The Chicago Mac is one of the high points of the all too brief Great Lakes sailing season. Knowing this, we’ve provided online coverage of the Chicago Mac for going on 10 years. We have tried all sorts of things - from reporters sailing in the race to web cams that provide 24 hour viewing at the island. Still, we haven’t done as well as we like - nor have we satisfied all the folks who visit our website.

A sampling of some visitor comments “Poor coverage during the race….A race as historical and prestigious as the Mac certainly deserves better than the third grade result this site delivers….After 24 hours, your only update is that the race has started!”

OK, these folks have had their say. When you work on a project like this things like these hit home.

We know that early in the race our coverage is not satisfactory.
We know we want to improve our overall coverage.

So, now that folks have vented, I’d like to make all visitors an offer….help us help you by providing better coverage.

There is not an official call in until the fleet reaches the Manitous. Until then it’s hard to report on the specifics of the race. We understand the frustration but if there isn’t information out available, then it’s hard for us to report. Put another way nothing plus nothing is still nothing.

It would be nice if race organizers would have a Saturday night call in. This would give us all information earlier. It would be nice, but I don’t think it is going to happen.

Another suggestion is aerial coverage. This might also be a good addition, however, it is not cheap and it’s not easy. To account for individual boats and their position while flying isn’t a common skill. Also, flight time would be a rather large budget item.

Maybe sailors could arrange their own call in? Again, not likely, early in the race the boats tend to be farthest offshore with the poorest cell phone coverage.

The race organizer does outfit certain boats with tracking devices. There’s two problems with this. One 50 boats out of 300 doesn’t tell the whole story. Two, it seems as though boats that are often in the lead of the fleet, or various sections choose not to be tracked. Maybe they don’t want to have their position given away. Reporting based on a small sample of boats, and knowing that these boats are probably not going to be leaders, simply leads to inaccurate and infrequent reports.

Now is the point where you the sailor, spectator, &/or website visitor come in. We know coverage in the first 24 hours can be better. We know people want better coverage.

We’ve helped folks with our Mac coverage for 9 years….please help us make our coverage in 2005-the 10th anniversary-better. Use the comments section below to give us your suggestions on how we can provide better coverage.

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