Peruvian crew comes 6,000 miles to sail Mack

By Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki

July 2, 2014 at 6:46 pm Lake Huron

A crew from Peru will race a J-111similar to the one shown here in the 2013 Key West regatta, in the Bells Beer Bayview Mackinac Race.

A crew of Peruvian sailors is coming 6,000 miles – 12 hours in flight time – to sail the 2014 Bells Beer Bayview Mackinac race.

That’s a lot of miles for a sailboat race. And it’s well worth the airfare to the group.

“We sail a lot of international regattas, and this one was an opportunity to sail in a lake, in one of the most important regattas in the northern part of the U.S.,” German Fuchs Silva, leader of the Peruvian crew, said in an email.

Silva uses Quantum sails and invited Wally Cross of Quantum Sail and Design Group in Detroit to race on his J-111, Challwa, in last October’s Paracas International Regatta in Paracas, Peru.

“He was part of the crew that won the J-111 North American Championship with Quantum sails,” Silva said. “After the (Paracas) championship, we developed a good friendship with Wally and the invitation to race the Mack was a natural consequence.”

Cross put the Peruvians in touch with Brad Farber who owns a J-111, like Challwa, and that’s the boat the group will use in the Mackinac race.

They plan to rechristen Farber’s boat Challwa, just for this one race. The name translates to “fisherman’ in Peruvian.

After Mackinac they are considering the International Race of the Galapagos Islands Regatta in October, an approximately 200 mile race from Ecuador to the Galapagos.