Local boats doing well in Chicago Mack

By Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki

July 20, 2014 at 12:12 pm Lake Michigan

The main fleet of the Chicago Yacht Club’s Race to Mackinac was about halfway up Lake Michigan Sunday morning. Photo courtesy of the Chicago Yacht Club.

With just 27 boats from southeast Michigan among the 333-boat fleet in the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac, our local boats are doing pretty well.

That mean 8% of the fleet is made up of our local boats. And they’re not in every section. This is especially true in the smaller boat sections.

That said, at 11:30 a.m. Sunday morning, 10 local boats were within striking distance of winning a flag in the Chicago race.

In Section 01, Natalie J, a Transpac 52 owned by Phil O’Niel of Bloomfield Hills was in fourth, followed by Equation, a Farr 65 owned by Bill Alcott of St. Clair Shores in fifth. Bill Martin of Ann Arbor had his SC 70 Stripes in fourth in the turbo class, followed by Lance Smotherman of Harrison Township’s SC 70 Details in fifth.

Weather Edge II owned by Colton Weatherston of Grosse Pointe Farms was in fourth in the Beneteau 36.7 section.

And Detroit-area boats were cleaning up in the J-120 section with Perversion in second, owned by Dennis Dettmer of Grosse Pointe Farms. It was followed by Hot Ticket, owned by Mike and Bob Kirkman of Novi in third and Carinthia, owned by Frank Kern of Grosse Pointe Park in fourth.

Other local leaders include the F-31 Cheeky owned by Rick Warner of Marine City, in third in the Multihull section.

The majority of the cruising boats, which started on Friday, were off or above Traverse City this morning with the earliest cruising boats already finished at Mackinac Island.

The rest of the fleet was roughly half-way up Lake Michigan. Windquest, the Max Z86 owned by Dick and Doug Devos of Macagtawa, MI, was leading the non-cruising fleet and was off Traverse City.

Windquest is the largest boat in the fleet and consequently will sail the fastest. But whether it wins depends upon Windquest leading its class by enough that smaller boats don’t correct over it, once handicaps are figured.

There’s still a long day and night of sailing left and any of the leaders could change. By tomorrow tired crews will be looking for the Mackinac Bridge and with the renewed energy that comes with the end of a race, trying for that last bit of speed.