Declercq signs children’s book about Bernida during Mack race festities

By Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki

July 15, 2014 at 11:14 am Mackinac Island

Al Declercq of Grosse Pointe Park signed copies of his children’s book about Bernida on Mackinac Island

Al Declercq spent much of Monday signing copies of his book Bernida, A Michigan Sailing Legend (Sleeping Bear Press 2014), at the Island Bookstore on Mackinac Island.

This is Declercq’s second Bernida book. He and Tom Ervin wrote an adult version, Bernida, A True Story That Can’t Be True (2013), that’s sold 350 copies.

The children’s version has already sold about 500 copies since it came out in April, said Declercq, who owns Doyle Sails in Harrison Township.

“I think we’re going to do very well with the children’s book,” Declercq said.

It was the perfect setting for a Bernida book signing. Outside about 2,000 sailors were celebrating the finish of the 90th Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race.

The legend of Bernida started in 1925, when the R boat won the very first Port Huron to Mackinac race. Bernida won again in 1927.

Bernida then drifted through several owners and finally ended up a washed out wreck, rotting in a northern Michigan junkyard.

Then in 2012 Declercq bought the boat from a young Mackinac Island boat builder, Roman Emory Barnwell, who had lovingly restored the long neglected boat.

Declercq, who’s sailed more than 50,000 miles of offshore racing, outfitted Bernida with a full set of sails and with two friends and their three sons, raced Bernida again in the 2012 Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race.

Once again, Bernida was a winner.

Declercq’s passion for Bernida led him to co-author an adult book about Bernida with Tom Ervin. Last April the pair published the children’s version of the book.