Jerome Sullivan, sailing Bacchant, the oldest boat in the fleet, and Ludde Ingvall from Sweden in RX-Sight are the overall winners of the 1998 Chicago-to-Mackinac Island race.
The 299 boats in the race used two handicapping systems. Bacchant, a 64-foot mahogany sloop built in Saltsjobaden, Sweden, in 1936, was overall winner among the 265 racers in the performance handicap racing fleet (PHRF).
Ingvall, whose home is Saltsjobaden, sailed his 72-foot RX-Sight to a victory among the 30 boats using the International Measurement System (IMS).
Bacchant finished the 333-mile race in 39 hours, 22 minutes, 14 seconds, and RX-Sight finished in 26:50:09, the third-fastest time ever for the race. Sullivan, 72, who is from Milwaukee, was racing his 19th Mac, and Ingvall, 42, his first.
Since he retired from professional sailboat racing in 1991, Ingvall has traveled around the globe in his boats to promote sailing and a healthy lifestyle.
“Since 1991 I have had 700 young people crew on the boat and some 13,000 people have gone sailing on it,” Ingvall said. The name, RX-Sight, comes from the efforts of Ingvall to educate the public on the importance of early detection of glaucoma, a disease that can cause blindness.
Sullivan, meanwhile, credited “the weather and winds” for his first overall victory.
“Our kind of race,” he said. “The winds were never on our nose, and that’s good, because we just do not sail well in those conditions. We have a very experienced crew that knows the boat. . . . We are delighted.”
This was the 100th anniversary of the first Mac race, the oldest and longest freshwater sailing competition in the world. There are 13 sections of racers.
In section 1 of PHRF, Larry Ellison in Sayonara was first with a time of 25:52:48. Clark Kent, a Santa Cruz 52, owned by a group of Chicago men, was second.
The IMS Division had two sections, the largest boats racing in IMS-D were RX-Sight, followed by Mongoose, a Santa Cruz 70 owned by Robert Saielli. Section E was won by the Chicago Yacht Club’s Thomas Neill in Nitemare.Second place went to Michael Greenwald of Minooka in Success!, a 46-footer.
In PHRF 3, Raymond Adams of West Bloomfield, Mich., was first in Epic and James Hellquist of Libertyville second in Spitfire.
Diversion II, owned by Charles Miller of Livonia, Mich., took top honors in PHRF 4, followed by Miguel Gambetta of Schererville, Ind., in Michela.
Ronald DeBruin of Lake Forest took PHRF 5 in Fourth of July, a 38-footer, followed by Jeff Comeaux of Winnetka in Outrageous, a 42-footer.
By 6 p.m. Monday fewer than a dozen boats had yet to finish, but several sections of smaller boats did not have clear winners as race officials processed check-in times and finished scoring the boats with their handicaps.
“This was definitely a big boat race,” said Shawn O’Neill, who sailed with his father, Jerry, on their 36-footer, Eagle.
