First 40.7

SPANKER WINS MACKINAC RACE

SLOW MAC TESTS 40.7 METTLE

BARRACUDA SINKS ON RETURN TRIP

[Tuesday, July 17, 2007, Mackinac Island, Michigan] After completing what was one of the slowest races in recent years from Chicago to Mackinac Island, Jim McDonnell’s winning Beneteau 40.7, Spanker, crossed the finish line at 2:51 AM today after a 61 hour 31 minutes adventure. Bob Vickery’s Collaboration finished in 2^nd place over an hour behind Spanker. Excalibur, skippered by David Tarson, finished in third place about 11 minutes behind Collaboration.

The race for the 40.7 section started just off downtown Chicago on Saturday the 14^th at 1:20 PM. Meteorological predictions aside, the start was in a promising southwesterly breeze of about 25 knots. Many of the Beneteau 40.7’s crossed the start line going downwind under jibs and reefed mainsails. Soon after the start, reefs were unfurled and jibs were replaced by spinnakers as the 40.7 section began to sort itself out for the 330 mile race. Unfortunately most of the wind predictions held true and the breeze began to diminish after a few hours. By early Sunday morning most of the boats were gasping for a breath of air as the waves subsided and the Lake took on a glassy look.

According to the race tracking system and interviews with most of the first four boats to finish, it appeared the boats that initially went furthest to the left, or west, gained an early lead.

Winning skipper Jim McDonnell had this to say about Spanker’s initial strategy: “We had decided from the beginning that we were going to be a left side boat as opposed to the middle or right hand side of things for the first 12 hours or so. It turned out most of the group was to the right of us at least till sunset Saturday.”

Continuing his story, Jim talked about the middle stages of the race: “About 1500 on Sunday we saw our first B40.7, Cancan, on our same tack. Excalibur was inside maybe a mile behind (us). This was south of Manistee. (Cancan eventually finished in 4^th place, Excalibur finished in 3^rd place). At first light on Monday, half-way through the Manitou Passage, Cancan slid ½ mile ahead and Excalibur was abeam. A dense fog settled in for the next five to six hours. It was our last contact with those boats. When the sun opened up the fog, about noon, we were two miles off Beaver Island where we found Excalibur and Collaboration (Collaboration finished 2^nd place) about an hour behind.”

“We entered Gray’s Reef and rounded Buoy #3 at approximately 1930 with an ETA to the finish of 2300. Not to be.

“We ghosted under the bridge at 2300 and came to a complete stop four miles from the finish. We stared at the Grand Hotel for three and a half hours before a northeast zephyr filled in. We did not hear boats call in behind us so the door closed for everyone. Needless to say we were anxious and exhilarated to cross the line at 02:51.”

The Chicago-Mackinac Trophy Division, in which the 13-boat Beneteau 40.7’s comprised one of nine sections, comprised 130 participating boats. In this division, Spanker finished 65^th, or exactly in the middle. Last year’s (2006) winning 40.7, Collaboration, finished in 3^rd place. On the 2005 race, 40.7 winner Collaboration finished 21^st.

This was Spanker’s first trip to the podium since the 40.7’s have started their own section in this event in 2002. As Jim recounted, “Over the years, we have been on the pedestal for the Mac race seven times, missing one first place by 2 seconds. But that was in handicapped racing format. Finishing 1^st, with the great competition in our fleet and no handicap controversy about some boats doing better in heavy or light conditions, made the whole Spanker team feel the victory was a hard-earned compliment, and (I) commend both Collaboration 2 and Excalibur for their repeated pedestal appearances (This was Collaboration's 4^th pedestal appearance in 4 years and Excalibur’s 3^rd in 5 years). As well as the entire section for fighting through the ulta-light and non-existent wind conditions. Last but not lease, our ground support glas for bringing the rum and ice when we landed!!!. It was an honor to represent the B40.7 fleet at the awards ceremony.”

Ryan Weber, long-time crew-member aboard 5^th place La Tempete, had this to say about the race: “We were never short (of) ice cream bars, even on Tuesday. … We can’t complain. Nothing was broken. There were no storms and we arrived safely to the main event – the Mount Gay party at the Grand…. Our fleet truly is the best in the country. I am very excited to return for the Verve Cup.”

The first 40.7 that called in at the 45^th parallel was Clem Boltz’ Cancan deux at 0526 on Monday morning. Over the next hour and a half six more boats called in. Then there was a big gap of five and a half hours before the next boat, Turning Point, called in at 13:34. The last boat, Mojo, called in at 1454. Not recorded by the race committee, but having duly recorded it in their log and reported to the RC at the conclusion of the race, was Vayu’s crossing of the 45^th at 1405 on Monday. The mixed wind conditions considerable shook up the order of finish from the order at the 45^th parallel crossing.

Late Monday afternoon, several of the boats at the back of the pack opted to go outside (west) of the Manitou Islands instead of inside the Manitou Passage. Tory Enerson of 8^th place Tsunami describes what happened to them near the Manitous: “After endlessly trudging along we finally reached Point Bessie with the Manitou Passage in our sight. We checked the weather buoy information, surveyed the angles, and looked for best breeze on the water. As it was, all the information we had told us that it was one of those rare moments in the Mac Race when it seemed to be the right thing to do was to go out side the 'tous and hopefully avoid what we thought was a giant hole inside the passage. One has to keep in mind that at this point, we hadn’t seen another 40.7 for at least a day or so.

“Convinced we were in dead last, not only in section but in fleet, we decided to take the gamble and go with our plan to round the northwest side of the Manitous. We were able to stay in a nice line of breeze as we reached the southern tip of South Manitou when Ben spotted on the horizon, his former boat and our good friends Vayu, going outside the 'Tous as well.

“Great, finally another boat to zero in on and test our abilities against. We were bringing the wind with us and managed over the coarse of a few hours to close the gap significantly, now able to easily make out Vayu's yellow and red trident spinnaker with the naked eye. The wind was lightening some and by the time we were north of the islands, we were pretty much abeam of Vayu and back in the race.

“We used our glasses to look at the boats we had passed by going around and by one crew member’s count, there were over one hundred boats stuck in the passage, languishing in little to no breeze.

“After dinner, night had swallowed the long day before her, and it was time for my shift to get some rest in preparation for the final push to Macinac. "The only thing we care about is that you guys don’t lose sight of Vayu" was our direction to the shift on deck. When we arose at the given time, twenty minutes early if my recollection is correct, we asked immediately, "Where is Vayu?" The responses we got were less than encouraging. They said that one of two things had happened to her. Either she went back out side of Beaver Island, yeah right, or some series of alien green lights swallowed them up from our hip and that we should be sure to check that Vayu's crew was, in fact, still human when we got to the island. "Just go to bed guys, please, we got it from here." After being on shift in the black of night for about an hour we spotted Vayu on the inside of us and ahead by a few boat lengths. With her back in our sights again we were ready for the sunrise and what we were sure would be an exciting and close finish.”

Tory continues with his version of the exciting finish of the three-day race: “As we entered Grays Reef with the wind to our stern we spotted Barracuda just ahead of Vayu who was about twenty boat lengths ahead of us. Fantastic! Now we suddenly had a chance to reel in two boats.

“Gibing through the reef we decided to keep our shoot up going into the straits even though we would be sailing at about sixty degrees apparent while the lead boat of the three had gone with a jib. Barracuda was heading to the right of the straits either by choice or because she had a jib up and had to keep high. Vayu hoisted her a-sail and was able to over take Barracuda in little time from leeward with her greater sail area. We don’t have an a-sail, but the wind was lightening and we were comfortable that we could hold our shoot, even if we couldn’t climb up to the same plane that our competitors were on. Before we knew it we were through the lee of both boats and ahead.

“The wind lightened further and we all ended up having to go with jibs, the wind now coming almost directly from the Grand Hotel. We covered Barracuda, which continued to favor the right side of the channel, as Vayu tacked over to the left side, splitting with the two of us.

“As we passed under the bridge, we were comfortably ahead of Barracuda when we started to take bearings on Vayu all the way on the other side. She had gained significantly and we were definitely concerned with who would cross who at this point. We still had starboard advantage on her, but she had done a great job closing the gap, thus giving me my title to this article, Five Miles to Mackinac. As we converged we were still ahead but by only two or three boat lengths. We decided that the most important advantage this close to the finish would be to keep starboard advantage so we tacked directly in front of Vayu, prompting her to immediately tack back to the left clearing her air.

“This is where all the fun began. Suddenly a fleet race of 333 miles had become a true match race with only a few miles to do battle. If you were close enough to this epic duel, you would have been able to hear the driving pulse of Led Zeppelin’s eastern inspired mantra Kashmir urging Tsunami through every tack. Attacking from the rear you could hear Vayu being pushed to get every inch out of her boat by Wagner’s inspirational Ride of the Valkyries, ala Apocalypse Now.

“Vayu gained on every tack, though not enough to cross Tsunami due to our starboard advantage. With about a mile to go, Tsunami decided that the left had become too favored to continue holding our starboard position and we continued on to the other side. Vayu expertly changed gears and commenced with attacking us from the right. One tiny little shift either way would have been the whole 333 mile race. Back and forth, back and forth, (we later checked the GPS plotter on Vayu and counted 18 tacks) but in the end it turned out that there just wasn’t enough race coarse left for Vayu to accomplish her goal and Tsunami sailed across the finish line with just a few seconds to spare, ending what was one of the most exciting moments in Mac history for everyone on the two boats.

“We later heard from many of the spectators both on land and sea, that it was the highlight of the finish line and made the long wait worthwhile. As it turned out, there were six 40.7s that finished within twenty eight minutes of each other. (This is) just another validation of what a competitive fleet that we are all privileged to be a part of. I think that the only thing that can top the excitement that we found on the water is how much fun we had on the island and the return trip home, but that is a story for another day.” (you can read Tory Enerson's complete story of the 2007 Mackinac race at Five Miles to Mackinac.

RETURN TRIP

[Tuesday, July 24, 2007, Chicago] The trip home to Chicago was fraught with it’s own difficulties for many of the boats, most of whom chose to take the eastern route along the Michigan shore. On Thursday, with the returning boats still on the north half of the Lake, a passing cold front accompanied by heavy rain and hail, gave way to a full Force 8 gale with winds consistently in the 35 knot range and gusting to over 40. Waves built to over 8 feet at the mid-lake buoy and along the shore they piled up to over 10 feet.

The first reports of trouble were reported by Spanker, who trying to enter Pentwater harbor found the sand bar across the river mouth presented a formidable obstacle. Jim McDonnell recounts his experience at Pentwater: “On the return we were caught in the 35 knot northerly, Thursday afternoon, we reached Pentwater, our intended destination. At the harbor entrance we fell off a wave and hit a sand bar, a 8 ft wave spun us out, and we were being pushed to a huge rock pile, fortunately we popped up, under main & engine and slid into the breakwater entrance, otherwise we could have suffered a similar fate as Barracuda.”

Crew member Chris Klee had this to say about Spanker’s entrance at Pentwater on Thursday: “We had a… harrowing experience getting into Pentwater on Thursday, but by a stroke of luck suffered no damage. The interior of the Pentwater channel was deep so the wind and waves carried us off the shoal at the channel entrance and into the (deep) channel before we were smashed against the Southern break-wall. It was a close call. I will never enter another harbor in heavy seas with depth less than double my draft plus 1/2 wave height. And if it's not a commercial channel, I will stay away altogether on such days. It was a hell of an experience and an extremely close call for Spanker. And a lifelong valuable lesson learned at comparably small expense.”

Early on Friday morning news began to spread up and down the Michigan coast about Barracuda having foundered somewhere. First reports were that she had hit a reef near the Straits of Mackinac. Finally, local Michigan news and television stories, and a phone conversation with Barracuda crew-member John Boyle, confirmed that she had indeed sunk near Portage Lake after her keel was ripped off on Thursday night while attempting to seek refuge from the gale at the harbor there. Skipper Steve Pelke and two other crew were rescued unharmed after a tug moved Barracuda from the Portage Lake channel.

Other reported damage to Mac boats on Thursday included the T-10 Talisman losing her mast, and Stan Bailey’s section 2 boat Raven breaking her tiller off.

Dozens of returning Mac boats converged on Pentwater on Friday afternoon for the annual Friday night party in Pentwater. At about 4 o’clock in the afternoon there were about ten boats, including 40.7’s Turning Point, Vayu, Tsunami, and Cancan, circling outside the harbor entrance trying to negotiate the sandbar that had caused Spanker’s problem the day before. Turning Point was already aground on the bar and remained there for about half an hour until they hoisted sail, heeling the boat and adding power to the straining engine, and were able to get off and depart to the south. Vayu backed off the bar after lightly touching bottom and began circling. Cancan next made the approach and slid right over the bar and into the calm and deep water of the channel entrance. Vayu followed, pushing some sand aside. They were followed in short order by Tsunami.

The Pentwater Yacht Club, helped by Folie a Deux skipper, Larry Kwiat, put on a great party that night for about forty returning Mac boats.

The next morning, in calm weather, all of the 40.7’s made their exit to the Lake without mishap.

Jim McDonnell reports that Spanker’s steering cable broke 20 miles north of Chicago and that the stock emergency tiller is pretty useless. Luckily Spanker was able to utilize their autopilot to steer the rest of the way home. (As reported previously and often on this website, the 40.7 Vectran steering cable is subject to fraying and breakage and must be inspected frequently. Also, a method must be carried aboard to extend the leverage of the emergency tiller –a piece of pipe with clamps works great. Also, a spare steering cable should be carried on each boat. These are available from the Beneteau dealers or can be self-fabricated.)

Photos of the 40.7 Fleet at the 2007 Mac can be found starting on Page 8 of the 2007 Image Gallery or at Mac07 Photos.

Results of all years of 40.7 section participation in the race to Mackinac Island can be found at Mac07 Results All Years.