San Francisco Bay Area Yacht Clubs and Sailors Dominate the Mac

The 117th edition of the Chicago Yacht Club’s (CYC) Race to Mackinac presented by Wintrust, and the Bayview Yacht Club’s (BYC) Port Huron Race to Mackinac Island, were as different as the two great lakes they’re raced upon. Yet the familiarity and familiar faces between these freshwater dashes are strikingly similar.

San Francisco Bay Area sailors including Scott Sellers’ No Surprise, Elliott James’s Bloom County, Marc Belloli and Todd Jones’s Shinebox, and Nick Gibbens, who oversees Sic Parvis Magna for Wintrust, all fared quite well, taking home several section victories, podium finishes and banners.

Chicago lies at the bottom of Lake Michigan, with Mackinac at the top, 333 miles away. Even though the turtle-shaped island is actually on Lake Huron, the bodies of water are invisibly separated to the naked eye. But in 1957 it became easier to create a dividing line when the massive Mackinac suspension bridge was built.

Both lakes can rage like an angry bathtub. The late Ted Turner joked that racing on Lake Michigan was probably like a mill pond until he chose 1970 as his first attempt — that race was hit by ferocious gale-force winds that decimated half the fleet. Turner took line honors on the 12-Meter American Eagle, with the legendary Bruce Kirby on board. But this year it was Lake Huron that provided the fireworks. Thankfully there were only a few minor scrapes and bruises, as race officials in both races did a fantastic job preparing the teams in advance of the coming weather.

CYC’s Lake Michigan course challenged the fleet of 252 yachts with an entrée of multiple offshore sailing conditions, from upwind and downwind racing to heavy air and tactical light winds as powerful overnight thunderstorms popped up seemingly out of nowhere. Sailors reported winds exceeding 35 knots with several teams experiencing moderate damage, including one report of a broken rudder and another of a mast failure.

As the race unfolded, teams navigated rapidly changing conditions. Early upwind sailing pushed much of the fleet toward the Michigan shoreline. The wind later shifted nearly 180 degrees, transforming the race into a downwind contest and rewarding teams that had anticipated the change and positioned themselves to take advantage. In all, 17 boats retired from the race. All crews are accounted for and safe.

The CYC’s presenting partner Wintrust Bank brought back S.F. Bay Area sailor Nick Gibbens to once again organize a team to charter and sail the J/145 Sic Parvis Magna. Gibbens and his trusted longtime sailing companions were rewarded as they finished with an elapsed time of 1d 18h 41m 19s for a second place in Section 2, and 32nd overall.

Tiburon’s Elliott James raced the 1984 Vallejo driveway-built Mancebo 31 Bloom County, which he and his dad brought to Chicago on a trailer. James and his crew finished second in Class 8 with an amazing sixth overall for the Mackinac Cup. “We struggled a little bit upwind; we only had four people on board [his college buddies], and it is ridiculous how many people some of the teams put on these tiny boats,” James said after just his second Mac Race. “It finally lightened up and we started passing boats left and right. If we’d had another 50 miles we definitely could have captured first!”

In the Bayview Mackinac Race (Port Huron to Mackinac Island), crews are divided into 14 Sections and can choose from two courses. The Shore Course (204 nm) hugs the eastern Michigan shoreline, and the Cove Point Course (259 nm) takes the fleet into Canadian waters before tacking west through the Straits of Mackinac.

Storms swept across Lake Huron shortly after the start. As the fleet faced the dark skies ahead, the wind at the start was a healthy 14–18 knots from the SW before it spun around from the west with intermittent gusts into the 20s. Heavy rain and wind arrived shortly thereafter; the fleet took a pounding. Eighty-five of the 193 starters dropped out in quick succession with blown-out sails, snapped shackles and at least three broken masts, but thankfully no serious injuries.

In the Doublehanded Section the J/111s No Surprise and Utah engaged in a furious duel. It was a busy three weeks for Scott Sellers from Larkspur and his “captain,” teenage daughter Merritt, as No Surprise got off to a challenging start in the Port Huron to Mackinac, having to unravel a knot in the spinnaker amid heavy seas and gusty winds — with just the two of them onboard. In the CYC Race to Mackinac, Sellers said, “We pushed hard the entire race; no one left the deck for the first 12 hours as we worked through the squalls.” No Surprise finished third in the J/111 Class out of 12 teams in 2d 8h 32m 49s.

Father and son duo of Bradley and Ian Faber crewed Utah. The duo know No Surprise like the back of their hands, with the two yachts frequently exchanging leads back and forth across the same patch of water. This time, though, it was Utah who relished line honors and came out on top by just nine minutes and 46 seconds to finish in just 1d 14h 52m 49s. The stinging pain for No Surprise was short-lived as they bounced back this past weekend to claim first place overall in the Ugotta Regatta, hosted by the Little Traverse Bay Yacht Club. (The club will host the Melges 24 Worlds this September.)

It was a family affair for the Briedens, as multiple brothers and dad Geoff Brieden out of St. Francis YC raced the Farr 40 Shinebox to finish second in Class 3 at 1d 20h 8m 17s. (Unfortunately she retired from the Port Huron Race with broken rigging.) Eric Brieden, 19,  is the “youngling” on Fast Tango,  and the only one who actually finished the Port Huron race. Eric’s older brothers Bryan and Thomas raced on Trim, which also retired. “I’ve never seen waves that big on the Great Lakes,” Eric Brieden said after his fourth Port Huron to Mackinac race.

Year in and year out, the Mackinac races are the most competitive events of their kind and are on every racing sailor’s “bucket list.”

See full results at CYC Race to Mackinac and Bayview Mackinac Race.