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...
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