To Jon Somes, the most spectacular thing about the Bayview Mackinac Race is the scene that morning.
“When the boats get to the starting line, the wind will be behind them and they’ll put up their spinnakers, which are multicolored sails that are in front, and they all pop at once,” he said. “The boats generally accelerate quite a bit if there’s any wind at all, and they’re all on a line and they’re all right there.”
It’s a scene Somes knows from the many Bayview Mackinac Races he’s competed in – 38 in all − but also from his perch in recent years as someone who helps make the famed sailboat race possible, volunteering his boat and his time.
Somes’ boat isn’t powered by the wind, however.
Instead, the 73-year-old’s vessel, which he named Otseketa, he said, because it’s the original name of Lake St. Clair, is a 54-foot powerboat. It’ll serve as the signal boat for the race and will host race officials, a couple of members of the media and Somes along with a few of his helpers at the starting line.
A second boat, which he called the pin end, will mark the other end of that imaginary line for the boaters expected when the 102nd Bayview Mackinac Race begins the morning of Saturday, July 18. A website dedicated to the race listed 201 boats registered in the various classes as of Wednesday.
The morning of the race, Somes will motor out to a mooring so the race officials can be in position.
“After that my job’s pretty easy because they run the race. They run the signals and the communications on the radio with all the boats. They announce if it was a clear start and if nobody was over early, and so they make sure it’s a good fair start,” he said.
Afterward, Somes will drop the officials and media members off and head with some friends in his boat up to Mackinac Island.
The race, which is billed as “the world’s longest continuously run long distance freshwater yacht race,” is organized by Bayview Yacht Club in Detroit, and runs from near Port Huron to Mackinac Island, a trip of more than 200 miles. The first race was in 1925.
Somes said the fastest boats will likely arrive at Mackinac Island on Sunday afternoon, but others will take longer. Somes said he’s even seen boats not make it for the awards party on the island on the Tuesday after the race.
Boaters follow the Shore Course, a fairly direct route near the shore of western Lake Huron, or the Cove Island Course, where the boats head toward Tobermory on the tip of Ontario’s Bruce Peninsula and then across the northern part of the lake. That second option adds more than 50 miles, but, according to Somes, is tactically much more interesting.
He called the Shore Course “kind of a drag race,” prompting some light-hearted scolding from his wife, Barbara, to not say that about that course.
All sailors, after all, regardless of the course face another challenge.
“The challenge is where is the wind coming from so you’re going along and it’s never the same for everybody. The whole lake has a different thing going on most of the time,” she said.
The couple used to live in Grosse Pointe Park but relocated to Vero Beach, Florida, a number of years ago. Somes owns Telecom Technicians, a telecommunications-related business.
Both grew up in the Grosse Pointes, Jon in the Shores and Barbara in the Farms, and both have a long history with sailing (Jon said his father got into sailing around the beginning of World War II).
They spoke to the Detroit Free Press aboard their boat recently at Bay View and described what makes the race itself so special. It’s a family affair, John Somes said, with sons and daughters sailing with their parents and even those who don’t race showing up in the end at Mackinac.
“It’s like one big party for three days,” he said.
The camaraderie of the race is amazing as well, he said, describing how it creates lifelong friendships.
And of course, many stories spring from a competition so affected by changing weather and wind. Somes recalled a 1981 race “we ended up winning” with the crew sitting on the deck for 32 hours in cold weather and big waves and where “nobody could get off the rail because we needed the weight to hold the boat flat, and it was miserable.”
Approaching Mackinac, the sun came out and the wind “went to nothing.”
“We were all so exhausted, we were falling asleep sitting up. It was like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t think we can make it,’ ” he said.
But of course, they did.
“You always really remember the tough races. You remember the ones that you win and you remember the ones that are tough. The ones that are chamber of commerce day sails, they all kind of run together,” he said. “At least in my mind, they don’t trigger the memories of the hard-fought battle.”
(This story was updated to add a video.)
Eric D. Lawrence is the senior car culture reporter at the Detroit Free Press, and he also writes about recreational vehicles, boats and bikes. Send your tips and suggestions to elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Port Huron to Mackinac sailing race won’t just have sailboats at starting line
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