St. Clair Shores sailor Tim Prophit sailor prepares for 39th Bayview to Mackinac boat race.
Photo Credit: Ryan Garza. Detroit Free Press

St. Clair Shores sailor prepares for 39th Bayview to Mackinac boat race

By Phoebe Wall Howard | Detroit Free Press | July 23, 2021

After the lightning strike, any other man would’ve quit.

But smart money could never bet against Tim Prophit of St. Clair Shores.

“If you want me to do something, tell me I can’t do it,” he said. “I’ll say … ‘watch me.’ ”

On June 29, lightning damaged four sailboats at Bayview Yacht Club in Detroit. The act of God caused $26,000 in damage on Prophit’s Fast Tango and an impossible challenge.

It wasn’t about the money. It was about the time.

Prophit, a 62-year-old marketing consultant, needed to rebuild the boat immediately. He had to make a 92-hour trip on the water to get his sailboat from Detroit to Chicago for the 112th annual Chicago to Mackinac Island Race by July 17.

Boat parts couldn’t be ordered and installed in time. Insurance payments took too long.

Prophit had 12 days to accomplish what needed to be done.

Yes, he paid $840 in nonrefundable race registration fees. More importantly, he had a reputation to defend as a nine-time winner. But men and women spend a whole year preparing for this grueling 333-mile race across Lake Michigan that would include 231 boats from 11 states and three countries.

Sailing is as much a part of Michigan culture as Ford Motor Co. and Faygo pop.

Tim Prophit of St. Clair Shores is racing Bayview Mackinac on Saturday despite his boat being hit by lightning. Photo Credit: Ryan Garza. Detroit Free Press

Just minutes before the storm, boat mechanic Paul Lee had pulled the starter off the engine to repair a fuel leak. He also turned off the battery. He’s in there below deck, working with flashlights, kneeling on the wood floor and touching nothing but wood or fiberglass, when he heard what sounded like a stick of dynamite inside the boat. He saw electricity arc from the ground cable. Then he smelled smoke.

Wire antenna vaporized. Screws melted.

“I knew that was lightning electricity,” said Lee, 54, of Eastpointe. “I was 2 feet away from active lightning. I suffered no shock or burn. And there wasn’t enough time to be scared. We lost all the electronics, instruments, navigational equipment, the radio. Anything electrical was fried. The USB chargers needed to be replaced. But the engine was basically unaffected.”

Prophit made the fixes in time to race Chicago to Mackinac on July 17. This weekend, he’ll race Port Huron to the iconic island in what’s called the Bayview Mackinac Race because it’s run by the prestigious Detroit club founded in 1915.

Lee will compete directly against Prophit on the boat Genesis.

Tim Prophit of Saint Clair Shores sails Fast Tango on July 13, 2021 en route to Chicago from the Bayview Yacht Club in Detroit. He is seen here on Lake Huron. Prophit won second in class in the annual Chicago Mackinac race. Photo Credit: Tim Prophit

“Keep in mind, there’s no prize money. It’s all about a flag,” Lee said. “When we’re on the water and the race course, we are enemies. I want to crush him. When we’re off the race course, we do whatever we can to help each other out.”

Back in 1993, they raced together from Port Huron to Mackinac in winds approaching 30 mph. Other boats could not get control of the wind, Lee said. They were on a Santana 35, the original Fast Tango, and they were flying.

Prophit called to his crew that he would line up sails, expecting them to break into pieces and shred — one after another after another.

“He’s ready to wipe out his spinnaker (sail) inventory to win the race,” Lee said. “He is ridiculously committed to winning. We won our class” and second overall.

Handsome Pete

So when Fast Tango was hit by lightning, Prophit posted on social media news of the disaster and vowed to stay in the hunt.

He would not quit a race he had won nine times. But the only way he could remain in the race would be with the help of his competitors — people who trained and spent money preparing to sail against him.

Sailors from Bayview Yacht Club and Great Lakes Yacht Club and Grosse Pointe Sail Club called and texted and emailed. People pulled parts out of boxes in their garages and basements and even off boats.

Maren Prophit sails with her father Tim Prophit on the Detroit River on July 1, 2021. He is past president of the Bayview Yacht Club in Detroit and now commodore of Detroit Regional-Racing Association, working with programs to bring young people into sailing. Photo Credit: Maren Prophit

Andrew Morlan of Grosse Pointe Park, Jim Rapelje of Sterling Heights, Sammy Barbour of Grosse Pointe and Brian Smith of St. Clair Shores took the lead. A guy named Dick Booth in Treasure Island, Florida, spent hours on the phone walking Prophit through, step by step, fixing instruments that are no longer made.

They rebuilt Fast Tango like Frankenstein in a week and a half.

After he crossed the starting line in Chicago, it took him 59 hours, 4 minutes and 20 seconds to finish — placing second after a boat named Handsome Pete from Chicago on Monday. They had 16 boats in their class, Section 8.

Prophit turned around and sailed Fast Tango from Mackinac Island back to Port Huron, arriving early Thursday, to then turn around and race back to the island again. The race begins at 11:30 a.m. Saturday with different start times for different size boats.

Fast Tango and its class of competitors will cross the starting line at 1300 or 1 p.m.

Part of the brutality of the race is that it’s back to back with Chicago. Chicago is always first in odd years. Port Huron in even years.

“This will be my 39th Bayview Mackinac race but I’ve only completed 37 of the 38 I’ve started,” he said. “In 1985, I was on a Tartan 10 that made it about halfway before dropping out. The wind was about 25-35 knots (about 30 mph) in huge waves. The main sail split in half, front to back. It was impossible to continue.”

Prophit was crew then. He’s skipper now, primarily the helmsman.

Tim Prophit of St. Clair Shores, past commodore of the Bayview Yacht Club, talks about one of his tattoos on his left arm of two goats with a Bayview Yacht Club flag known as a burgee after racing the Port Huron to Mackinac competition 25 times while preparing his boat docked at the Port Huron Yacht Club for the next race he is competing from Port Huron to Mackinac Island on July 22, 2021. Photo Credit: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press

“My job is to drive the boat as fast as possible in the direction that the tactician tells me to drive it in. For the Mackinac race, we usually have two guys that are really good at weather routing, racing and fleet management,” he said. “They figure out, where is everybody else in our class? You might need to be to the left of everybody or the right of everybody. That will influence our decision where we set up at the start. Or whether there’s a wind shift about to happen, expected to happen. We have to anticipate it.”

For example, you can’t sail into the wind. You need to look at the little ribbons on the sails, called telltales, and make sure they’re flying straight. You watch wave patterns. You need to decide in big wind if you’re going to glide over waves or plow through them. The trick is to keep people dry on the rail. If you hit the back of a wave, you slow down.

One tactician on Fast Tango is a lawyer, another a marketing consultant. They understand how to read weather and how wind affects certain boats.

Fast Tango, a North America 40, was built in 1978 by the famed designer Dick Carter. Prophit purchased it in 2008, sailing mostly in the Great Lakes and around Detroit. It’s a good light air boat.

“It’s not a modern boat or a sexy race boat,” Prophit said. “Kids don’t walk down the dock and say, ‘That’s a really cool boat. I want to sail on that.’ But it has tremendous history.”

On his own boat and crewing on other boats, Prophit has crossed the starting line on Lake Huron 38 times and won his class nine times. He has raced in 26 Chicago Mackinac races and won his class nine times. He has won Chicago twice overall and Port Huron once overall.

Tim Prophit of St. Clair Shores races Fast Tango on Lake St. Clair in 2020 in a competition. Photo Credit: Tim Prophit

It’s a stellar record by any measure.

“Sailing teaches you about wind and weather and aerodynamics,” he said. “You need to know engine repair because you’re repairing (expletive) that happens when lightning hits your boat or you hit the ground because you got into some shallow water. There’s math involved, figuring out the angle of the sail.”

This is a man whose tattoos on the left arm tell a sailing story. One tattoo of goats with a Bayview Yacht Club flag, known as a burgee, signifies his first 25 races from Port Huron to Mackinac. Most men wear this image on a patch on their blue blazer.

Completing 25 Mackinac races makes a sailor an old goat. It’s a big deal.

A second tattoo of two goats signifies being an old goat for both Chicago to Mackinac and Port Huron to Mackinac races. And, finally, he has a copy of a patch that says “Established in 1959” and refers to the Chicago Mackinac Goat Sailing Society.

“Not every sailor looks like a biker,” Prophit said smiling, and looking over his tattoo sleeves on both arms with pride.

He is past commodore of the prestigious Bayview Yacht Club and he is currently commodore of the Detroit Regional Yacht-Racing Association.

He started sailing to meet girls.

Michael Flecha, also known as King Strang, invited his uncle Tim Prophit, past commodore of the Bayview Yacht Club, to play at the Cadieux Cafe in May 2019. Each is a competitive sailor. Photo Credit: Mary Prophit

“I had a power boat. I still have a motorcycle. I built hot rods. I went skydiving. I took an adult learn-to-sail class at the Detroit Yacht Club at age 23,” Prophit said. “They encouraged students to race. I didn’t really want to but I did it. You’re racing against your fellow students so everyone is at the same basic extremely novice level. I happened to win that first race. And I go, ‘Wow, this is a sport I can do and drink beer and smoke cigarettes and be an athlete. Perfect!’ ”

Everything he has in life now is directly or indirectly because of sailing: work, friendships, all of it. Some guys have sailed with Prophit for 35 years and others are new. It all depends on availability — who can take time off work, who has family commitments or health issues.

After all, Prophit had triple heart bypass surgery in April 2018 — “chest fully cracked open” — and sailed the Port Huron to Mackinac race 87 days later. A week after that, he sailed from the Windy City to Mackinac. He placed first in class and third overall in the Chicago race.

Friends, enemies

This year, he has five sailors who will do both races to Mackinac and five sailors will swap out. He’ll race with some sailors in Chicago and against them in Port Huron.

“You kind of find your niche,” he said. “I love starts, for example. Whether it’s a short race or a long race, having a good start is better than not having a good start. Particularly on a Mackinac race where you get spread out on the lake fairly quickly. The start time is the one time you’re in close contact and engagement with your competitors.”

In other words, it’s a time boats are most likely to touch because they’re jockeying for a good position while at the same time trying to block other boats from getting good positions.

Sailor Tim Prophit of St. Clair Shores works on taking down the mainsail on his boat ‘Fast Tango’ docked at the Port Huron Yacht Club with Kellen McGee of Lisle, Illinois while preparing for the next race they are competing from Port Huron to Mackinac Island on Jul 22, 2021. Photo Credit: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press

“Have I hit people? Yes,” Prophit said. “Todd Jones is usually on the other boat. We’re really good friends but we hate each other on the water. None of us likes to hit boats. They’re not collisions, they’re little love taps and bumps. When that happens, one is right and one is wrong and one takes a penalty.”

Jones, 55, a businessman from Grosse Pointe, responded, “Once on the water, we both have a killer instinct. Sometimes he’s in my way. If he’s in my way, I’m going to push him out of the way and vice versa. For most people, what happens on the water stays on the water. You can’t take that personally.”

Men and women who crew with Prophit say he can’t be compared to anyone else. He never, ever yells. He has a roster of 50 people to crew on long-distance races, and he builds teams depending on who’s available and what personalities create the best chemistry. Mostly, he values commitment and safety.

“Sailing can be physically challenging. It’s certainly mentally challenging,” Prophit said. “You have to be physically fit and strong to handle the loads on sails and rigging.”

In 2019, he blared a heavy metal song as clouds formed in the distance and Fast Tango was making a turn near Gray’s Reef from Lake Michigan into the Straits of Mackinac.

“We were creeping up on somebody and he was setting the tone,” said Grant Moore, 26, a sales manager from Port Huron, who plans to race with Prophit on Saturday. “He shreds on a guitar pretty good, too.”

The song choice: “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine, Prophit said.

The Chicago Yacht Club canceled the 2020 race because of COVID-19 concerns among race organizers and on Mackinac Island, which delayed its season opening and implemented strict protocols and restrictions. Bayview ran a race with fewer boats than usual. This year, the longer of two courses from Port Huron is canceled because of Canadian border limits related to the pandemic.

Moore’s father used to sail with Prophit.

“He’s raw, straight up,” Moore said. “It’s a no-BS operation. We show up to have a hell of a time and leave it all out there.”

Now the son trims the sails to capture the wind.

Sailor Tim Prophit of St. Clair Shores works on removing the autohelm while getting his boat ‘Fast Tango’ ready for competing in his next race from Port Huron to Mackinac Island on July 22, 2021 while docked at the Port Huron Yacht Club in Port Huron. Photo Credit: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press

Chocolate and coffee

While other race boats cater meals, Fast Tango does not.

“If the food is up to me, you get peanut butter and jelly and Snickers bars,” Prophit said. “I’m bringing the boat. We eat whatever the crew brings. We eat a lot of sandwiches. One guy does barbecued chicken breast — which can make a sandwich, pasta salad or they’re great while sitting on the rail (with feet dangling over the water).”

On Fast Tango, the main food groups are protein, chocolate, salty snacks and coffee.

“I’m retired from drugs and alcohol consumption and have been for a few decades,” Prophit said. “I did more than most do in a lifetime by the age of 40.”

Blessed to be out there

He climbs up from below deck of Fast Tango on a breezy morning, having pulled into the Port Huron Yacht Club harbor at the intersection of the St. Clair River and Black River around 1 a.m. He desperately needed coffee.

A cigarette dangled from his lips.

He was waiting for his crewmate, Dave Simon.

Simon, 57, an engineer from Grosse Pointe Woods, planned to meet Prophit in Port Huron on Thursday to take him home to swap out dirty clothes and get life in order before the next race.

Within 48 hours, they’ll be heading to the starting line together on Fast Tango.

Sailors say they feel honored to be on teams that Prophit builds, not just because of his sailing skill but because of how he guides and coaches those around him, including seasoned sailors.

“I’ve been in conditions with Tim ranging from zero wind to 105 knots (or 120 mph) in 2011, and his calmness is a constant positive. Screaming doesn’t do any good,” Simon said. “We’re just blessed to be out there. You’re seeing the sunrise over the Manitou Islands (in Lake Michigan). When you hit the (awards) podium, you never take that for granted.”

Harry Jones, director of the nonprofit Challenge the Wind Youth Sailing Program, is seen here in 2019 at the Belle Isle Boat House in Detroit. He and Tim Prophit, past commodore of the Bayview Yacht Club, work together to grow and diversify the sailing community in metro Detroit. Photo Credit: Norm Smith

Harry Jones, a Ford retiree from West Bloomfield who worked in human relations for global markets, has seen Prophit turn his passion for sailing into recruitment of young people and adults in Detroit.

The nonprofit organization Challenge the Wind Youth Sailing Program reaches out to families through schools, churches and community centers. Now about 50 kids and 30 adults who might otherwise never think of sailing are learning each summer on Detroit’s waterfront.

“Young folks live downtown who ride bicycles over to Belle Isle, get on a sailboat and go sailing,” said Jones, director of the sailing program. “Tim has been a big supporter of the youth program. He and I talked about creating the Detroit Community Sailing Center in the old Detroit Boat Club building, now called the Belle Isle Boat House. Tim is the kind of person who doesn’t talk talk talk but do do do. We worked hard recruiting people.”

People in the program crew on boats from Bayview, Detroit Boat Club and Crescent Yacht Club in Grosse Pointe.

“All of us track Tim’s progress in both Mackinac races, and we’re absolutely amazed that he got his boat to Chicago let alone finished second. It’s pretty remarkable.”

Prophit is a board member of the Detroit Community Sailing Center. Without more people of color and women, sailing can’t thrive. Prophit wants it to thrive.

“I think there are a ton of people who would love to sail who haven’t had the support,” he said. “People think, ‘sailing is for rich people, I can’t do that.’ That’s (expletive).”

Tim Prophit, past commodore of Bayview Yacht Club, with his sister Mary Prophit, a retired U.S. Army colonel, and her dog Glory Blue in Washington State in 2016. Photo Credit: Mary Prophit

Army vs. Navy

So many people all over Detroit and the state of Michigan and different parts of the country will follow racers online through a GPS tracking system that shows where boats are at all times. It’s obsessive for family members who check all through the night, including Prophit’s sister Mary.

“I love that app,” said Mary Prophit, 57, a retired U.S. Army colonel from Glenoma, Washington. “Sailing is Tim’s passion and the highlight of his passion is the Mackinac races, both of them.”

She noted that she’s a certified diver but Mary Prophit understands the danger of water, and can’t imagine the Mackinac races. “I could never do that. A boat is small. … I need more room. I was in the Army, not the Navy. My brother lives and breathes sailing.”

Two die after boat capsizes

In 2011, a couple from Saginaw racing WingNuts died as a result of head injuries and drowning in the Chicago to Mackinac race, according to a U.S. Sailing report. The boat had competed in three races to Mackinac Island before the incident, and the team was considered seasoned, reported the Chicago Tribune in October that year.

The lightweight 35-foot boat was designed for speed and thrills, and its unusual proportions made it vulnerable to capsizing in a race where the potential for extreme weather was well-known, said the report requested by the Chicago Yacht Club, the race organizer.

“Her capable crew and preparation could not make up for the fact that she had too little stability, which led to her being ‘blown over’ by a severe gust,” the report said.

Mark Morley, 51, the boat’s skipper, and his girlfriend Suzanne Bickel, 41, died in northern Lake Michigan after a prolonged blast of wind, generated by an intense thunderstorm, caused the boat to capsize, the Tribune reported. The fatalities were the first deaths from an accident in the race’s 103-year history. Ten boats abandoned the competition to join in search efforts for the missing sailors, who were ultimately discovered early the next day, their bodies still tethered to the side of the boat.

Looking back, Prophit said, “At the worst of it, we basically laid the boat down on its side, which was safer than trying to sail. We let the wind lay us down. The thought of us dropping out with a boat that was not broken and with a somewhat damaged but still functional sail inventory never crossed our minds.”

Competitors refer to Prophit as determined, even legendary.

While many people view sailing as a sport for rich white men, he said sailors can sail without owning a boat or paying for upkeep, dockage or insurance. There is little more valuable than someone eager and willing to learn, he said.

“Detroit is a hands-on working-man town and Chicago seems to be a wealthier town, in general,” Prophit said. “All that means is that their fleet consists of more new boats. Sailors are sailors.”

When he gets to Mackinac Island, he predicted it would be in the wee hours of Monday, the first thing he’ll do is get off the boat and wait in line to shower in the public marina. He’ll stay on the boat instead of a swanky hotel.

“I can sleep anywhere. I can sleep on a rock. But you can’t sleep on a rock on Mackinac or you’ll get arrested for vagrancy,” Prophit said. “Staying at a hotel doesn’t make my boat go faster.”

Editor’s Note: The reporter’s family has belonged to the Port Huron Yacht Club for more than 30 years and has two relatives currently on the board of directors. She has been going to Mackinac Island during racing season since age 12. Her parents are old goats, and she has a family member racing in the 2021 Bayview Mackinac Race.