A $3 million sailboat built in mid-coast Maine a half-century ago competed over the weekend in one of Michigan’s most iconic summer traditions – the 102nd Bayview Mackinac Race.
Nearly 1,700 sailors and 200 boats competed in the world’s longest freshwater yacht race this weekend – a 259-nautical-mile course.
The stunning wooden-hulled 105-foot Whitehawk – complete with its own fireplace – and built by O. Lie-Nielsen Boat Yard along Rockland’s shoreline, was among the 200 yachts in the grueling race.
The Cove Island Course of the Bayview Mackinac Race takes the contestants about 18 hours.
Hosted in Lake Huron, the track requires sailboats to navigate into Canadian waters to round a buoy near Cove Island before turning toward the finish line.
The Whitehawk, now owned by Peter Thornton, last week won – for the fifth year in a row – the 117th Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac, crossing the finish line July 12, capturing line honors for the fifth consecutive year with an elapsed time of 1 day, 23 hours, and 11 minutes.
The Whitehawk, a ketch, was designed by Bruce King of Newport, California for fellow Californian Phil Long, who was in the market for a larger version of Ticonderoga, a speedy, world-record-holding 72-foot ketch designed by L. Francis Herreshoff.
When Long first called King and told him he wanted to build a 90-foot version of Ticonderoga, King told Jim Brown of WoodenBoat magazine, “I thought he was crazy. You get calls like that, but usually nothing ever comes of them. But he came to see me.”
When the plans for Whitehawk were ready, Long took them to Maine to have it built in Lie-Nielsen’s shop.
Long moved east to be close to the construction process.
Bill Peterson of nearby South Bristol was taken on as foreman for the job.
The Whitehawk used the new-at-the-time WEST system, consisting of multiple plies, precisely six plies each, made up of 1-inch-thick boards.
When launched in 1978, Whitehawk was one of the largest boats built with this construction technology.
Long then sold it to Thomas Zetkov, an insurance executive from New York and Florida who had followed its construction over several years while cruising in Penobscot Bay.
The selling price was said to be “less than $1.5 million,” according to WoodenBoat.
Rumor at the time had it thatLong had become “financially over-extended,” but Long says that was not the case at all, according to Brown.
“This fellow came along who decided he was going to buy her, no matter what,” Long said, recalling how he came to sell the Whitehawk shortly after he had it built. “After he came three times, I decided if he came once more, he’s got a boat.”
“https://www.themainewire.com/2026/07/60-fancy-yachts-set-to-take-on-boothbay-harbor-yacht-club-regatta/”
They should have made room for one more fancy yacht,and the blue blood owner.
Lol