Records and Winners for Bayview Mac

(July 18, 2016) – The Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race proved to be a fast ride for the 214 boats that started Saturday, July 16, from Port Huron with all but 14 teams completing the contest in Mackinac Island.

A Hunter 37 that won Class J-Cruising also won overall honors in Division II (Shore course, 204 nm). “It’s probably unusual that an older (built in 1987), heavier boat would win,” said Freedom’s skipper James Cooper,” but we also won class and overall in 2012 with Freedom. Given the conditions and the fact we have an asymmetrical and, like all winners, stayed awake and aware in the middle of the night, we were able to do well.”

The first of two storms caught Freedom 10 to 15 miles from the finish, causing the boat to broach twice. “We put a kite up three hours into the race, and only took it down once…when the storm removed it for us,” said Cooper, laughing. “We tore our chute and got a second one up and got going again. When we finished in daylight (Sunday evening, July 17) only 12 sticks were in the harbor. We were absolutely ecstatic; we felt like Goliath was pitted against us and we won.”

Evolution, the Santa Cruz 70 owned by Terry Kohler & Peter Reichelsdorfer (Sheboygan, Wis.), won Class A and overall honors in Division I (Cove Island course, 259 nm). Reichelsdorfer’s son Richard, who served as skipper/navigator explained that the team’s plan (after looking at weather models) was to stay west of the fleet.

“The first couple of hours were tricky, because the wind didn’t do what it was supposed to, but we still stuck with our plan, hugging the Michigan shoreline. We had some traffic issues in the first 6-8 hours, which cost us: by 7 p.m. Saturday night, we were 3-4 miles behind everyone. But we stayed patient, and as the overnight hours came, we were able to see the rest of our class starting to sail higher and slow because they were being lifted toward the Canadian shore (that we wanted to avoid). Once we saw that, we made the effort to sail lower and keep getting the separation on our competition. We made our gains and passed them. We were fourth to finish over the line (after Heartbreaker, Natalie J and Denali). Interestingly enough, they had seen what we were doing and came down to match our line. They are faster, so all we needed to do was stick with them. There aren’t many passing opportunities on the second part of race, so we just got to the finish as fast as we could.”

Even though Rick Warner (Marine City, Michigan) and his crew aboard the Orma 60 Areté set a new elapsed course record at the Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race on yesterday, it was Alan Gurski’s and Ben Gougeon’s (Bay City, Michigan) 35-foot Adagio that won the race’s Division III (Multihull) overall when it arrived at Mackinac Island around 6:16 p.m. last night.

Areté had finished at 11:14 a.m. that morning to finish the Multihull division’s 298-mile Cove Island Course in 21 hours, 44 minutes and 58 seconds, shaving nearly two hours off its own record, which it set last year, but today Gurski had the spotlight with his ride that, on corrected time, put him at the top of the scoreboard and Areté in third position.

“It was a nice, fast ride; I’d give it a 10,” said Gurski, who explained that Adagio was built 46 years ago by his father-in-law (Gougeon’s father) who also once won this race with her. “It was a downwind run to Cove Island; we made the turn and hardened up to where we were reaching and broad reaching the rest of the way. A storm hit us 30 miles from the finish, but we were well prepared and were fast all the way into the Straights of Mackinac. We were passing lots of the Santa Cruz 70s along the way, so we had a good feeling that we were near the front of the fleet.”

Tomorrow, more than 5,000 people will gather on the grounds of Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel for a celebration with live music and a prize giving that will include the awarding of special trophies.

Bayview Yacht Club’s Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race on July 16 has the longer Cove Island course (259 nautical miles) and the shorter Shore course (204 nautical miles) .

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Source: Media Pro International