navigational issues pretty much sealed my fate. I truly had only about two good hours during this 40-hour swim,” Dreyer wrote. “While I’ve faced more dramatic challenges in other swims, I’ve never had a swim of this length with more constant challenges. Lake Michigan can be very unforgiving.”

“The Shark” thanked his team and his supporters for everything, saying he “will never give less than 110%.”

Dreyer said he won’t have another chance to attempt such a swim this year, and in 2025, he will be focused on planning a relay swim to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

“Then, in 2026, I will be launching a swimming-related venture that I am not yet ready to announce,” he wrote. “I cannot be distracted by anything else that summer.”

So, his next opportunity to swim alone across Lake Michigan will come in 2027. That year, Dreyer will turn 64.

“I will keep training, dreaming, hoping, and praying,” he wrote. “2027 will come and we will see.”

He said he believes God is using his athleticism to help important causes and inspire others, and even if he doesn’t make it across Lake Michigan again, he is grateful.

“I have been blessed with great health, a wealth of wonderful experiences, and a life filled with meaningful relationships. Should I really complain if I accomplish all I set out to do except for one final thing to cap my athletic career?” Dreyer wrote. “…No, I certainly am not complaining. It has been a great ride.”

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