Race Crew
07/13/2008, Mackinac Island, MI

Well we finished the race at about 11:30 AM today. Very fast race, but not the conditions for us. Too much heavy wind (20 - 35 kts.) as we beat our way from the Weather Buoy to the finish line for 9 hours. Some of the time we were slightly eased sheets and going very fast. All are safe, no equipment issues and we are looking forward to a toast at the Pink Pony soon.

We will do a follow-up with our finish position tomorrow, but we know some boats beat us.

Thank you Denali friends and family for your support.

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Randy
07/12/2008, Port Hope

Just north of Port Hope at the tip of the thumb at 7:30 PM. Ran into bad luck in a transition zone of left over storm and many in our class passed us in much more wind. We stuck it out and now a huge wind shift later, we are going very fast and passing many of the boats back. Hope our luck continues,,, we will need it. We have seen boat speeds as high as 16 knots today, and as low as 4 knots. Forecast looks good from here for reasonable wind strength. All are in great spirits and focused hard on trim for speed. Oh, and we miss the G-man.

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Navigator
07/12/2008, Block River, Port Huron, MI

Well the greatly anticpated morning is finally here and Denali is well prepared for the race. All systems working well, provisioned, gear and sails stowed. Weather conditions look fantastic with a rare mostly downwind race forfor ecast. Wind speeds 10 - 25 knots over the next two days. Later today, we expect a strong squall, maybe 40+ knots for a brief period. We will watch radar for the exact timing and location. Should be very interesting. I will try to keep posting updates during the race, but we expect a full court press to the finish Sunday morning, and not a lot of time to do this.

One more advantage to having the MMA cadets is that the boat never looked cleaner and smelled better. Boat looked best in harbor this morning.

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