ML - Michigan Avenue

2013 - Issue 4 - Summer

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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Winning last year's Mackinac wasn't enough for Peter Thornton; this year he hopes to shatter the elapsed-time record. Thornton did major renovations on il Mostro—inside and out—to prepare for this year's race. Although worlds apart, both Heft and Thornton share the same passion for sailing. Thornton's love of boats started as a Sea Scout while growing up on Chicago's South Side. He Il Mostro's crew sleep in cramped bunks during recalls how the idea of owning a boat the multiday race. seemed "so far out of reach." Still, the Mendel High School grad vowed to make it happen someday. Years later Thornton made good on that finally finished his first race without capsizing, promise and purchased his first boat, a 1939 he says, "it was the best feeling getting to go Chris Craft wooden powerboat, with a friend. home with a dry head." After graduating through other powerboats, Small victories led to bigger ones. After four Thornton started sailing more than 35 years ago. years of sailing, Heft finally won his first race In 2005, Thornton won his first of two Royono this year as a senior. But Heft's racing career Trophies, racing a Great Lakes 70 sailboat would never have happened, he says, had it not named Holua. After winning the largest annual been for the Chicago Yacht Club Foundation, freshwater race in the US, "I thought I was out," which paid for Rickover Naval Academy race he says. "I wanted to spend time with my wife." entry fees, PFDs, sailing dry suits, gloves, and Years passed. Two years ago, some of boots, and donates a volunteer coach and the Thornton's old sailing crew asked him to conuse of the sailboats. Without the foundation's sider sailing again. "I told them the only way I assistance, Heft says, he wouldn't be the same. would do it is if I could get something that would "It's changed all aspects of my life, and the only break the Mac record," Thornton says. thing I ever want to do anymore is be at the harThat's when his sailing buddies suggested bor on the water," he says. PUSHING BOUNDARIES Like most sailors, Heft knows of il Mostro and Thornton's quest to break the course record for the Race to Mackinac. "That's a pretty good record that Roy Disney set," Heft says. "For any single-hull ship, even il Mostro, to try and beat it would be astonishing, if not impossible." Thornton knows he needs every bit of luck and the right weather conditions to position il Mostro. For more than half the race during last year's Mac, il Mostro averaged more than 11 knots (12.7 miles per hour), putting it on pace to beat the record. "We were clipping along at 12, 13 knots, and all it had to do was keep blowing," says Thornton, whose crew last year included Ken Read, one of the world's most accomplished sailors. "And the wind quit. It went dead." Il Mostro still finished nearly an hour in front of his nearest competitor, Windquest, a Max Z86, but more than 12 hours behind Disney's record. So after last year's race, Thornton worked with il Mostro's previous ocean sailors, who raced around the world, to "define where the boat had weaknesses." Then, three major improvements were made to il Mostro. The boat's overall weight was reduced by more than 500 pounds, mainly by PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER HOFFMAN (THORNTON, INTERIOR); RANDY HULL (IL MOSTRO); MICHELE IDSTEIN (OPENING IMAGE) MAKING WAVES buying il Mostro, which had been sitting in a boatyard in Providence, Rhode Island. Thornton considered buying a few other boats—including Disney's Pyewacket, which set the record he hopes to beat—but decided against it. The bigger challenge was getting il Mostro back to the Midwest. With a 16-foot draw (the depth of water needed to safely clear the bottom), transporting il Mostro through most canals was nearly impossible, and after purchasing the boat in late 2011, Thornton ended up doing the unthinkable: He had his crew remove the keel before sailing up the Hudson River and down through the Erie Canal, then re-added it in Oswego, New York, and sailed through the Great Lakes to Chicago. "I don't think anyone else is crazy enough to go through what we did," Thornton says with a laugh. 126 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 122-127_MA_FEAT_Yacht_SUMMER13.indd 126 6/18/13 12:48 PM

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