Three Sheets in the Wind

The noon fog that hung over Huron's southern tip promised trouble. But for the first few hours there was only an innocent breeze to nudge the racers along the 243-mile course from Port Huron to Mackinac Island. Shortly after midnight, the storm swooped down from the northeast. Freakish gusts hit the fleet headon, built mountains of water that swirled 20 feet high.

The race became a roller-coaster scramble for the shelter of the Michigan shore. One yacht made it the hard way, running aground and breaking up. Another snapped her mainmast. Distress flares shot up. When noses were counted at dawn, 34 badly battered boats had made it back to Port Huron and points north. The other four had doggedly refused to give up.

One of them was the teak-decked, 56-ft. cutter Blitzen (once owned by Tobacconist Dick Reynolds). Shortly after her nine-man Detroit crew finished beefing over losing an hour by changing to a storm mainsail, most of them got seasick. The crews of the other three racers got sick first, and never did get their storm mains up.

Through the brunt of the storm, the well-clad Blitzen made seven to eight knots, at a cost of three jib sheets. With heavy seas still running at dawn and the boat heeling at 45DEG, Co-Owner Ernie Grates took a sailor's chance: to save a spar, he shinnied 50 perilous feet aloft to replace lost pins in a spreader. (Co-Owner Murray Knapp, who is cook and bottle washer, distinguished himself by being beaned with a flying frying pan.)

After putting 44 hours behind her, the Blitzen was becalmed off Bob-Lo Island, an exasperating 19 miles from the finish line. When she finally eased across the line, her winning time--48 hours, 16 min. --set a record for the 21-year-old Port Huron-to-Mackinac race. It was a repeat performance for the Blitzen, which won last year's race over smooth water.

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