It’s the Tuesday morning of the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac, normally the day when the preparations for this afternoon’s awards ceremony are made, and over half the fleet is still on the water. Only 108 boats have finished, and 19 have retired. There are still 172 boats on the lake, and they are trying to catch any puff of breeze they can.

This is by far both the fastest and slowest Mac in years. The strong breeze and small craft advisory at the start of the race on Saturday, July 14 was in no way an indication of what was to come, proving the unpredictability of Lake Michigan. The boats flew across the start line with their colorful spinnakers flying in the strong winds. Some boats report going over 25 knots. And then the wind died.

“This is the slowest race in all the years I have been racing since 1962,” Island Goat and past Race Committee Chairman Lloyd Karzen, explained. The Island Goats Sailing Society is a group of sai lors who have completed the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac at least 25 times.

Only two sections have all the boats finished, Section 1 and Section 2, which are the bigger boats in the fleet. In this situation, after one boat in the section finishes, the rest of the fleet has 24 hours to cross the line between Round Island and Windermere Point. Not one boat from the Cruising Division, Section 8, Section 9, or Section T-10 have finished. The awards ceremony will be short today, as we can only report a few section winners. Due to the handicap system, it is impossible to announce any overall winners until the majority of the boats finish.

So we wait. The winds are between 5-10 knots by noon, increasing to 6-11 knots around 5:00 p.m. We’ll see how many sailors make the annual post race party, held this afternoon.

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