CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - The cruising division of the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac is set to begin Friday afternoon, in hopes of reaching Mackinac Island by Sunday night. The faster boats will leave Chicago on Saturday.
“It’s the best sweet water race in the world, that salt water business is for fish,” said this weekend’s race participant Michael Hoey.
Hoey is the skipper of a 33-ft. 4,000 lb. boat named Artemis and as he prepared at the Chicago Yacht Club on Thursday he told WBBM that it won’t be his first time competing in the 289 nautical mile boat race known as America’s Offshore Challenge™. He estimated that he’s raced 17 or 18 times to Mackinac.
“(I) have crossed seven oceans, I’ve done a lot of stuff. I’ve been a professional captain for 30 years,” Hoey said.
If he is able to average 10 knots per hour his team could finish the race in 33 hours. The record is about 18.
The race is considered one of the best offshore boat races in the world, with weather always being a factor.
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“Here’s one of the challenges on the Great Lakes in racing, and that is our weather systems are really dominated by high and low pressure systems that create thunderstorms, and in some cases some really intense stuff,” said longtime skipper Ron White.
White is going into his 26th race to Mackinac Island and noted that in Lake Michigan, unlike the ocean, there are no predictable trade winds.
“(It’s) very much dominated by these local conditions that are driven by really hot land masses which certainly we have today and really cold water on the lake, relatively cold, and when that mixes, it creates a lot of thermal activity or can,” White said.
The good news he added is that the weather outlook for this weekend’s race does appear to have optimal conditions.
Each boat is equipped with a GPS tracker and fans can access real time sailing progress through the YB Races App.
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