2024 Annual Conference

This year’s conference is based out of the Michigan Maritime Museum located in South Haven, MI. From hands-on exhibits on their authentic waterfront campus to historically immersive experiences aboard their on-water fleet, the Michigan Maritime Museum has something for every Great Lakes enthusiast.

The museum offers on the water exhibits with historic watercraft as well as having an entirely new enlarged campus, they salute the brave men and women of the United States Coast Guard in their Coast Guard boat house, located in the heart of South Haven’s Maritime District.

The Michigan Maritime Museum is one of the Great Lakes premiere destinations to experience freshwater maritime heritage as you explore our exhibits both on and off the water. Five separate structures offer a variety of engaging opportunities for the Museum visitor, including permanent and changing exhibits on Michigan maritime history, a workshop for teaching boat-building and related maritime skills, and a fleet of period and replica vessels available to visitors for on-water experiences.

Join us for this year’s annual meeting and register now!

Wednesday, September 25th, 2024

The evening will start with a public presentation on the US Life-Saving Service at the Michigan Maritime Museum about the general history of the US Life-Saving Service for those looking to learn why and how the service started and how they became the US Coast Guard.

Thursday, September 26th, 2024

Get acquainted in the morning and receive a general overview of the conference and the facilities and then learn why the Great Lakes are different than the Ocean coast’s. We will be touring the museums Coast Guard boathouse to see their wonderful collection of historic US Life-Saving Service and US Coast Guard historic watercraft. Following that you will get an update on all of the US Life-Saving Service’s projects (endangered Stations, Surfmen registry, digital resources, etc.) and get to ask questions about the association and learn what we are doing to support the US Life-Saving Service community.

A box lunch is included for the day and dinner is on your own.

Friday, September 27th, 2024

We will be on a bus all day visiting several sites starting with one of only two surviving Francis Lifeboats beautifully preserved by the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society with its own building dedicated to its story and history. Following that we will visit the former Grand Haven Coast Guard Station for an exterior tour of the building and the Roosevelt style boathouse.

Our next location takes us by for a photo op (depending on if the road construction is complete) of the 1879 Muskegon US Life-Saving Station which was moved and is privately owned. We will then visit the Muskegon 1905 Life-Saving Station in which is NOAA’s Lake Michigan Field Station and see how they have repurposed the station for their work on the lakes. We will then depart to the former Ludington Coast Guard Station to visit the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum and once finished will return to our home base.

A box lunch is included for the day and dinner is on your own.

Saturday, September 28th, 2024

We kick off our final day with our annual membership meeting and then continue into various presentations as well as a visit to the rest of the campus museum.

A change this year is that we will not be having an annual dinner, but a picnic style lunch on campus while our guest speaker, a former US Coast Guard lifeboatmen, now 87 years old, will enthrall us with his experiences saving lives on the lakes while we partake in lunch and his show and tell.

The afternoon will consist of some presentations, but also some group brainstorming sessions on best practices, networking and sharing knowledge. That will conclude the conference at the end of the day.

Dinner is on your own. BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!! (scroll down)