Racine's sailboat race marks 20 years

By David Steinkraus

Friday, July 11, 2003 10:55 PM CDT

RACINE - It's a sign of midsummer along the lakefront, sailboats flocking to the Racine Yacht Club for the annual Hook Race.

This is the 20th year for the Hook, and though in glamour it may be overshadowed by the race from Chicago to Mackinac Island, which also starts today, for sailors the Hook is a good choice.

"The nice thing about this race for us is we're in Sturgeon Bay. This ends in Sturgeon Bay," said Darrell Askins, who is from Sturgeon Bay and on Friday afternoon was standing on the deck of his 34-foot-long racing boat named Oasis.

Joining the fleet heading to Mackinac would require more expensive equipment, but in particular much more time. First you have to allow a couple of days to sail to Chicago before the start, instead of a day to reach Racine. Then there's the race itself, about 300 miles, and afterward would come the return voyage to Sturgeon Bay.

Bill Hitt, one of the people crewing for Askins, dropped into the cabin and emerged with a handheld global positioning system computer. After a couple of minutes spent punching buttons, he announced that the return trip would be 195 miles, another couple of days of sailing. So a boat and crew would be looking at a commitment of more a week and a half if the wind was good.

"And with this race we miss Friday and Monday," Askins said.

The Hook Race route takes sailors north along the coast, hooks west through the Deaths Door Passage between Washington Island and the northern tip of the Door County peninsula, then runs south down Green Bay to Sturgeon Bay.

Originally the race ended at the twin ports of Menominee, Mich., and Marinette, Wis., said Steve Paulson, chairman of the Hook Race at the Racine Yacht Club. The change in destinations came after a few years when organizers realized the lack of activities in the twin ports - especially for the people who drive up for the finish of the race and must wait for however long it takes the boats to finish, he said.

The Hook Race actually started because of the Chicago-to-Mackinac, said Gene Hermansen, principal race officer at RYC. "Someone decided we needed a good distance race for boats that didn't care to do the Mackinac."

"Now it's grown into a full-blown race. Any boat, no matter what size they are, is acceptable," he said.

In his first year of involvement, 1987, there were only 16 boats, Hermansen said. Race officials questioned whether the work they put in was worth the turnout, he said, but in the end decided to try it for one more year. "And that year we jumped up to 38 boats."

The number of entries has stabilized between 60 and 65, Hermansen said. This year 63 entered. And that's a good number, he said, because if the racing fleet were to grow much more, even to 100, it would demand the services of many more people and require finding many more

moorings.

Boats was one of the topics at dockside on Friday - who was already tied up, who was expected. And how do you best tune a sail for optimum power in a strong wind? And speaking of wind, what's the forecast for today? "I'd be jammin' if we had wind out of the south like last year," said Don Lemire, who had stopped by for a chat.

"Who cares as long as we've got wind?" asked John Engel, a former Racine resident and Park High School graduate.

Lemire, who lives in Menominee, Mich., had come to crew on another boat. It was about 3 p.m., and Askins was still missing part of his crew.

There was himself, his son, Matt, Hitt, and another Sturgeon Bay resident, Ray Nancoz. One guy was on his way. The sixth person missed the boat in Sturgeon Bay on Thursday night and was looking unreliable.

They could seek extra hands along the dock, but few boats carry extra people these days, Nancoz said. It's the time commitment again. Given their family commitments and other activities, many people don't spend time on lengthy races, the Oasis crew said.

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