Chill Chicago to Michigan City Race
by J/Boats 15 Jul 2022 10:19 PDT
2022 Chicago to Michigan City to Chicago - CASRA © J/Boats
The so-called "race to the party", the annual summer dash across the bottom of Lake Michigan from Chicago, IL to Michigan City, Indiana was a relatively benign affair for the fleet of eighty boats. The Columbia Yacht Club RC/PRO team started the fleet on Friday, July 8th evening, and then it was a mad 32.0nm dash to the Michigan City breakwater finish line. Needless to say, it was more like a turtle crawl than a mad dash this year, with teams taking over 8 hours to cover the 32.0nm- a rip-roaring average of 4.0 kts!
Not surprisingly, J/Teams were well-represented on the podium in various divisions. In the fourteen-boat PHRF 3 division, Andy Graff's J/88 EXILE won, followed by the J/99 RAMBLER in second just 35 seconds behind on handicap corrected time! Scott Sim's J/109 SLAPSHOT II finished in fifth place, with the top five finishers in the division all finishing together around 3:15 AM Saturday... just minutes separating them all on elapsed time.
In the twelve-boat PHRF 2 Division, the top J/crews were Kevin Saedi & Raman Yousefi's J/111 MOMENTUS in 4th place, followed by Arne Fliflet's J/120 MAZAL TOV in 6th and Jim Richter's J/44 CHEEP'N'DEEP II in 7th.
Winning the eleven-boat PHRF 4 Division and the J/105 one-design class was Peter Schwarzbach's PHANTOM. Taking the silver in both classes was Josh & Laura Lutton's KINSHIP. Then, Branwell Lepp's IT WASN'T ME took 5th in handicap and 3rd in J/105 one-design. A great showing overall for J/Teams in what was clearly a very difficult race with light, streaky winds.
More Chicago to Michigan City Race sailing information here...