Queen’s Cup

It was something to behold outside the South Shore Yacht Club the evening of Friday, June 25-more than 200 weaving sailboats, their skippers gauging the wind and their competition to gain even the slightest edge in the 72nd annual Queen’s Cup race.

The Queen’s Cup, an annual regatta hosted since 1938 by the South Shore Yacht Club, saw 204 boats from all over the Great Lakes, and even as far away as New York, race overnight across the lake to Grand Haven, Mich.

For some racers, like Scott and Debbie Bruesewitz of the Redrum (which finished sixth overall), the Queen’s Cup is a real competition, and one they wouldn’t participate in if they didn’t think they could win. According to Scott, the most important factors in a race are the boat, the crew, and the weather. “Of course you’d rather be lucky than good, but you have to be good to be lucky,” he said. 

Jack Murphy, whose father introduced him to sailing at the SSYC and who has sailed the Queen’s Cup 35 times, sees the race also as a social event.

“It’s a fun race,” he said, noting that it’s one of the few short overnight races on the Great Lakes, and that changing conditions from year to year and minute to minute keep it exciting. “You never know, that’s the fun,” he said.

And there are other reasons racers return year after year.

“For me the best thing about doing the Queen’s Cup is experiencing the vastness of the lake,” said Michele O’Lochlayne. “People don’t appreciate what we have.”

Patric Kuptz, who has sailed the Queen’s Cup more than 20 times, added, “It’s a great party on the other side.”

Vaunted History

The history of the Queen’s Cup race is long and spans the Atlantic. The cup’s namesake was cast after an American yacht, the Silvie, unexpectedly won an 1853 regatta in England. “There were no provisions for a goddarned cup for a foreigner, so the queen had this cup coined,” said SSYC’s club historian John Ebersol.

What happened after that, though, is somewhat unclear. According to the SSYC website, the cup was involved in a bitterly broken friendship and even connected to a shipwreck as it made its way westward from New York. Eventually a man named Walter Hull discovered it in his grandfather’s attic.

In 1937 Hull gave the cup to the South Shore Yacht Club in honor of his friend and SSYC member Bill Lawrie, with a deed of gift that it would be named the Queen’s Cup and awarded to the winner of an annual race across Lake Michigan.

The first race was run in 1938, and it has run every year since then. Winners’ names were once engraved on the cup itself, but space ran out quickly, and the winners now get their name on a plaque displayed next to the cup inside the yacht club.

A Special Race

On June 24 at the SSYC the social aspect of the race was on full display. The yacht club hosted a party for all the participants and their guests, complete with barbecue chicken, a reggae band, and plenty of drinks. Mariners got together to greet old rivals and exchange their best Queen’s Cup tales. For Jack Murphy, it’s the one about when his boat’s rudder detached more than halfway across Lake Michigan and the crew had to sail back to Milwaukee without a rudder. Scott Bruesewitz’s best memory was seeing the Northern Lights in the middle of the lake.

By Friday afternoon, though, while the docks at the SSYC were just as bustling and hectic as they had been during the party the night before, the scene was different. Instead of swapping stories, participants were talking strategy, weather, and ideal setups. And by the time they were out on the water, friends from the night before had become competitors.

At 4:02am, June 26 the Mezzaluna, skippered by Jeff Anderson of the SSYC, crossed the finish line in Grand Haven, Mich., taking just over 10 hours to finish the race.

Anderson said he and the crew endured a number of challenges, from discovering that his engine wouldn’t run in reverse to losing steering power to battling a brief storm and bouts of high wind.

While other boats made it in faster time, after factoring in handicaps, the Mezzaluna joined the 71 earlier winning boats of the Queen’s Cup as the 2010 champion.

When he learned they’d won the race overall Anderson said, “We were just ecstatic. We couldn’t believe we won the thing.” He attributed much of the success to the boat’s crew of his wife, son, and nephew.

It was the first time Anderson had ever finished the Queen’s Cup race.

“It was one of the best sailing experiences I’ve ever had,” he said.

• To view an extensive slideshow of Chris Gribble’s beautiful photos, click here.

Copyright 2012 by Bay View Compass. All rights reserved.
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