It’s a bird, It’s a plane…It’s Supermac!

by Barby MacGowan on 30 May 2015 Faster than a speeding bullet, the June Five deadline for the Supermac Race is approaching. With 25 registrants (and rising), it means this race is a “go” by decree of the event’s Notice of Race, which stipulates a minimum of 20 entries needed.

In the past, Supermacs have been run at the turn of the decade (from Port Huron to Chicago in 2000 and from Chicago to Port Huron in 2009) and coincide with the start of the first of the two annual Mackinac Races (Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac and Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race, which alternate who goes first each year). This year’s timing is a break from tradition, and the Chicago is first, so upon crossing the finish line for the “Chicago Mac” (which starts on Lake Michigan July 11th), racers will proceed to the finish line for the Supermac Race, leaving Round Island, Bois Blanc Island, and Thunder Bay Island to starboard for a total rhumb line distance sailed of 568 statute miles.

Organizers (the Bayview, Chicago and Port Huron Yacht Clubs) are calling it the longest fresh water race on earth!

All competitors must be approved as entries in the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac, and by the looks of it, almost everyone is planning on competing in the ”Bayview Mac” (which starts on Lake Huron July 18) as well.

“We’ve got everything from a cruising boat (the 33-foot Niad 332 Hope, owned by Michael Leland of Valparaiso, Indiana) to an Orma 60 trimaran (Cheeky, owned by Rick Warner of Marine City, Mich.) to one of the former winning Volvo 70s (Il Mostro, owned by Peter and Christopher Thornton of Burr Ridge, Ill.) competing,” said Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Chair and Supermac Co-Chair Peter Wenzler.

Late entry deadline is June 12 and is subject to payment of a $100 late fee. So get your cape out and save some money by registering now. After that, as Superman would say, it’s “up, up and away!”

This year marks the 91st running of the Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race and the 107th running of the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac. Early entry deadlines for those races, respectively, are June 1 (late deadline June 19) and June 5 (late deadline June 12).