250 starters in 115th Chicago-Mackinac Race

13. Jul 2024

Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac © Chicago Yacht Club

13 July 2024 - Chicago, US - An impressive turnout of 250 boats from throughout the USA and CAN have assembled in Chicago for today’s start of the 115th edition of the Chicago-Mackinac Race. This annual race of 290 miles is the oldest annual freshwater distance race in the world, with a start held off the urban city front of downtown Chicago to finish at the small island of Mackinac that lies at the confluence of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

The fleet has been divided into 5 divisions: Cruising, Mackinac Cup, Mackinac Trophy, Double Handed and Multihull, with overall and Class (or “Section” as the locals call it) trophies awarded in each. Scoring for all monohulls uses the ORC rating system, now in its third year of use at this event, with the fastest boats required to have ORCi certificates.

The weather forecast points towards a downwind start to this race, with a southerly breeze starting out light but building throughout the day and evening, so ratings from the Chicago-Mac Downwind course model have been chosen to score this race. The downwind conditions are favorable for good progress of the fleet on the race course, but will probably not be strong enough to challenge the course record of 23H 30M 34S set by Roy Disney’s PYEWACKET in 2002.

Nonetheless, the fastest boats in the 103-entry Mackinac Trophy Division will be the 12 entries in Section 1, along with the 9 entries of GL 52’s. This group is highly competitive, with numerous generations of TP 52’s that have raced actively in the Great Lakes and beyond.

This year there are 25 entries that have chosen to lengthen their offshore experience from 290 miles to 495 miles in the 2024 Super Mac Race. They will use the finish line at Mackinac Island as a scoring gate, continue to sail east into Lake Huron and then south to another finish line at the southern end of that lake at Port Huron.

There are 5 sections in this race, ranging from Turbos to a Cruising class, and all will likely remain there a few days more to race back to Mackinac in the 100th Bayview Mackinac Race that starts on July 20th. This milestone race as a massive turnout of 332 entries and will also be rated and scored using ORC.