Good Evening,
Beautiful day in Newport to be on the water; the International Boat Show (13 acres on the waterfront) starts tomorrow!
Regards,
Edd
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That wooden sailboat with the sail number US 23 spent some time on the Great Lakes back in the 80s. A model of absolute grace on the water! She used to race the Port Huron to Mackinac race, a 259 nautical mile 2-3 day sprint up Lake Huron to Mackinac Island, and the Chicago to Mackinac race, it's 333 mile cousin on Lake Michigan. It's a 12 Meter designed and built to race in the America's Cup in 1970. She didn't make the finals in 1970, beaten by 'Intrepid', another 12 Meter in the trials who went on to win the America's Cup that year. Both boats would eventually end up on the Great Lakes.
One image I'll never forget was that of Heritage slicing through the Lake to our west just after sundown Saturday, during the first day of the 1985 Port Huron to Mackinac race. We were racing on a 43 foot boat at the time and Heritage, at about 63 feet long, went by us like we were standing still. We were all hit by a severe 'storm' Sunday night with 50 mph winds and waves in excess of 15 feet. About a third of the 300 boats racing were dismasted, crippled or dropped out. One boat ('Tomahawk') sank about a mile from us. The night was peppered with flares and Mayday calls on the radio and it was all we could do to keep the boat under us.
It wasn't really a 'storm' in the true sense but a huge high pressure system pushing a relentless, hard, cold northwest wind for about 16 hours across the Great Lakes Basin. We managed to finish the race.
Heritage went aground about 30 miles from the finish line. She managed to get off the rocks by herself and I'm not sure how the race committee ended up treating that from a finishing standpoint. To this day the race that year remains the talk on the docks when recalling racing sea stories in these parts. Although there were minor injuries throughout the fleet, thankfully no one was killed that year.
