The Solo Challenger The Official Newsletter of the Great Lakes Singlehanded Society Fall 2011 Officers: Directors: President: Paul Nickerson Dan Pavlat Vice President: Rick McLaren Arch van Meter Treasurer: Jon Jacobs Adrian van den Hoven Corresponding Secretary/Editor: Bill Tucker Eric Thomas Recording Secretary: Greg Gorny IN THIS ISSUE Page GLSS President’s Message GLSS President’s Message 1 Race & Event Schedule 1 A Monumental Year For The GLSS My Road to the 2011 Solo Mac Challenge 2 2011 was a record setting year for the GLSS as for 2011 Chicago Solo Mac Story 5 the first time we had challenges on all 5 of the Super Mac & Back 8 Great Lakes along with the Super Mac and Super 2011 Lake Ontario 300 Oceans of Challenges 12 Mac and Back. While it involved some great sailing The 2011 Trans-Superior 14 by some great sailors, 2011 was also a success due 2011 Lake Erie Solo Challenge 15 to the work of many volunteers. We have now seen 269 sailors earn membership in the GLSS and 1066 individual challenges completed. That’s a lot of 2012 Solo Challenger Events bronze medallions! January 21 Annual General Membership Meeting - Atheneum Suites Hotel Detroit With that said, it’s time for everyone to celebrate a June 23 Port Huron to Mackinac Isl. Solo Challenge great year and make plans to attend the 2012 & Chicago to Mackinac Isl. Solo Challenge Annual Meeting in Detroit on January 21. The July 21 Lake Ontario 300 Solo Challenge Atheneum Suites Hotel offers a great venue for August 18 Erie Solo Challenge both our event and to visit downtown Detroit. See the GLSS website at www.solosailors.org for more details and entry forms. Your help needed & appreciated! Send comments, pictures and articles to Bill Tucker [email protected] 586-469-1431 Page 1 of 18 There will be plenty of unbelievable sailing stories to be heard and hopefully those will get everyone We placed fourth in the Hook that year, and beat an motivated to make plans to participate in a GLSS experienced crew to the finish line (our sister ship Challenge or two next summer. Be careful talking Blush, another Tartan 30C) by 43 seconds over the with Bill Tucker or he’ll have you doing all four. nearly 53 hour race. It was a dramatic drag race down to the line, and our spinnaker exploded into bits just 10 Need advice on the Welland Canal? We’ve got it! seconds before crossing the line as we headed up wind to cross. I guess you can say I was “hooked” on offshore Don’t forget to talk up the GLSS with your friends racing from then on. That fall I visited the GLSS website, and at your clubs. There’s always room for more and made it my goal to do the Solo Mac. singlehanded sailors on the lakes and at the GLSS Challenges. After doing a few more offshore races in 2010, I set out on my qualifier on September 30th. I “slept” on board, See you in Detroit! at the can, in Monroe over night to get an early start at sunrise. During the night a 35 knot wind storm blew in Paul Nickerson, GLSS President from the north and swung the boat all over the place. I only slept for about two hours- not a good start. As the light came up before sunrise, I dropped the mooring My road to the 2011 Solo Mac Challenge line and headed out of Monroe Harbor for the Chicago lighthouse, raised the main, unfurled the jib, and set my By Rick Stage sights on the Southern Mid Lake Buoy #45007. Rounding that and returning to Chicago would be about Editor’s Note: 107 Nautical Miles, and be a true test of my skills. There would be an additional test now that the winds This tells the story of Rick completing his first Mac Solo were 20 to 25 knots out of the north, and the seas were Challenge with a first place in the Erie class and thus at five to six feet. I had two reefs in the main and the becoming a GLSS member. tiller extension in the lock box, since conditions were overpowering the auto helm. I went out of cell phone I first learned of the Solo Mac when I was provisioning range and watched the city disappear behind me. The my boat Windchime to prepare for the first serious helm was balanced, needing only periodic adjustment, offshore race I was to lead. It was Thursday night and I was close hauled heading about 10 degrees off before the start of the 2009 Hook Race, and we were course to the east with the starboard rail buried. preparing to leave Monroe Harbor in Chicago to head Windchime was rolling over and sometimes flying off 50 miles north, up to Racine, for the start on Saturday. I the top of waves only to crash down into the trough on had about $100 in groceries, miscellaneous gear the back side. I felt completely alone. My only obtained at the last minute, and clothes. It took 6 trips companions were “Tom, Donna, and Paul” from NOAA from the car to the tender office, and was going to take Weather Radio. They are the synthetic voices that forever to load this stuff onto the tender, and then onto broadcast weather conditions and alerts on the XW my boat. There was a guy hanging out at the office who bands. They were telling me to expect the weather to offered to help me out, I was in no position to say no. stay the same, and there were no hazardous weather On the tender, I started chatting him up. Boats were conditions expected. This was small comfort since I was assembling in Monroe for the start of the 101st Race to now surrounded in all directions, as far as the eye can Mackinac, so I asked him, “Are you doing the Mac this see, by open sea- and the conditions were just beyond year?” He just kind of smiled and said “I don’t do the the edge of my comfort zone. GPS had me about 20 crewed Mac; I do it solo with the GLSS.” This blew my miles out, the sun was shining bright and it was 50 mind. It takes two or three days to get up to Mackinac. degrees. I was warm and dry, except for the spray that How do you sleep, eat, go to the bathroom etc.? How would shoot up, catch the wind, and sail across the deck do you deal with the solitude? What if you get into parallel to what was passing for the horizon. trouble? Our encounter was too brief, and I was too focused on the task at hand to reply with anything more At 1pm, it occurred to me I would be rounding the buoy than “Wow, that sounds crazy”. For some reason the in the dark. I wanted to see this thing, and now I was idea stuck in my head. Page 2 of 18 only going to see its light. I was sincerely disappointed. In January at Strictly Sail Chicago, I went over to the I was also starting to feel really tired. I didn’t have to GLSS booth. I met Mark Gannon and Ken Verhaeran. take the helm much, but the effort required to keeping “I’m gonna do the Solo Mac this year,” I said to Mark. from being flung around the cockpit coupled with sleep “That’s great,” he said as if he has heard that one a deprivation, was starting to take its toll. I also thousand times before. “What kind of boat do you discovered that the simple task of going to the have?” “My boat is Windchime, It’s a Tartan 30C.” bathroom was an exhausting 5 minute fight. Climbing “Really? I did five crewed Macs on that boat back in the down the companion way ladder, stripping off gloves, 80s. It’s a great boat.” Ken gave me some additional foulies and layers of clothes while hanging on to hand info and told me about the spring safety meeting in rails as the boat is at a 30 degree heel and shaking like a March. Mark and Ken were very helpful and gave me new can of paint. If the boat hits a bigger wave, the their contact info if I needed any help or advice. helm goes out of balance and I had to run up there to The safety meeting was held seven weeks later at the put her back on course before an accidental tack or Chicago Yacht Club. Walking into a room full of gybe. strangers in a social setting is always daunting. These guys were some of the best sailors on the lake, and they Around 2:30, as I got within 22 miles of the buoy, I all knew each other. They have countless stories to tell, heard a loud “bang,” like a gun had just gone off. The and since they don’t see each other very often so there fiddle block on the main sheet snapped (breaking was a lot of catching up to be done. I felt really out of strength of 2000 lbs.). This was not serious damage to place, but seeing Ken and Mark there, I reintroduced the boat, but it took what was left of my resolve. I myself. After a few minutes, I fit right in. I met Rick rigged up a new main sheet, connected the auto helm, McLaren who introduced me around, and I had a great and turned the boat around.