It was billed as an adventure and turned into a boat-race!

The story of the 2015 Port Huron to Mackinac Race

This year we completed the Mac Race in fine fashion.  To appreciate what we did, you need to hear the whole story.

Back in the dead of winter Shawn and Carol let me know that they would not be able to sail.  This is a really big deal as they are both 'Old Goats' and core team members.  An 'Old Goat' is a sailor who has complete at least 25 Mac Races.  I was very happy for them to be able to attend a huge wedding on Carol's side of the family and promptly invoked Rule #2 (Take care of your family!).

I started to try to pull together some other crew, but things were really not gelling.  We signed up Jon and Matt from the boat AFTERMATH2 and at the last minute we met and signed up Becky and Rachael from the Edison Boat Club Sea Scouts (see the blog post about the return trip).

In the end we had 8 people, instead of the normal 10.  We had 4 first time Mac Racers and 1 who had only done 1 before.  Our ability to put weight up on the rail was probably 400-600 pounds less than our competition.  So.... I set the expectation that this year's event was to be an adventure.  We would do the race, we would finish and we would go as fast as we could.

So now the story of the race.....

Dennis, Shawnee and I completed the provisioning and final setup of the boat on Friday.  The new #1 Genoa, the freshly re-cut #2 genoa and the new GPS were all aboard and ready for the race.  Things were is really good shape.  On Saturday morning the crew assembled and we completed the application of bow stickers, final unloading of shore-bound gear and the final packing of the gear on-board.  As we drifted around waiting for the drawbridge we got a send off from Paul and Dorreen.  Soon it was into the current of the St. Clair River and the traditional battle up the rapids under the Blue Water bridges.

Conditions were light and warm with storms forecast for later in the day.  Things were so light that the starting sequence was delayed, but soon we were on our way.  BANG! and already we were near the back of the fleet with a conservative start.  We settled in under the light air spinnaker and watched the radar closely.  We saw that a storm complex was forming and moving right into our area, sooner rather than later as forecast.  Being about 5 miles off-shore, we could see the boats getting hit by the winds of the storm as it progressed towards us.  There was a lull and immediately I called for the 'Kite-Down'.  It was not on the deck for more than 30 seconds when we got hit by the 'blast'.... about 25 knots, which would have shredded the spinnaker.  We quickly got the #1 up and very soon after that switched back to the light air spinnaker.  Soon after sun-set the radar showed a large storm complex just to our South....  We must have been only 10 miles out of it's path.  We had changed to the All-Purpose Runner (AP) as the wind was now blowing 10-15 knots.

The night was spectacular.  Clear skies, new moon, you could see by the star-light, more satellites than we could keep track of and absolutely perfect sailing conditions.  Another storm formed just to our North and we skirted it by only a few miles.  By about 0400, the fog had started to form.  We could pick out a couple boats in our area and seemed to be doing well relative to them.  Sun-rise was completely obscured by fog and we continued to battle it our with several boats, only seeing the tops of their mast for much of the time.  By about 1000 hours, the fog was lifting and the breeze freshened to the 15-20 knot range and also shifted more on the nose.  It was go time.   I had been expecting the shift to the North West, so being on the left side of the course gave us a really fast angle to sail.  We moved up nicely in  the fleet!

As we approached the Cove Island mark we rounded up several times and ended up taking down the spinnaker with about 0.5 miles to go, putting up the #3 in anticipation of the coming beat into the fresh breeze.  We watched as our competition ROWDY lost control of their spinnaker during the take-down, but they made quick work of retrieving it from the top of the mast.

As is often the case, the race is divided into 2 sections, the race from the start to Cove Island and the race from Cove Island to Mac Island.  This year was text-book.  Conditions had been perfect for the spinnakers on the first leg and the second leg would be a flat out beat to weather.  We executed several headsail changes as we tried to determine the nature of the bigger than expected breeze, settling on the #2 in a bit over-powered configuration.  It was about 4 hours later than the breeze abruptly quit and shifted to the South.  We quickly tacked and changed to the new #1 and the boat simply took off.  Nothing like a new sail to help us go fast!

As I had pretty much driven for the whole day, Jon and Dennis let me sleep and did a great job of keeping the boat moving through the night on Sunday.  I came back up at about 0300 to find that we were making great speed directly towards Reynolds Reef.  Soon the sun was back up and found ourselves surrounded by boats.  Someone got a cellphone signal and the word came up....

WE ARE IN 3RD PLACE!

No way......  This was not possible!  Here we are 25 miles from the finish and we are leading a pack of 4 other boats in our fleet by 2 miles.  ALL HANDS on deck!

We passed Reynolds Reef and as the breeze increased we made our final sail change, from the #1 to the #3.  A change to the #2 would have required another change from the #2 to the #3 and I felt that the time lost doing that would be more that the 30 minutes of under powered sailing with the #3.  It was a good call!  Soon the wind was up to 20-25 knots and we were ripping through the flat water on the North side of Bois Blanc Island, passing boats that were supposed to be faster than us and all the while being chased by WHIPLASH and our other fleet mates.

We saw them coming.  They had all 10 people (remember we had only 8) on the rail, They had a brand new maisail (we had our 3 year old dacron main).  They were really charging!

50 yards before the finish, they pass us.  We get the finish line and BANG...... BANG.  7 seconds difference!  After 270 miles of racing, it came down to 7 seconds.

It was a great race!  I am very proud to have shared the experience with the crew.  Our regular crew of Jim, Dennis and Shawnee and our club mates Jon and Matt and our new friends from the Edison Boat Club and Ship 1148 Becky and Rachael.  For the 'newbies' it was an experience that they will never forget.  For the regular crew, it was a pleasure to sail with a group of hard-working, never say 'I can't do it' sailors who put everything they had into the effort.

The adventure continues......