This year I sailed the Chicago Mac Race with my dad and his original pied piper crew. It was great to see all the guys that used to race the boat with my dad and get to sail with them on the race. Instead of sailing GL 70 Pied Piper we sailed the Andrews 70 named Runaway that is currently for sale. Runaway has a taller mast then Pied Piper and is a bit more powerful design so she sails in the "Turbo" class of the Chicago Mac Race against boats like Equation, Windquest.

The forecast was for light air which seemed to suite us ok because our crew work was a little rusty and our sail inventory was full of old genoas and a 2nd hand main from our friends on Equation. We had a nice start at the windward end of the line and started close reaching up the lake. Sailing through the first night was pretty easy and I think we made only a couple of head sail changes. We had an old but satisfactory reaching light #1 but the heavy #1 was a mess and after I saw it once that was enough and I told the crew to brick it up for the rest of the race.

When day broke we were within site of the several GL 70s and our closest competitor Equation. The wind remained light as we sailed towards the Michigan shore. The trick to a lot of these Chicago Mac Races is how you play the Michigan Shore line going in for the thermal pressure and getting out so you don't get stuck pinching around land. The Mac race is more of a coastal race then an offshore race even though on occasion Lake Michigan can be rough.

Through the light conditions we managed to trade places with Equation several times during Sunday and Sunday night. As we made our way out of the Manitou Islands and towards grays reef I thought we had slipped away only to have the breeze fill in with a right shift that brought Equation steaming back across our bow heading into the channel. We were the third boat to enter grays reef channel with a boat named Defiance close behind. With the breeze building and being dead upwind to the finish we were not much of a match for Equation and Defiance but we did our best to hang in there so we could still win out on corrected time.

Our light #1 didn't quite make it through all the tacks and to make things interesting it exploded shortly before the finish. We managed to be the fourth boat to Mackinac Island and finished 2nd in our class. A very respectable result, it was fun to sail this race with my dad again after 4 years. I hope we can do it again next year.