Nasty Storm for Bayview Mackinac Race

Mackinac Island, Michigan (July 22, 2019; 18:00 EDT) – At press time 60 of the 202 boats racing in the 95th annual Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race had yet to finish. However, the overall winner on the Cove Island course has been determined.

Bill Martin’s (Ann Arbor, Mich.) Santa Cruz 70 Stripes topped 107 boats on his 259 nm course, correcting out over second-place finisher Equation, a Santa Cruz 70 owned by Bill Alcott and Tom Anderson (St. Clair Shores, Mich.), by just over two minutes. (Overall winners on the 204 nm Shore Course will be learned sometime before midnight when the last finishers are expected to arrive at Mackinac Island.)

Martin, who turned in an elapsed time of 32:09:33, finished just before 22:00 last night. “There was a little bit of everything: reaching, running, a lot of beating, and a pretty nasty storm thrown in on the first evening (July 20), with winds in excess of 30 knots and torrential rain,” said Martin, who now has 51 of these races under his sailing belt.

“We and Equation were in sight of one another the entire race; it makes it fun when you have somebody you can race against that closely, and two other Santa Cruz 70s were right there, too. The beat after Cove Island Buoy (roughly a halfway mark) was pretty darn tough; it was an honest 100 plus miles with winds in the mid-20s for a while. It was a spinnaker reach/broad reach up until then (to Cove Island) interspersed with the entertainment of the storm.”

According to Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race Chairman Robert Nutter, the storm dumped rain for three hours straight and harbored gusts of 40-45 knots. “There were some breakdowns, but most everyone persevered and enjoyed otherwise good conditions of 15-20 knots.”

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Overview and close-up of the 259 nm Cove Island and 204 nm Shore Course for the Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race.

Source: Media Pro