Boat night, weather and the last minute Mackinac race stuff
Port Huron’s Black River is filled with masts and race flags today, with the party atmosphere heating up as the day progresses into Boat Night. It’s one day until the 91st Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race.
If you are in Port Huron today, the Michigan Historic Marker commemorating the historical significance of the race will be dedicated in Quay Park, next to the Port Huron Yacht Club, at 3:30 p.m.
There’s the usual flurry of last minute information — some of which will actually hold up for tomorrow’s race. (Think weather….)
I posted Mark Thornton’s latest weather forecast. The interesting thing about the weather is the forecast has changed almost every day. (Not exactly new for a Mack race.)
Bayview is keeping a close eye on the weather. There is the potential for some pop up storms midlake Saturday and on the upper lake Sunday afternoon, said race spokesman Carl Bihlmeyer.
And the race committee is watching the weather to see if there will be postponements in the starts. They don’t like to start this race is less than five knots of wind, Bihlmeyer said, because they don’t like to get a lot of boats piled up on the starting line.
Bihlmeyer has done 30 Mack races, he’s only seen one 10-minute postponement. But skippers may want to watch for possible postponements.
“They won’t know until they get out on the water,” Bihlmeyer said. “If someone asked me today I’d say it’s going to be a slow race. Tomorrow — it may be different.”
The final count for the number of boats is 249, more than in any recent year.
And a reminder — the reporting boats do at the finish line is different this year. Boats MUST report their finish to the race committee on Mackinac Island.
But they do not report to the harbor committee this year. Instead, each skipper will have a docking information in their packet telling them which section of the dock they will tie up. Boats should simply go directly to their assigned docking area, where space will be first come, first serve.
Bayview earlier warned skippers that some boats could end up going to Mackinac City because if the wind is right the high water could mean that some of the coal dock area could be under water.
Bihlmeyer said that so far this week, those suspect docking areas are above water and there is reasonable hope that no one will have to go to Mackinaw City. Five boats have volunteered to go there to free up island docking, Bihlmeyer said.
For a more detailed explanation of the docking changes and possibe Mackinaw City docking, see our earlier post at https://medium.com/@Sail_GreatLakes/zoning-docking-for-mackinac-race-some-boats-could-end-up-in-mackinac-city-dce9b0adf7a5.
