September 12, 2026 – East Tawas, MI
Thanks to Chris Princing for this report:
The sun was out. It was a nice fall day with temps in mid-60s as we rigged our boat for the 2026 J/22 Michigan Championship. All three fleets were represented: Tawas Bay, Charlevoix and Gull Lake.
The forecast called for 10-15 knots of wind, but as we sailed out, it hadn’t shown up yet. In fact, it was very light all morning. Pleasantly though, the build came as we were getting ready for race one.
On Evil Doctor Pork Chop, USA 1552, I was joined by Jennifer and Zak Bowdish. It was fun sailing with Zak again, as we have some “history” on the J/22….some of it unprintable ha!
The fleet was stacked. We had 5 former champion skippers sailing and 6 former winning boats. It would take a good scoreline to win this event without taking a big number in any of the 4 scheduled races.
Race one started in 12 knots of wind from the south (175-185), chop building to about one foot. We felt the starting line was biased to the RC boat all day, but race one was over a boat length, so we started down toward the boat. Got off in a good lane and felt right away they we were going pretty good. The waves were starting to get a little bigger, and it made going upwind tougher, but we lead around the weather mark with USA 48, USA 1577 and USA 483 hot on our tails. The three boats behind kind of grouped up, and we tried to stay between them and the leeward mark, but they were closing the gap. Up the second beat, we made some adjustments to how we were sailing upwind and found a pretty sweet setup that allowed us to stretch our lead and sail to a win in race one. Behind us was a different story: the fight for second place was tight among 4 boats. It was USA 48 Pork Bellies, who ended up second with a photo finish of USA 275, USA 1577 and USA 483.
Race two saw the wind increase a little, and the chop increased as well especially up the course. The line was again heavily biased to the boat, and we had a general recall on the first attempt of race 2. At the restart, the I flag went up, so we went kind of conservative on the start, and stayed away from what we thought would be a mess at the boat. Unfortunately for us, we got pushed down the line to leeward of some boats that were footing pretty hard, and we were stuck going off to the left underneath them, trapped. I finally convinced Jennifer and Zak that I thought we needed to get out of there and that we had enough speed if we just got to do our own thing. So, we tacked and took everyone’s transom except one boat, but we were in a lane of clear air and able to sail in our mode. It seemed like a good decision. We fought back and ended up fourth around the weather mark. Had a pretty good run chasing USA 1577 Commodore Racing and USA 483 Green Eggs & Ham, and USA 48 were in the mix. We gibed early and had a good run to round second or third (not sure), and off we went uphill. I felt very confident about our upwind speed. And when we crossed tacks with USA 483, I was relieved that it seemed we were going pretty well. USA 1577 was still in front of us though, and they tried to tack onto us near the top of the course. But somehow, we wiggled out of that and then passed them to round the weather mark first and then cruised to the win in race two followed by USA 1577 and USA 483.
Power bars and waters. Race 3 started in less wind…quite a bit less wind, maybe down to 10-12. Still pretty south. We were not seeing much shifting going on the racecourse, a little to the right for this race. We still felt fast, but we also felt other boats were getting something out of the right side of the course, and we just never made it over there. After the start, we were heading off to the left. We had a few boats on our hip…I could hear them, but never looked. We tacked light of the layline, but USA 483 was right there, and we were forced to tack right back and slow. MY FAULT 100%. In my embarrassment, I called for another tack and quickly fell down. The following tack was just as bad, and I could sense I was getting tired. Up the beat we go, and USA 483 is flying. We end up rounding fourth or fifth, and set off down the run with USA 275 The Other White Meat, USA 1577 and USA 48 all in our sights. We have a decent run, moved up one spot and set off upwind for the final beat of race three. We have a really good beat and end up rounding behind USA 483, who we couldn’t seem to catch, and they won race 3 while we came in second with a stack of boats fighting for third.
Race four saw it soften a little more. We were still three hiking, but the sails were eased a bit and our perceived upwind advantage has vanished as all the boats were going hull speed. Chop was still up. Once again, we got off the line, but not very well. We struggled a little bit upwind and rounded the weather mark in fifth or sixth. USA 483 was making a hard charge for the Championship and led the fleet around again. We were in a weird spot on the run, kind of trapped, and came out of the leeward mark in fifth. We knew we had a lot of work to do. Jennifer even laid it out for us and said we could afford a third but not a fourth. We worked hard upwind and kept calm and just dug in. We were passing boats, and at the top of the beat, it was USA 1577 again, and I thought we needed to get by them. We closed the gap to have a shot at them, gibed away behind them and then it was a drag race to the finish between us, USA 1577 and USA 275. USA 483 was in front of all of us, putting a loose cover on us and probably hoping the other boats would hold position, but Jennifer and Zac had a great set, gybe and run, and we ended up crawling back to a second-place finish and won the 2026 J/22 Michigan Championship.
Very proud of this event and happy to share it with Jennifer and Zak. Our Michigan fleet is pretty tough to sail against, but even funner to hang out with afterward. Talking to so many former champions around the beer cooler was great.
Top 8:
USA 1552 Evil Dr. Pork Chop Princing 1, 1, 2, 2 6 points
USA 483 Green Eggs & Ham Barnes 4, 3, 1, 1 9 points
USA 1577 Commodore Brogger 3, 2, 3, 3 11 points
USA 48 Pork Bellies Carr 2, 4, 7. 5 18 points
USA 275 TOWM Coberly 5, 6, 4, 4 19 points
USA 454 Squealer Scott 6, 5, 6, 7 24 points
USA 838 Pigs in Space Diehl 7, 7, 5, 6 25 points
USA 978 Pygmalion Jacques 8, 8, 8, 8 32 points
Special thanks go out to:
· TBYC Board and Members for hosting and providing a great facility for our sailing
· PRO – Mark Olgaard
o Team: Don Thwing, Rock Blanchard, Karen Dewyse
o Chase boats: Rich Main, Rob Stork, Matt Haglund, Matt Princing
o Grill tenders – Matt and Richie
o Fleet 44 – for providing the food, snacks, beer, water, cupcakes
o Judy behind the bar for being awesome
