Against all Odds, Illusion Wins the Chicago-Mac

23 July, 2002 - Against all odds, the Mumm 30, Illusion, owned by John Podmajersky has won the prestigious Mackinac Cup in the 104th anniversary of the 333-mile Chicago to Mackinac Race. The crew on Illusion finished the race in only 34hours and 53 minutes, which corrected to 30 hours and 47 minutes. That was good enough to beat race favorite Pywacket to make Illusion the first Mumm 30 and one of the smallest boats ever to win the race.

With a fully amateur crew, consisting of skipper Podmajersky, tactician Eric Wulff, bowman Roddy Bettaney, navigator Rob Brandenburg, all night chute trimmer Dirk Hacker and Ed Stygar the team saw top speed of 20.1 knots and never dropped below 15 knots for a 3 hour stretch on Sunday. "The entire team gave 110% the entire race" explained Podmajersky , "That is the single largest factor in this win!. Eric and Roddy never slept, Rob was always on with the navigation, Dirk trimmed chute for 30+ hours, heck I think I drove over 33 hours…no one wanted to grab the tiller in those conditions! Eric Wulff was awesome in keeping us always sailing at our best polar numbers all the time. This was quite a leap of faith as we normally ignore these factors in the guerrilla warfare of course racing." The team reported absolutely no wipe outs during the race and said they would have finished 30 to 45 minutes faster had they not lost their masthead halyard during the last 8 hours of the race. "Roddy was up the rig 3 times at warp speed trying to resolve that!" reported navigator Brandenburg.

Podmajersky also went on to explain that great boat preparation, great advise and good luck combined with the strength of the crew. "Illusion is always well prepared and we had the benefit of some great pre race advice from the likes of Judd Smith, Jeff Gladchun and Susan Gannett at Real Weather". "We kept our race strategy simple, if the sea breeze took over, head for the Wisconsin Shore, if not then stay on rhumb line and go like hell! The sea breeze never factored into the early racing on Saturday and Illusion was able to pop up a masthead asymmetrical, loaned by Tom Papanek from Fuzzy Logic, to start to sail well beyond her PHRF rating. By early Sunday morning, with Doyle masthead ½ oz. pulling them along in over 33 knots TWS through the Manitou passage the team had already saved their time on the fleet.

Illusion was joined on this year's race by X-Press another Mumm 30 owned by Jeff Diemand. The Mumm 30 has a long history of participation in distance racing on the great lakes. Dave Irish has won his division in the Mac and competed many times. Contender, owned by Charlie Wurtzebach has also competed in 4 Macs and Charlie swears it is the best boat he has ever sailed in the race. This year there is no doubt the Podmajersky and the entire team on Illusion agrees with that!

Those interested in more details are welcome to buy a beer for any of the Illusion crew at any of the upcoming National Circuit Events!