Started in 1898, the Race to Mackinac annually hosts over 3,000 sailors and covers 333 statute miles, starting from Chicago’s Navy Pier and finishing at Mackinac Island, Michigan on Lake Huron. The 113th edition started Friday, July 22 for cruising sailboats and Saturday, July 23 for performance sailboats. The race is held by the Chicago Yacht Club.

2022 Boat Parade - Vincitore by Paul Sager, on Flickr


Founded in 1875, the Chicago Yacht Club is one of the oldest and most respected yacht clubs in the world. The Chicago Yacht Club's most famous event is the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac, which is the longest annual freshwater sailing race in the world.

2022 Boat Parade - Rhumb Runner


Images captured in this post come from a circa 2000 EOS 1v film camera and a circa 2015 EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II, mounted to a tripod. The film used included expired color film, and fresh B&W film with and without color filters. Details of the exposure, focal length and film type are included for each image using the URL link of the titles to their host Flickr pages.

2022 Boat Parade - Rosa del Mare


Mackinac Island (covering just 4.35 square miles) is located in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The island was once home to an Odawa (Native American) settlement and to older indigenous cultures before European colonization began in the 17th century. The island was a strategic center of the colonial fur trade around the Great Lakes. Based on a former trading post, Fort Mackinac was constructed on the island by the British during the American Revolutionary War. It was the site of two battles during the War of 1812 before the northern border was settled and the US gained this island in its territory.

2022 Boat Parade - Grit


Mackinac Island is the destination for two sailing races, as well as having its own sailing club, the Mackinac Island Yacht Club. Mackinac serves as the finish line for both the Port Huron to Mackinac Race and the Chicago Yacht Club's Race to Mackinac. The two races are run a week apart from each other, in July. They are both among the longest freshwater sailing races in the world and attract over 500 boats and 3,500 sailors combined. Both races are historical events, dating to the late 1800s, and have been run nearly every year since the 1920s.

2022 Boat Parade - Defiance


The Parade of Boats is a send-off party at the end of Navy Pier with live commentary and fanfare. Family, friends and many Chicagoans cheer on their favorite competitors before they embark on this bucket-list distance race, also known as "America's Offshore Challenge".

2022 Boat Parade - Race to Mackinac


When there's only 100 days of summer, you gotta live up every moment. The Chicago "Playpen" is just the other side of Navy Pier, and no boat parades are going to interfere with getting a prime spot to drop anchor at the makeshift club on the water.

2022 Boat Parade - Race to Mackinac


Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that of Lake Huron through the narrow Straits of Mackinac, giving it the same surface elevation as its easterly counterpart; technically, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are a single large lake.

2022 Boat Parade - Windy


Lake Michigan is the largest lake by area in one country. Located in the United States, it is shared, from west to east, by the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

2022 Boat Parade - Chicago Harbor Lighthouse


The Chicago Harbor Lighthouse marks the start-line of the Race to Mackinac. I saw nearly every boat in the parade and have a multi-post / multi-day selection of images from the five rolls of film captured during the event with more posts to follow.

2022 Boat Parade - Chicago Skyline