Geib's Jibe

Saltwater skippers like to downgrade the 333-mile Chicago-to-Mackinac Island sailing race; Lake Michigan's waters are troubled with no tidal rips, no tide-fouled soundings to try the seamanship of the racing yachtsman. Still, the "world's longest race on drinking water" is no pleasure cruise for landlubbers; it has hazards enough of its own. Foul weather makes up out of nowhere, fog abounds, squalls are sharp and sudden. By playing those unpredictable elements shrewdly last week, Nicholas J. Geib, 39, a manufacturer of musical-instrument cases, brought home his nimble 39-ft. yawl Fleetwood through the Straits of Mackinac to lead the 63-ship fleet on corrected time of 40 hr. 10 min. 3 sec. (His actual time: 51 hr. 13 min. 17 sec.)

Less than an hour after the start, a thunderstorm roiled the lake. Booming along at ten knots, the yawl Querida, out of Grosse Pointe, caught a lightning bolt on her masthead. The charge knocked out the radio and most of the electrical system, swirled the compass haywire. Worst of all, it fused together a generous supply of beer cans cooling in the bilge, and for hours afterward, the bilge pump produced beer on tap. The unnerved crew grabbed for the cans that survived, and broke open the emergency supply of hard stuff. "By the time we got to Mackinac." said one with a satisfied belch, "we were all pretty loaded."

Skipper Geib and his six-man crew on the Fleetwood played it cozy all the way. Geib stayed to leeward of the sloop Rangoon, took warning when squalls hit her and she heeled over, had ample time to douse his own spinnaker. Never for a moment did he really stop racing. With his light hull and yawl rig, Nick Geib could hoist plenty of canvas, and the race was a spinnaker run most of the way. He never hesitated to use that tricky tactic, downwind tacking. "We like to tack downwind," says he. "We keep her footing that way." Whenever the wind shifted a few degrees. Geib jibed, kept running dead before the breeze. The skipper had only one complaint: "During the last leg, every time I took the helm, the wind would die." Unwilling to push their luck, his jovially mutinous crew kept him below for as long as possible.

Comfortably sipping a victory martini out of one of his galley's plastic cups, Skipper Geib sounded off with pride, "This is a helluva boat," and flung a challenge to the current hot boat on the saltwater circuit. Bermuda Racewinner Finisterre. Said he: "What with Finisterre and Figaro, a lot of people are saying that the day of the keel boat is over--that the centerboarders are the new thing. I'd like to see Finisterre come out here and race on the Great Lakes. I think we could give her a run for her money. Sure, bring on Finisterre!"

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