On the Water

Chicago - Mac (Almost)

By almost all accounts (except perhaps the 90' Genuine Risk or any of the class winners - winning has a way of erasing the memory), the '04 Chicago Mac race was a hideously light air punishment. Paul van Dyke from Halsey Lidgard Sailmakers gives us a peek at the pain. Good times!

I sailed on a 38-foot catamaran called Nice Pair. Nice Pair of hulls I guess. The boat is owned by the most excellent Bruce. It is probably very quick in breeze and on a reach. I would not know because we never reached in breeze during the entire race. Unfortunately it was light air beating for a large chunk of the race. We will get to the bad part of this story first and that is we withdrew at the end because we were going nowhere. You feel like crap doing that but it got me thinking that maybe there is more to sailing than winning.

I am still thinking about it.

Anyway we were getting our butt kicked and there was no wind and it was Monday night and it was starting to really stink so we bailed. Quitting probably gives a worse feeling then getting crushed because it does not go away until next year. Looking at the finishes we would have crossed the line around 8:30am Tuesday and corrected out to DFL. So it was a less than successful trip know matter how you look at the score sheet. DNF? Or DFL?

Which would you rather have?

We had an excellent crew from the lakes on board and they deserved better. Everyone worked very hard the entire race and Bruce and Blaine had put a huge amount of time and effort into getting boat prepared. All for a big goose egg.

The race began in light medium upwind conditions. We beat all night and had a very nice Northern lights display. In the morning we were in good shape because we were ahead of Caliente, the 40-foot tri that ended up second. The eventual multihull winner was the 60' Earth Voyager. He did an excellent job, sailing out of sight early on and never looking back.
Then we nailed our coffin shut and started piling on the dirt. At this point we were in the middle of the Lake and made a big move to the Eastern shore to pick up a sea breeze. We got the sea breeze but sacrificed too much northern distance to do so and it was game over. That night it was very, very light. On Monday the breeze increased to light, then in the late afternoon it decreased to very, very light. Finally as the sun went down it was over. We turned on the outboards at around 9:30. Boooo.
It was great to see the big fleet that included anything and everything with sails. Lets hope for a bigger fleet and more breeze next year.

I will with hold last names to preserve some anonymity.
Thank you Bruce, Blaine, Gretchen, Rachel, Brian, Brian, and Jimmy.

Paul van Dyke