The Mac
More than 400 boats and crews will sail from Chicago in the 100th Race to Mackinac—no one can say what they’ll encounter, besides one of life’s great sailing experiences

Story by Erin L. Schanen with photography by Walter Cooper


In the northern reaches of Lake Michigan, nature in its most pristine form is boundless. Towering sand dunes make up the mainland Michigan shore. Islands, many uninhabited by humans, dot the horizon. As you sail farther north, the scent of pine fills the air, and yes, you can drink the cold, crystal clear water.

It is here, in this most unlikely place to find a long-distance sailboat race course, where the Chicago-Mac Race is often won or lost.

The challenge found in the second half of the 333-statute-mile race, where knowledge of local conditions, weather patterns and a great deal of luck determine a competitor’s fate, is what keeps sailors coming back year after year—decade after decade, even—to the longest annual freshwater distance race in the world.

Officially it’s called Chicago Yacht Club’s Race to Mackinac, but to the thousands of sailors who take part in the annual ritual it’s “The Mac,” or, if necessary to delineate it from its sister race up Lake Huron from Port Huron to Mackinac Island, the “Chicago-Mac.” On July 19, a record fleet of up to 460 boats will cross a starting line about a mile off Chicago’s skyscraping skyline for the 100th Race to Mackinac.

This year’s fleet is a far cry from that of the first race in 1898 when five boats sailed an informal race to the resort island at the intersection of lakes Michigan and Huron. The race was held again in 1904 and then it was sailed intermittently until after World War I. It has been sailed continuously since 1921.

The boats that sail the Mac now range from 33-foot Tartan 10s, to sturdy cruisers, to high-tech maxi racers built to break some of the world’s most esteemed sailing records, but many crews will have something in common with the crew of the first Mac winner, the sloop Vanenna, and her 1898 competitors: They’ll be made up family and close friends.

“That’s part of what makes the Mac such an enduring tradition,” said Race Chairman Greg Miarecki, who has sailed all but one of his 22 Mac races with his father, several with his mother and all with close friends, mostly aboard the family’s Ericson 35 Providence. “This is not like the NFL where a player often finds himself playing on a team with people he really doesn’t know. In order to effectively compete, you almost have to sail with a cohesive group of friends or family. That’s the reason the race is so special.”

Like this story? Subscribe online.

Although the occasional professional crew can be found in the race, skippers with amateur crews relish the opportunity to sail against some of the best sailors in the world.

Chris Dickson, head of the United States’ 2007 America’s Cup entry BMW Oracle, sailed on Larry Ellison's Sayonara. Famed billionaire adventurer Steve Fossett sailed Stars & Stripes, the former America’s Cup catamaran in the 1998 race. Other famous sailors who have done the race include Gary Jobson, Ted Turner, Dawn Riley, Bruce Kirby and scores of other luminaries.

But it is Turner who is perhaps most famous for underestimating the race. Having never sailed the Mac before, Turner was warned that Lake Michigan can dish up some particularly challenging conditions at times. Having thousands of ocean miles under his belt, Turner’s reply was akin to a guffaw: “Yeah, I’m really scared.” Later, with his 12-Meter American Eagle and his crew bruised and battered in a fearsome northerly gale, Turner famously proclaimed, “I hereby publicly retract anything and everything I have ever said about inland sailing.”

Eagle was the first to cross the finish line, but took second overall to the Gary Mull-designed 55-footer Dora. Of the 167 boats that started the race, 88 dropped out.

The story of Turner’s retraction is legendary among Mac sailors, and anyone who has sailed enough races can relate to it. Mac races are full of surprises.

The race starts in the company of a vast spectator fleet (the main feature of which is the Coast Guard cutter that accompanies the fleet up the lake—for years the majestic Mackinaw) off Chicago after a parade of boats past Navy Pier and ends 289 nautical miles later off quaint Mackinac Island. But race veterans will tell you that the Mac is really made up of three races: up the open portion of the lake to Point Betsie, past Gray’s Reef and the Manitou Islands, and from the turning mark of Can 3 where the Mackinac Bridge comes into view and the race for the finish line intensifies.

“I could easily start the Mac at Point Betsie,” said Chicagoan Tom Neill, who will sail his 36th Mac race this year on his Great Lakes 70 Nitemare. “The tactical aspect of the race to Point Betsie is not so much tactics as it is which side of the course you play. Then, once you get there, and invariably the fleet comes back together, on every boat I’ve ever been on, you get so reinvigorated. There are boats all over and you start watching them to see if you’re gaining on them. It gets the juices flowing.”

Whether to play the shore, and which one, is the first major decision of the race, although the adage always holds: Get north fast. Once the fleet gets to Point Betsie, the shore again influences tactical decisions. As boats work their way north, the Manitou Passage can often mean feast or famine. Pockets of breeze that can leave boats in millpond-like conditions while their competition slides by in a seemingly private wind a quarter-mile to leeward frustrates and befuddles sailors. Boats are not required to go through the Manitou Passage, and on occasion some bold navigators choose to go outside the islands. It’s a risky proposition. Going outside the islands means sailing extra distance, and parting with almost all your competition. But it can pay off.

Dick Jennings, whose Great Lakes 70 Pied Piper held the race record for 14 years after breaking it in 1987, has gone outside the Manitous twice, and has been successful both times.

“There’s logical reasoning to that decision (to go outside),” Jennings said. “The first time we did it, it worked out very well. We ended up passing larger, faster boats by going outside and ended up finishing first. That was a pretty big kick. It was particularly fun to wake up in the morning and see those guys behind us.”

Fellow Great Lakes 70 owner John Nedeau was not as lucky in his only trip outside the Manitous in last year’s race.
“I was hoping I was as smart as Dick Jennings, but the wind came out of the east as we were coming out and we were cooked,” Nedeau said.
After the Manitous, the fleet goes past Gray’s Reef lighthouse, where years ago spectators would sit on the lighthouse cheering competitors as they passed within yards. These days a noisy flock of cormorants has taken up residence on the lighthouse. Next comes Can 3, where boats make a right turn and head up the Straits of Mackinac. At five miles long, the Mackinac Bridge, the third longest suspension bridge in the world, quickly comes into view, but it’s still 17 miles to the bridge and the finish line is another five miles after that. The Straits can be frustrating. Crews can look forward to a screaming reach, another windless parking lot or something in between. And if they thought the ride to the bridge was long, they’ll be going crazy on the way to the finish line, when the smells of fudge and horses from the island call to sailors but the breeze is often elusive.

More challenging navigation awaits . Graham Shoal, just north of the bridge, beckons sailors with a siren song promising an unfettered breeze away from water-disturbing ferry traffic. But nearly every year, at least one boat ends up on the rocks, just miles from the finish line between Round Island Light and the beach of the Iroquois Hotel, where a crew of volunteers mans the station as the fleet finishes.

Lake Michigan serves up severe weather
No lives have been lost in the Mac race, a testament to the rigid standards for experience and seamanship required by Chicago Y.C. for entry, but severe weather is a fact of life for the fleet. In addition to the infamous 1970 race, gales battered the race in 1911, 1925 and 1937, when just eight boats of the 42-boat fleet finished. Short-lived but dangerous squalls are common as well.
In 2002, a line of squalls screeched across the top of Lake Michigan as the leaders of the fleet sailed near waters known for tricky navigation.

“We were three miles from the bridge when it hit,” Nedeau said. “As we were watching it come and we were already doing 17 knots, our navigator said we have nine miles before we hit the rocks. Then there was a wind shift and he said, ‘OK, now it’s four miles.’ We were expecting it to hit us at 35 or 40 knots but it hit us at 80.”

Nedeau’s Windancer, a Nelson/Marek 68 and the Palmer Johnson-built 78-footer Sassy both lost their rigs in the storm. Caliente, a 44-foot trimaran, capsized and its six-man crew was rescued by the crew of the Shock
55 Kokomo.

And then there are the polar opposite years, such as 1989 when the fleet endured one of the longest Macs in history. Crews were still seeing the lights of Chicago Sunday night. Families waiting on the island outstayed their hotel reservations and ended up camping on the beach waiting for boats to finally, slowly cross the seemingly elusive finish line.

Storms and parking lots are to be expected on a long-distance race. More surprising are insect infestations of biblical proportions, such as when a mayfly hatch covered the fleet in sticky, stinky, creepy crawling bugs in 1997.

“The Corel 45 (also called Nitemare) was brand new and those things were everywhere,” Neill said. “It was really light air. I was driving and all of a sudden we sailed into them. They were in my bibs, you were chewing on them. You couldn’t move without squishing one. We got through them and had only 20 miles to go to the finish line when we sailed into another patch. I couldn’t handle it. I said, ‘Give me the key. We’re quitting.’ And I was serious, but they wouldn’t give me the key and we won our class.”

Veterans of the race all have stories like Neill and Nedeau’s. In fact, one of the requirements for joining the Island Goats Sailing Society—for which membership is reserved for those who have sailed at least 25 Mac races—is that prospective members share their favorite Mac race story.

But Nedeau, 77, couldn’t tell you what story he told when he became an “old goat.” This year he’ll be sailing his 62nd Mac—more than anyone else—so joining the Goats is a distant memory.

Like many veteran Mac racers, Nedeau sailed his first race as a teenager on his father’s boat in 1946 and has missed only one race since then. Back then it was his father’s intuition, highly tuned from growing up on northern Lake Michigan’s Beaver Island, that told them where they were.

“It was fun when you got up to the top of the lake and you didn’t know where you were,” Nedeau said. “My dad knew intuitively where he was. I really enjoyed that part of it.”

In the age of GPS, there’s no need for that kind of intuition, and today Nedeau is the father figure on the boat. He sails with his three sons and five grandchildren as well as a group of people who, even though they are not blood relatives, have been sailing together so long they might as well be family.

“It’s a wonderful feeling,” he said. “There is tremendous camaraderie.”

A race for the ages
Tradition and camaraderie are sure to be important factors in this year’s race, which generated so much interest, entries were capped at 460 boats by late winter.

“This year is going to be the highest level of competition we’ve ever had,” Chairman Miarecki said. “We’ve got outstanding sailors from all walks of sailing, people bringing boats straight from the Newport-Bermuda race, national champions and more.”

Stars & Stripes, the catamaran Fossett sailed to the multihull race record a decade ago, is returning to the race, as are maxis Genuine Risk and Windquest. The largest multihull fleet the race has ever seen—30 boats—will be on hand, and the smallest one-design boat in the race will make up the largest one-design fleet. Forty 33-foot Tartan 10s are entered in the race, which could take them more than three days with average winds for them to finish. And more than 40 boats are entered in the cruising division.

“This is our way of opening up the fun of the race to folks who sail boats that happen to be heavier and slower,” Miarecki said. “It’s brought in a series of outstanding sailors in that class and the competition is no less serious.”

Mac sailors aren’t picky. When polled as to what they’d like to see for the 100th race, the majority of sailors wanted one thing, Marieki said: A Chicago-Mac Mount Gay Rum hat. In the past skippers got a handful of the signature red hats for a few members of the crew. This year, every sailor will get one.

There are other firsts for the 100th running. Every boat in the race will be equipped with a tracking device allowing people to “watch” the race on the Internet. A fireworks display over the Straits of Mackinac will fire off Tuesday night. America’s Cup tactician, famed sailing commentator and veteran of four Chicago-Macs Gary Jobson will be making a one-hour special on the race to be broadcast on ESPN Classic in fall.

“We’ll have camera people on about eight boats and spread them throughout the fleet to get a whole cross section of what goes on,” Jobson said. “You can’t cover everybody but you’ll come away knowing what the Mac is all about and see it from various viewpoints.
“The Mac is special. It can be freezing cold and blowing 30 or not a breath of air and every fly in the universe landing on you, but once you’re away from Chicago you feel like you’re in an ocean race, but the spray is fresh water. That’s always pleasant.”

As with most races, the fun doesn’t stop at the finish line. Part of the race’s charm is that it end in unique Mackinac Island (see page 68). Families have long been encouraged to participate in the onshore activities as well and the Porch Cocktail Party held on the Grand Hotel’s patio Sunday evening is a favorite among spouses driving up to the island.

The party used to be called the Ladies’ Cocktail Party until some time after Jennings’ and his crew smashed the 76-year-old race record in 1987 aboard Pied Piper and crashed the cocktail party. Finishing in 25 hours, 50 minutes, the Pied Piper crew substituted sail ties for neckties after a rousing run up Lake Michigan in the boat’s second year on the lake.

“It was like a no-hitter in baseball,” Jennings said. “We didn’t talk about it all during the race, but we all had an idea of what was going on. It wasn’t until we rounded Can 3 that the navigator said we’d beat the record if we averaged 3 knots to the finish.”

Pied Piper was the first Santa Cruz 70 to come to Lake Michigan, but his success started a class that now makes up the largest big-boat one-design class perhaps in the world. Now known as Great Lakes 70s, 10 of the Bill Lee-designed sleds are entered in the 100th Mac.
Neill’s Nitemare is one of them and although he has sailed Macs on many other boats including some of the highest tech designs of their time, the 70 is his favorite, Neill said.

“As I have aged it was always my goal to do the Mac on a boat longer than my age,” the 59-year-old said. “That’s what those boats were meant to do. You let them put the waterline to work, crack it off a little, stay relatively dry and get there quick.”
Neill is so taken with the race that he won’t let anything cause him to miss it, even death.

In October 2006 Neill was diagnosed with lung cancer and given six to 12 months to live. In a fashion typical for Neill, who is known as a gregarious and kind fellow and a friendly competitor, he made sure that living would include sailing.

“We kind of approached last summer as the swan song,” he said. “We had a phenomenal summer, and won just about everything we went to the starting line on. It was so much fun. I do this because of the people I do it with. I don’t do it to win. You want to be competitive, but it’s not about the winning. To me it’s about the time I can spend with the people I want to be with.”

And that’s why Neill will sail on Nitemare this year, and even if he’s not around next year the boat will sail again. Neill has arranged to have his crew, all longtime friends, sail the boat in the Mac the year following his death so they can scatter his ashes at Can 3, following a tradition set for many esteemed veteran Mac sailors before him.

“There was only one awkward moment since I’ve been sick,” he said. “Last year we were sailing and had to jibe at the Can, and as we got there it was getting quieter and quieter and nobody was saying anything as everyone was realizing where we were. Then Kevin said, ‘Hey Tom, do you want us to drop a case of Miller Lite so it’s cold when you get there?’ It was perfect.

“I know a couple of people who are already dumped there. I think we’ll probably have a great time playing poker. And heck, if enough of us get dumped there, we’ll end up with a big sandbar at Can 3.”

Nedeau, who said he doesn’t plan to stop adding to his record-setting number of Macs anytime soon, and his crew have scattered ashes more than once on the race as well, which is why he said he is grateful for every opportunity to sail the great race.
“We thank God for all our blessings when we start a Mackinac Race,” he said. “You’re just pretty damn lucky when you can do that.”
When the races are pleasant, it’s much easier to feel lucky to do them.

“I once finished on Wednesday afternoon,” Neill said. “I was 22 or so and I said, ‘I’m never doing this again.’” Several decades later, the Mac has taken on a new importance to the Chicagoan, one that’s as much a part of life as waking up in the morning.

Perhaps it’s that camaraderie, or the unique challenge the race provides, or the island out of history where the race ends and the revelry begins, but those who sail the Mac think of it not as a sailboat race, but a part of life.

“It’s not even a question,” Neill said. “It’s just in your schedule. It’s like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and the Mac.
“It’s part of life. You just do it. And it’s fun. Usually.”