About 3:00 a.m., the Tennie and Laura began listing, and a large boarding wave swept half her deck load overboard. The vessel righted herself with a lurch, and the remaining deck cargo washed over the opposite side, carrying away the hatch covers and some of the deck planks. The Tennie and Laura was seriously wounded. Each successive boarding wave dumped tons of water into the vessel, and her slab wood cargo began to slosh around, battering her hull with each roll.

Sather and Nordback struggled for two more hours.  About 5:00 a.m., they were ten miles northeast of Milwaukee. A large wave caught the Tennie and Laura broadside, and she finally capsized.  Sather and Nordbach climbed aboard their yawl, which remained attached by its painter to the Tennie and Laura’s stern.  Inverted, the Tennie and Laura did not sink but was blown before the winds, pulling along the helpless Sather and Nordbach in their yawl. They drifted until 6:30 that morning, when they were sighted by the passing steamer Mark B. Covell, bound for Milwaukee with a load of wood.

The Covell approached as closely as possible in the heavy seas, and a line was thrown to Nordbach, who was sitting in the yawl’s bow. Nordbach caught the line, but he was overly excited by the imminent rescue. Standing up, Nordbach capsized the yawl, spilling himself and Sather into the water and losing hold of the line.  Sather managed to pick it up and took several turns around his arm to secure himself.  A life preserver was thrown to Nordbach, but he made no effort to retrieve it. The Covell’s Mate, Henry Erbe, threw a second line to Nordbach, dropping it directly in front of him. The exhausted Nordbach made no attempt to grab the second line and sank from sight. Sather was pulled aboard the Covell, and the Tennie and Laura was abandoned, floating upside down in the lake.

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