07/28/2017
Team Hot Lips Mac Race Update: First Place in Section 2. Very proud of my teammates...Christopher Whitford, Matt Clark, Travis Heitzinger, Chris Becaria, Dan Burns, Laura Hagen, Bridget Groble, Bill Teskoski, Collin Leon. A well fought race by all of the Farr 40s and as our main trimmer Matt Clark(first time mac racer) said on Sunday afternoon, "This is kind of closer than buoy racing"...170nm into the race. We went through a downwind crash on Saturday night in 38knts of tws(hand up on that one) with the S1.5 to flying off of waves upwind in 26knts tws with the J3, all inside of 5 hours. Finding ourselves in third place ~4 miles behind the leader and lacking a few battens in the main with 65nm left of race track we had one option to catch up and that was to work hard and see what happens. Well, hard work pays off and after making the right-hand turn around Gray's Reef we were "comfortably" ahead. As the wind speed died we sat on 0.000 boat speed as Bandit cut our lead to about eight lengths....and it only got smaller from there. As our skipper said when the mood got relaxed, "this race is not even close to over"(copy that Dad), and unfortunetley he was right. Excellent job by Arvid, Joey, Scotty, Jacky and the Bandit team to grind us back. After trading off ferry boat waves in 4knts tws and working on about zero hours of sleep, the boys(and girls) stayed focused and held off the Bandit from the bridge to the finish. WELL DONE BOYS!(and Bridge and Laura). On a personal note, and unbeknowst to most of our team we were carrying my best friend's ashes (Sammy Whitford, Golden Retriver who passed away next to me on June, 22nd, 2017) with us on the boat. The Mac Race always is, but in this year, was particularly personal for me. In other words it was a 'must win'. The Hot Lips Delivery Team (Chris Beccaria and myself) dropped Sam off at N 45" 00.425 W 085" 57.579. If you don't have your GPS handy those coordinates are in the Manitou Passage. Sam's first trip to the Sleeping Bear Dunes consisted of him taking off down the dunes and making a mad dash towards North Manitou Light(could not confirm with him but I believe he thought it was a tennis ball), so it was a fitting place to leave him. Looking forward to racing to him again next year. This one was for Sam. Thank you to all.
-Hot Lips out.
