Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac partners with Chris Bedford

by Winn Soldani on 14 May 2010 The Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac will be here soon! In support of the race and the racers, the Chicago Yacht Club has once again partnered with Chris Bedford of Sailing Weather Service, to be the official weather services provider for the Race.

Chris has extensive experience in forecasting for sailing and sailboat racing, at the highest levels, including eight America's Cups, three Volvo Ocean Race/Whitbread races, and four US Sailing Olympic campaigns. Most recently, he was team meteorologist for BMW Oracle Racing in their victory in the America’s Cup. Chris has also provided forecast services for many top finishers in Chicago-Mac races in 25 years of forecasting the race.

On July 23, at the skippers’ meetings for the Mac, Chris will prepare and present a forecast for the race that will be insightful, informative, and relevant to racers. Importantly, he will brief at both the morning skippers’ meeting and the evening skippers’ meeting. All sailors are invited to attend the briefings at both meetings if interested.

In addition, Sailing Weather Service will be providing online resources for sailors. A website portal will be built and updated that will include:

High resolution model forecasts of wind speed and direction over Lake Michigan
Text and graphical forecasts for the race area
Satellite and radar imagery
GRIB files for routing software

We’re excited to have Sailing Weather Services and Chris Bedford as part of our event. Weather is one of the most important variables in the race and a key safety concern, and we are glad to have one of the best sailing weather forecasters in the world on our team for the Mac race.

Should you have any question or comments, please contact the Chicago Yacht Club Race Coordinator, Amanda Matta at: racecoordinator@chicagoyachtclub.org

The Sailing Weather Service can be accessed at: www.sailwx.com