Chicago
to Mackinac ’05 Race Review by Steve PicheDeb's Team on "Big Storm" F28
This past weekend, I had the privilege of racing on a F31-ID (trimaran) in the Chicago to Mackinac race. This is one of the oldest and most prestigious races in the US. I thought I would share some of our experiences from the race with you.
While Monday morning is usually not my favorite time of the week, this past Monday was truly an exception. As the sun was rising, we (Team Abandoned Assets) were bearing down on the Gray’s Reef passage that marked the entrance to the Straits of Mackinac in the very northern part of Lake Michigan. We had completed roughly 270 nautical miles and were only 40 nautical miles from the finish.The wind had been building all night and as the sun came up it had freshened up to 20-25 knots. With our big spinnaker pulling us downwind, we were flying over the waves. The speedometer was running consistently between 15-20 knots.
As the sun came up, we were able to see as many as 20 large monohulls surrounding us. The winds had been light the first day of the race allowing the big sleds to get a substantial jump on us. However, as the wind built during the second day, we begin to buzz through the fleet flying past the slower monohulls.
As we entered the Gray’s Reef passage, a narrow cut in a set of shoals, all the boats congregated together. After nearly 40 hours of sailing, we were almost within touching distance of these magnificent, beautiful boats. The light of the rising sun, the beauty of the boats all flying along in a 20 knot breeze, the magic of Lake Michigan all combined together to make a scene not to be forgotten. At that moment, most Americans were rising to head off to work. We could only grin and think how luck we were.
The magic of the moment was amplified by the difficult road that it took to get to that point. The Chicago to Mackinac is a mythical race with over 100 years of history. However, it is also a very dangerous race. This is not a race that one enters casually, especially on a trimaran.To enter the race, our boat needed to meet a very extensive set of safety criteria. Among the many items that were needed were survival suits, Emergency Position Beacons (EPIRBS), lifebuoys, flares, radios, jacklines, safety lines, etc. Because we took delivery of the boat in late May, broke it right away and then did not get it back until late June, we were very pressed to meet the over 20 pages of safety requirements.
In addition, entering the race is not as easy as sending in your registration. The Chicago to Mac race committee must invite you to participate. You must apply for an invitation which turns out to be a complicated process for those who have not sailed the race before. In the end, our first place finish in the Veracruz Regatta last year and some friendly recommendations allowed us to enter the race.Not only was it a challenge to get into the race and get adequately prepared, it had also been a challenging sail to Gray’s Reef. The wind had really kicked up the previous evening and the boat was getting difficult to handle in the big waves. Occasionally, the rudder would cavitate in the big waves. When this occurred, the boat would start heading up into the power zone. It was an uncomfortable feeling on the helm and led to lots of shouts of “OUT ON THE MAIN, OUT ON THE MAIN!!!”. In addition, the waves really threw the boat around requiring great concentration on the helm. As the wind gathered speed and the sun set, we needed to navigate around the Manitou Islands. This required everyone up on deck working together as a team as we guided our boat around these Islands in the dark.
As we turned the corner around the last island, a large thunderstorm appeared right in front of us. We could see lightening all over the place in this storm. It was right in front of us but how far away is it? In the dark, it was difficult to tell. Fortunately, Jim Van Fleet, the owner of the boat, had put the best electronics on the boat. We had a large flat panel screen that not only displayed our position but was also capable of displaying radar images. The radar images are transmitted by XM satellite. This is a service that just recently became available.
I climbed down to the nav station to watch the storm on the flat panel. It was straight ahead of us but fortunately it was 20 miles away and moving to the east away from us. Although we were not going to get nailed, I knew that the boats just in front of us were taking a beating. The center of the cell was red on the radar and it looked very nasty from on deck.
Unknown to us at the time, an F31, Emma, was caught in the middle of this storm. As they tried to push for a good finish, they continued to run their chute. A micro burst suddenly hit the boat and it was all over. Emma flipped over. The nightmare scenario for all tri sailors had occurred.
The crew on board Emma was very fortunate. Since the boat was close to the entry to Gray’s Reef, a number of boats picked up their distress signals. They were plucked out of the water within 10 minutes. Their boat, turtled upside down, was left to drift away. (Unfortunately, the boat floated to the entrance of Gray’s reef where its mast stuck in the rocks. This led to a large amount of confusion as to the safety of the crew as a large number of monohull sailors sailed by the overturned boat later in the day.)
Given the difficult of entering the race, preparing for the race and the challenges of the night of sailing, it was a truly magical experience when the sun came up and the beautiful scene described above descended upon us. We had made it!
A quick turn around the end of Gray’s passage and we blasted on a high speed reach under the Mackinac bridge and into the finish. A helicopter came along and snapped a picture of us on a high speed reach. The leeward hull is buried with spray flying 15 feet in the air. Aaron McCulley and Michael Yost are up on the windward hull with grins from ear to ear. In the end, Team Abandoned Assets finished sixth in our class. Randy Smyth bested us and all of the other multihullers in all classes. We were happy with our finish. We were rookies and made some rookie mistakes (don’t go up the Wisconsin side of the lake, head east off the start, and don’t get too close to the shores where the wind turns off!). However, getting to the finish was a great accomplishment in itself given the lack of time for preparations. In the final analysis, this is really a wonderful race. The number of boats that participate, the beauty of Lake Michigan, the great sailing, the parties at the start and finish all made for a great experience. Now I understand how some people become Old Goats and Double Old Goats. (An Old Goat has sailed the race 25 times and a Double Old Goat has sailed it 50 times!)Steve
Jim and I are getting ready for the Bay
Week Regatta, so I don't have time to give my usual full blown Race Recap but
I will try to fill in some of the blanks. Note that TOT handicaps were used to
score the race. I used the TOD handicaps just to show the relative
differences in boat speed, between the boats....some how I just can't relate
to TOT handicaps.
The Multihulls had less than 5 knots of
wind, right on the nose for their start. Rocketeer III and a pack of
C31-1Ds were fighting for the starboard end
of the line, but Randy Smyth peeled off early and restarted....I'm assuming he
hit the starting mark. Then there was a gap in the line of starters and then
I believe it was Matt Scharl's F 25C, Gamera, above us. Moments before the
start, Forbes Husted's F-31R, AHYADOOIN', crossed us and started just to
leeward at the gun. We had a good start on board our F-28, Big Storm. Gamera
found clean air and they were off like a shot. Mark Segraves' F-31, Zingara,
started just behind us with their screacher up, but we could easily out
point them with our jib, and they were forced to foot off below us. Ron
White's F-31, Stampede started in the second string, back and to leeward. I
didn't see the rest that was going on. In all that dirty air, we eventually
fell in behind Stampede and we were forced to tack for clean air. Martin
Foster's Reynolds 33, Double Time, started behind us and was running just to
weather and behind us after the start. Most of the Multihulls were carrying
their screachers, but that turned out to be slow when they had to tack
frequently in the light, shifty breeze. That's probably how we wound up in
front of Tom Reese's F-28R, Flight Simulator. We went with our jib and it
worked well for us.
While most of the multihulls continued to
run down the shore with the GL 70's, Bruce Geffen's Super Shockwave 38, Nice
Pair, tacked on a line with us ahead.. It seems that the consensus of the
fleet, the entire 297 boat fleet, was to sail the west shore of Lake
Michigan. That is where the most wind was supposed to be. All the
weather models showed more breeze on shore in the early hours of the race.
But, that is not what we found on board Big Storm. Every time we tacked east
toward the rhumbline, we gained on the boats on shore, including the F28 R,
Flight Simulator. We crossed ahead of them several times before they furled
their screacher, split off and went their own way. Only Farrier 33R, Nelda
Ray, (PHRF -48) owned by Peter Patullo, which was not in our section, was
sailing a higher course than we were. We were also accompanied by the GL 70,
Pororoco, and a fleet of J-105s. I counted about 10 boats that were sailing
the rhumbline above us. Surprisingly, we were keeping up with Nelda Ray, as we
ran abeam of her for a long time before losing her in the night.
As the day wore on, and the breeze shifted
from NNE to NE, we were getting lifted up inside of the fleet onshore
and right up to the rhumbline. We actually saw whitecaps about 6:30PM and we
were soon sailing at 8-10 knots on the rhumbline. Finally, we could say
goodbye to Chicago! We were in bliss as we caught up to and passed most of
the fleet which appeared to be sitting in the doldrums on shore. But, we knew
it wouldn't last and it didn't. When the breeze settled down about and hour
or so later, we were averaging 5-6 knots. When the breeze shifted further
aft, about 11pm, we switched to the screecher and about midnight, we switched
again to the chute. The breeze died down to less than 5 knots about 3am and
we found ourselves being lifted away from the rhumbline on starboard tack,
forcing us to jibe downwind at 2-3 knots , but the angles were really good,
even if we were going slow. Our game plan was to stick to the rhumbline. But,
in the night, we couldn't help but wonder about the boats that sailed the
shoreline....were they doing better than we were along the shore? ....Were
they getting more breeze than we were?
Sunday was more of the same, playing the
shifts and jibing down the rhumbline, averaging 6-7 knots. Sometimes we
could sail the rhumbline and sometimes we couldn't. 7:00PM, I had just got
done cooking dinner and boiling water for later when the breeze suddenly
picked up to 8-12knots. We rushed around, stowing gear and putting on our
fowlies, but it was a false alarm. All dressed up and no where to go!
The breeze did build, slowly to a crescendo
as we approached Manitou Pass and all the boats converged on the rhumbline at
the same time. At 7:28PM Sunday night, we heard the Bruce Geffen's 38' cat,
Nice Pair (PHRF -36) check in at the 45th parallel. Nice Pair was the first
multihull to check in. We also heard Emma, the Corsair 31(PHRF-18) check in
at 10:22PM. Emma, the boat that flipped, was racing in Section 2 with us. We
were really impressed by their check-in time. Emma, checked in about 2 hrs
20mins ahead of Abandoned Assets and she was probably winning the regatta at
the time. Abandoned Assets actually checked in at the 45th parallel about 3
hours ahead of us. He raced in Section 1. We were the slowest boat in the
multihull fleet with a PHRF +36. But there was still one multihull behind us.
The thunderstorm to which Steve refers was
also about three hours ahead of us, moving east and ahead of the majority of
the fleet. We could see it, but we couldn't hear it. We figured that it was
still a long ways off and not a threat to us, but it was still worrisome. The
weather radio was issuing constant severe weather alerts for thunderstorms
packing 50 mph winds and large hail....but that was behind us, across the lake
in Wisconsin. Ron White, skipper on the F-31, Stampede, said that they chased
the thunderstorm all the way through the Manitou Pass. He checked in at
1230am. Tom Reese's F-28R, Flight Simulator, checked in at 1:20am.
Meanwhile, Jim and Mike were surfing Big Storm through the waves with the
chute up, hitting speeds of 17.5 knots at times. As the wind and pitch of the
waves built, we sailed very the deep on the rhumbline, but we couldn't sail
our fastest course with the chute up. So we doused the chute, got the
screacher out and began jibing downwind once again. We cut the corner at
Sleeping Bear Point and crossed the 45th parallel at 3:42am.
Poor Jim, he was so tired. All day, Jim
tried to sleep, but he was too excited and now he was brain dead and
useless...I sent him to bed and I took over the helm. Mike Teodecki and I had
some fun surfing the waves in the wee hours of the morning. When it was
light enough to see what we were doing, we sailed over to the rhumbline and
set the chute once again.
It was 6:35am on Monday morning, when we
heard the news about Emma on the radio, but all we heard was that "a multihull
had flipped over and everyone was picked up by a power boat"...we didn't know
who it was or the circumstance. We could only guess. After that news, we did
not push it quite as hard as we might have otherwise.
At 9:10am, we heard a Mayday call to report
that " a Trimaran just flipped in front of me." This lead us to believe that
there was another multihull capsized. After two such reports, we were being
very vigilant and conservative. This turned out to be the same boat.
Meanwhile, Jim was all a twitter!
At 10:26 that morning, we came upon the
upside down trimaran as we approached Gray's Reef. It looked small, not at
all like a 30 foot boat. Although the wind was piping at 18-25 knots, we were
still able to carry our big chute, but it was more manageable in the
daylight. We sailed through Gray's Reef, with a pack of 7 monohulls. But all
hell broke loose on the other side as we tried to sail our proper course to
the Mackinaw Bridge. The breeze picked up another 5-10 knots and we doused
our chute quickly for a power reach under jib and main to the bridge. We
still buried the leeward ama a few times in the steep waves. I don't know how
the monos were able to carry their chutes and stay on their feet....some
couldn't, I guess. Once through the bridge, we saw monohulls rounding up and
broaching repeatedly. We probably could have carried the screacher, but we
were too tired to even suggest such an idea this late in the game.
The upshot is that, the winner in our
fleet, Section 2, was Lake Erie Multihulls' very own, Tom Reese with his
F-28R, Flight Simulator (PHRF 18), sailing in his very first Mackinac
Race. Tom says that they sailed to within a quarter mile of the Wisconsin
Shore, and they did find more breeze there, before tacking straight across the
lake with the shift. Unlike us, they were able to sail the rhumbline all the
way through Manitou Pass. Flight Simulator also corrected out 2nd
place overall in the Multihull Fleet. Matt Scharl corrected out 2nd in
Section 2 on his F-25 C, Gamera. Big Storm corrected out in third place, just
10 mins out of second place, in Section 2. We corrected out 7th overall in
the Multihull Fleet and ahead of the C31-1D, Abandoned Assets.
Randy Smyth and Ken Winters took all the
Honors on the C31-1Design on Rocketeer III. Past Silver Medallist, Randy
Smyth, drove them to a first place in the Multihull 1 section and 1st
Overall. HL Enloe, on the C31-1D, Lei Loe corrected out second in Section 1
and Bruce Geffen's Nice Pair corrected out third.
Go to the Chicago Mackinac website for race
results and other details:
http://chicagoyachtclub.org/racetomackinac/
Many of the boats carried transponders
during the race to aid the public in watching the progress of the race in real
time. Be sure to check out the Flagship Tracking Service page, where you
will be able to access maps of the race course and track the progress of
various boats, in each fleet, at different times during the race.
Well, I tried to keep this short, but I
just couldn't help myself!
Deb Schaefer
