More than 200 sailboats will leave Port Huron in a race to Mackinac Island July 18, marking the 102 annual Bayview Mackinac Race.
More than a century ago, on July 25, 1925, only a dozen sailboats took on the inaugural race, with only six making it across the finish line due to high seas, strong winds and broken equipment.
The first race was won by Bayview Yacht Club’s Bernida, finishing the 261-mile race in 49 hours and 50 minutes, the Times Herald reported on July 28, 1925.
The start of something big
Commodore Brian Geraghty, Bayview Yacht Club’s historian, told the Times Herald in 2019 — prior to the 95th running — the idea for the races started after a crew from the Detroit-based yacht club went out east to Rhode Island in 1924.
They chartered a schooner named Lloyd W. Berry and won a 731 miles race from Newport, Rhode Island to Bermuda.
“We made a names for ourselves,” said Geraghty, who added the salt water sailors were shocked by the Detroit crew’s success. “That was the start of something big.”
So they decided to bring that success and notoriety home and started a sailboat race from Port Huron to Mackinac Island. It is now the longest continually run freshwater long distance sailboat race in the country.
While the race from Chicago to the island started years before the Port Huron race, it hasn’t been run continuously for various reason.
Geraghty previously said the club wasn’t sure what to do during World War II, it didn’t seem right to go sailing, so they wrote a letter to the White House asking if the Port Huron race should be cancelled.
“They got a very, very energetic letter back that said ‘We want you to race because yachting makes good naval officers’,” Geraghty said. “At that time we had 250 members, all male at that time, 105 went into the service. Highest percentage of members going into the service of any yacht club at the time…That’s something we’re very proud of.”
Even a pandemic hasn’t stopped the race. While the Chicago race was canceled in 2020, the Port Huron-to-Mackinac-Island Sailboat continued with a smaller fleet and only a single course.
Taking a look back over the years
Contact Liz Shepard at lshepard@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Not even a World War or Covid has stopped the Bayview Sailboat Race
Reporting by Liz Shepard, Port Huron Times Herald / Port Huron Times Herald
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Liz Shepard, Port Huron Times Herald | USA TODAY Network
