On Board EQUATION

“A slow Bayview Mackinac race is in the books. The start was postponed until 4:10 PM on Saturday and we finished on Monday about the same time. We had our share of 00.00 on the knot meeter as well as biting flies which made it hard to sleep. We had two beautiful sunsets and two new-moon star filled nights. We had 17 incredible characters pushing this 70 foot boat as hard as we could during the whole race. We had a great start in almost no wind. We had a great battle with Details after the start but got out into the lead. We fought hard all the way to Cove Island light but Stripes ended up beating us there by about a mile. Details was 3 1/2 miles and Evolution was 15 miles behind us. After Cove Island we had the 3-A up and were reaching at 10 Kts. straight towards the island. We sailed by Stripes and were gaining huge amounts on the boats behind us. Then the wind shut off again and Evolution and Details passed us by going hard left after Cove Island. They ended up passing us by catching a huge left shift in all places Hammond Bay. With 20 mile beat to go we were behind them all. This set up a great 4 boat battle to see who would get line honors for our class. The wind was blowing 15 plus and shifting a lot. Equation with its new keel and 17 guys on the rail sailed right through the fleet. We were the 4th boat to the finish line. Only three A class boats beat us to the island. We were first to finish in our class by 4 minutes but corrected to 3rd in class. Stripes and Details saved their time on us. Thanks to Bill Alcott and Tom Anderson for providing the awesome sailing machine Equation. Thanks also to Stu Thompson and Austin Colpaert for having the boat so well prepared.”