Bayview Mackinac - Can we get a break?

Crew in Port Huron from left to right: Nicole Neely, Fred Kreger, Kurt Hahn, Mike Henk, Pete "Camper" Peterson, Nathan Caspers, Nancy Caldwell, Colleen Flanagan, Hank Mistele, Harald Kolter

This race we got 4 crew members from Night Moves to come since their boat was not ready after running into a SUV.

We did not use this device enough

Going to weather

Start your engines

The start was with the J35s. We managed to start on the left side of the line. I noticed there were no boats on the weather side of the line and it looked like nobody could reach it. Unfortunately a J35, Night Train, came from the leeward side we had to slow down so we would not get caught barging. Although we were about 5 seconds late we had decent start. The first mistake I made was calling for the .75 spinnaker because of the tentative thunder storms. The other J120s used their .6 spinnakers and the sail area allowed them to get ahead of us in the first mile. We later changed to a .6 but never seemed to be able dig out of the hole.

After the start...Capers eventually got the lead and won the race

All the J/120's had a MB sticker on their sprits in honor of Mike Badendieck

The later classes got some storms with wind in them

Going to weather Monday morning, a little colder and rougher

West of Bruce Peninsula before Cove Island buoy - we were the farthest east

Fred's 99th Mackinac

The weather report was pretty inaccurate after the start. There was low center that was traveling across the lake. They get dicey predicting local weather and most of the forecasters said it was going to cross farther north. This creates a lot of wind holes and unpredictable wind directions. As it turned out, Carinthia and Jayhawker suffered from one more hole and although we got a better bead to the buoy, HT, Capers, and FI rounded just ahead of us.

After rounding the buoy we put up the .75 oz. in 16 knots of air and eventually went to the .6 spinnaker when the wind moderated.

Henry in his element

Mike Henk and Henry Mistele

We almost got leverage on the lead three J120s until they got a lift off the lower peninsula

We tried to pull it out by getting in a passing lane. We stayed north of the rhumb line when possible and almost pulled this one out. In the end we could only get a 4th not far behind Capers, Flyin Irish, and Hot Ticket. This was a well sailed race but we could not just get a break.

Here is the results link: finish results
Here is the link for iboat tracking: here

Sail change

Carinthia crossing finish line a Mackinac Island

We got a good mix of running and going to weather mostly
in moderate wind with the requisite wind holes

Unfortunately a J120 has no chance of winning the BYC Mac race with the Cove Island course. The best a J120 has done under IRC is 18th and this year although they sailed a nearly perfect race Capers got a 20th. We won in 2007 on the Thunder Bay course but the entire fleet sailed into a hole. There are no longer many passing lanes on this course. This change does discourage boats from sailing our race. The great thing is that we got to race one design and even though we got our heads handed to us, I love racing these guys.

Scooter came to greet us at the dock

Mackinac Island at last

This race seemed to get it all...wind, no wind, running, reaching, going to weather. We put up nearly every sail in the inventory. What really made it special was that we returned Mike's ashes to the waters north of Boblo Island near the straights of Mackinac. Mike had been stowed below and this was the first time we had seen his remains. We were surprised to find them contained in a Bacardi bottle wrapped in his crew shirt, a solemn moment indeed. Each crew member had a silent moment with him and we sent him to his eternal resting place.