Fininsher in Chicago Yacht Club Race Mackinac

by Chicago Yacht Club media on 16 Jul 2007
At 6:54 p.m. CDT, Windquest, owned by Doug DeVos of Grand Rapids, Mich. crossed the finish between Round Island Lighthouse and Windermere Point Sunday, July 15th. The Max Z86, the largest boat in the fleet of racers in the 99th Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac, was the first to finish the Mac for the second year in a row.

'We put up the kite at the Manitous and flew under the bridge to the finish,' skipper Tom Geisler said. This is Geisler’s 22nd Chicago Mac, and owner Doug Devos’ 27th. Doug’s son Dalton, 15, was on board for the second year in a row and this time his brother Dick DeVos joined the crew with his son Ryan, 14. Dalton and Ryan are the youngest crew on board. The DeVos family are co-founders of Amway in Grand Rapids, Mich.

'This was one of the most pleasant Mac races in some years,' Geisler said after happily taking a bottle of Mount Gay Rum at the Main tent. Windquest had an extremely fast start with wind dying down 4 hours later. 'We got some rain, a small squall for only 20 minutes,' crewmember Patrick McMath recounted.

Windquest's elapsed time is 28 hours, 44 minutes and 43 seconds. Fast, but not quite fast enough to beat the speed record set in 2002 of 23 hours, 30 minutes, and 34 seconds by Roy Disney’s Pyewacket. We’ll have to wait until 2008, the 100th running of the world’s longest annual freshwater sailing race to see if the record can be broken.

Windquest will still have to wait to see if they drove the boat to their handicap to correct over the other boats in Section 1 for the overall win. Equation, skippered by Bill Alcott of Bayview Yacht Club was the next boat to call in at the 45th parallel at 5:46 pm, although at the time of this release, the wind has died completely. It is reported that the Coast G uard is sitting with 180 boats in the fleet near the 45th parallel who are all dead in the water. That’s the beauty of weather on Lake Michigan. It is still truly anybody’s race.

For more race updates, videos, and to track the boats with GPS go to the official website at http://www.chicagoyachtclub.org