On Saturday, July 15, more than 180 sailboats will leave Port Huron’s Black River and head out under the Blue Water Bridge to the southern tip of Lake Huron.
So begins the 99th running of Bayview Yacht Club’s annual race to Mackinac Island, the world’s longest consecutively run freshwater distance yacht race.
Depending on the wind and weather, the first boat will finish the more than 200-mile adventure late Sunday with the last boats straggling in on Tuesday.
On board one of the faster boats, a Morgan 42 named Wind Toy IV and a previous winner, will be Laurie Bunn, of Grosse Pointe Farms.
She’s a second-generation Mackinac racer who first raced with her father when she was 21. Also on board will be her husband, Rob, and her 14-year-old son Charlie, a freshman at Grosse Pointe South High School, making his fourth race.
“It’s especially fun now that my son is aboard,” she said.
The start of the race is “very exciting,” she said. “You basically have to stay out of the way of a bunch of boats until it’s your turn” to sail north, said Bunn, who’s done the race 23 times.
Club officials are pleased by the number of entrants this year. “We have boats from Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, New York and Ontario already signed up,” said Kevin Thomas, this year’s chair of the Bayview Mackinac Race.
In the event, the boats are grouped in classes by size and handicapped, with the smaller boats, down to 26 feet in length, getting the start at about 11:15 a.m. They’ll run the 234-mile shore (or short) course just off the Michigan shoreline.
Since the larger boats, up to 80 feet, are faster, they’ll get underway last. They take the longer 298-mile Cove Island course along the Ontario coast before heading for the Mackinac Island finish line.
The winners from each course get trophies. Another trophy goes to the boat with an all-amateur crew that achieves the best corrected time per mile. And the very last boat to finish? It’s dubbed the “pickle boat,” a reference to a fishing boat that stopped to pickle its catch.
In club tradition, sailors who complete 25 Mackinac races are honored with Bayview’s official designation of “Old Goats.”
This year, Bob Niederoest, a former Bayview commodore, is looking to do better than that.
The 81-year-old St. Clair Shores resident hopes to finish his 50th Mackinac race this year. If he does, he’ll achieve the rare status of “Grand Ram.” Besides bragging rights, he’ll earn a special pennant among his honors.
His first Mackinac race was in 1968. He’d just returned home from Vietnam, exhausted after hopscotching by plane for three days, from Pleiku in central Vietnam back to Detroit.
“I landed here on Friday, and we raced on Saturday, that part had been pre-arranged,” he said. “On the boat, I took the first watch for four hours and after that, I just went up in the bow and slept.”
He agreed with Bunn that the start of the race could be a little nerve-wracking.
“When the Military Street drawbridge (over the Black River) opens up, there’s a mass exodus out of there,” he said.
Boats then head towards the Canadian side because the current isn’t as strong there. “That shore is lined with people, watching about 200 boats going up shore over two to
three hours,” he said.
The night before, the docks along the Black River are packed with thousands of people, celebrating the annual Boat Night. However, most crews avoid the partying and return early Saturday morning to ready their boats.
The economic impact for the communities involved is more than $30 million, according to one press release. And next year, for its special 100th anniversary Mackinac race, registration is already open, and Bayview expects its largest field ever.
Like Bunn, former commodore Brad Kimmel will be sailing with family -- his daughter Addison, 15. The co-owner of his boat, a 36-foot J-111 named Diablo, is Steve Young. Also in the crew will be Young’s daughter, Evelyn, and son Alex. It’s the first Mackinac race for all three kids.
“This is all about family and being on the water away from cellphones and all that. It’s kind of medicinal,” said Kimmel, of Grosse Pointe Farms. He adds that he’s proud to be an “Old Goat,” as is his brother, Geoff.
“To get out there on the lake and unplug, it’s wonderful,” agreed Bunn. Still, the idea is to get to Mackinac as fast as possible, pushing the boat and crew to the limit.
To accomplish this, her crew of nine will rotate in four-hour shifts, with the extra person as needed. It’s a similar deal on Kimmel’s boat.
While Bunn’s crew gets cold pizza, barbecue if the weather’s right and grilled breakfast burritos on Sunday, Kimmel’s crew will dine on lasagna and beef sandwiches out of individual plastic bags for easy preparation. “And if it’s a good night and the wind is right, we may have a couple of glasses of wine,” he added.
But provisions aren’t the point. “There’s plenty of time to eat and drink when you get to the island,” he said.
Bunn agreed. “We’ll be tired, wet and happy to see family and friends” who have made the trip by land to welcome them, “and excited to be done,” she added.
As the boats near the finish line, if the wind is from the north, “you can smell the island’s evergreens, the fudge and the horseshit,” laughed Kimmel.
And the first stop back on land for most racers? A bathroom -- and then the fabled Mackinac Island bar, the Pink Pony.
“It’s a lot more fun when you’ve won your class and you’re at the Pink Pony having a beer and looking out over the harbor as your competitors come in,” said Kimmel.