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| Fighting the current to get to the start |
Short Summary of the race:
Saturday (it's all a little fuzzy, so apologies in advance):
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| The starting area was perfectly bisected by the shipping channel! yikes |
- Painful start with very light winds... many postponments, last fleet got off the line at 4pm. We were postponed for only about 30 minutes.
- Very light winds until 9pm. Our whole fleet was all bunched up together (not good for us as we're rated the fastest boat in the fleet)
Saturday Night:
- Watching the shoreline, we were sure we saw fireworks on west shore ... no idea what the event was, but maybe it was distant lightning.
- Lots of isolated rain cells passing across the lake. We monitored the radar frequently to watch for anything that might cause us trouble.
- With some careful timing and watching the storm track toward us on the GPS (yeah WX weather), we managed to strip the spinnaker down and get under control just minutes before edge of the cell came over us. Others around us struggled with sail changes in the strong winds.
- Managed to slip by the back side of the storm and avoided the major winds and nastiness, and picked us a nice lift to keep us moving.
- We had a stretch of decent wind that kept us moving for a while.
- Once the cells has passed, we still were seeing lightning, but looking at the radar, the storms were more than 300nm away to the west of lake michigan. Incredible how far you can see this stuff out on a lake.
Sunday Early AM
- The wind died completely (somewhere 2-6am). GPS track showed us moving toward shore (SW), but boat was pointed north'ish. Current dragging us inshore and backwards.
- Swells preceded the return of some wind. Likely from the more active weather and cells that passed to the East on the upper portion of the lake.
Sunday
- Grey day, occasional light rain, and a few sunny breaks, but mostly grey.
Monday Early AM
- Rogers City .... oh how I hate Rogers city ..... might be the nicest place int the world, but I never want to see it again. The wind died out completely. Windex and electronic indicator spinning in circles sails slapping. Night was spent watching the other running lights to see if they were moving any better. For the most part, we continued to take boats.
- At times, the boat speed was 0.0, wind speed was 0.0, but we were still doing ~1.0 over ground. A quick check on the WX lake conditions, show a favourable current which at least kept up moving toward out destination.
- Linda came on shift and did her usualy magic and got the boat going again.
- The winds built back up through the wee hours of the morning until I was awoken to the sound of rushing water moving by my head in the aft berth.
Monday Morning
- Upwind to the finish, with a good stiff breeze. New jib looked nice, boat doing a consistent 6-7 knots.
- The boat was feeling really nice. We double reef'd the main and kept the jib up for a while as the wind built to over 20 knts. It eventually eased back down to the high teens and we shook out both reefs and kept our speed up. As we approached the island, the breeze funnelled and picked up again, but we kept full sail until the finish.
- The last 10 miles it really tough as the islands (Bois Blanch, Round and Mackinac) move into view.
- The two towers of the bridge became visible a long way out.
- What we thought were fire boats turned out to be ferries that produce rooster tails 60 feet high!
- A pair of large lighthouses mark the straights of Mackinac between Mackinac and Round Island.
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| A view from above. |
Finish:
- 12:36pm ... not bad .... 47 hours ... at times it seem'd like it would take forever
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| John catching some shade |
Getting into the harbour was sedated mayhem. People trying to fit boats into impossible spots, at really funny angles, hovering, doing circles, but at the same time, already you could feel the tension of the race dissipating. The harbour appears to be designed for very large craft, and the arrangment of finger and pilings did not facilitate convenient rafting. We ended up bow to a finger at 45 degrees, against a pile. By the end of it all, we had 4 other boats rafter off of us mostly resting on a single fender! |
| Fort Mackinac |
Before we hit the dock, the harbour master informed us that we were going to be subject to an inspection. We weren't exactly sure of what type as the SI's indicated that the DNR might inspect boats looking for unregistered ones, and be fining people. In the end it was just a random safety inspection. The inspection covered about 15 selected requirements from the MSRs. Aside from having to tear up an already messy stinky boat to locate various bits of equipment, we passed without issue.
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| Channel between Round and Mackinac Island |
After pulling out all the fenders we had to protect ourselves, we stepped ashore to absorb the island a little. Priorities were to find the showers, and wander around the main street.
The island appears to be the fudge capital of the country.
Chris
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| A final view back toward Mackinac |
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