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http://www.suntimes.com/news/6573790-417/2...kinac-race.html

Between them the crew of eight had completed the famous race across Lake Michigan countless times.

They knew the storm was coming and had done all the right things to prepare.

But when a 65 mile-an-hour gust of wind capsized their 35-foot yacht, the WingNuts, in six-foot waves shortly after midnight Monday during the Chicago to Mackinac race, there was nothing they could do to save their skipper and his girlfriend.

Safety lines designed to keep the crew aboard may have trapped Mark Morley, 51, and Suzanne Bickel, 40, underwater once the boat flipped, the six survivors said. The couple’s bodies were recovered near North Fox Island off the Michigan coast seven hours later by Coast Guard divers.

Only a quick rescue by competitors racing in another yacht, the Sociable, prevented the first fatal sailing accident in the race’s 113-year history from an even more tragic conclusion.

The yacht’s six other crew members — Chicago architect Lee Purcell, 46, and five others from Michigan — sent a GPS alert to the Coast Guard and clung to the upturned hull of the boat for 20 minutes in their life vests before they were saved, relatives said. Two of them had personal locating beacons, according to Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Adam Saurin.

The disaster brought back terrible memories for Purcell’s mother, Alice Pugh, of Michigan City, Ind. She said her husband, who was also named Lee Purcell and also was a keen sailor, drowned in Lake Michigan in a boating accident before their son was born.

“It was a close call for me,” she said, adding that her son had called her at 6 a.m. to tell her he was OK but “pretty shook-up.”

Her son grew up on Lake Michigan and couldn’t be dissuaded from sailing, she said.

“You can’t discourage someone if it’s what you love to do and you think you have everything under control,” Pugh said.

Purcell had crewed for several years on WingNuts, which was owned by a group of four friends from Michigan, and had entered several Mackinac races previously, she said. He had been on the lake in heavy storms before, she said.

Morley and Bickel — both of Saginaw, Mich. — were experienced sailors, according to the Chicago Yacht Club, which has organized the race since 1898, and every year since 1921. Morley had 44 years of sailing experience, including more than 20 Chicago-to-Mackinac races and 85 qualifying races, and Bickel had recently sailed across the Atlantic and had sailed in two previous Chicago-to-Mackinac Races, with 16 qualifying races.

Chip Cummings, whose 16-year-old son C.J. Cummings, of Grandville, Mich., was one of the rescued crew members, said the WingNuts was overcome by sudden strong winds and waves that flipped it. All of the crew members were clipped on to the boat to prevent them from being lost overboard when the ship flipped, he said.

Chip Cummings said Steven Morley, 15, the skipper’s nephew, was able to unclip C.J. Cummings from the upturned boat and swim to safety, but Mark Morley and Bickel remained tied on and trapped underneath.It’s not clear if they were knocked unconscious when the boat capsized, he said.

The survivors are “all healthy but very tired after their ordeal,” Cummings said. It was his son’s first time in the race.

The other rescued sailors were Mark Morley’s brother Peter Morley, 47, John Dent, 50, and Stan Dent, 51.

They released a statement saying they were “indebted to the crew of the Sociable and are heartbroken over the loss of their crewmembers, Mark and Suzanne.”

Ten other boats abandoned the race and came to the WingNuts aid after the Sociable’s crew radioed for help, according to the yacht club.

Adam Hollerbach, who sailed aboard the 70-foot vessel Details, said that boat reached Mackinac Island’s harbor just as the storm unleashed its fury, with wildly shifting gusts, lightning bolts and stinging hail.

“It was among the nastiest, if not the nastiest, that I’ve seen,” said Hollerbach, 33, of Detroit.

Racers were in a somber mood as they arrived at the island and learned of the WingNuts’ fate, he said.

“You know that it could have been you,” Hollerbach said.

Joseph S. Haas, the commodore of the Chicago Yacht Club, said the race organizers “express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the crew of WingNuts. The crew of this boat exemplified the spirit of the Chicago-Mac that is steeped in tradition of family, friends and passion for the water.”

The 333-mile race from just off Navy Pier to Mackinac Island is the oldest annual freshwater distance race in the world. An estimated 3,500 crewmembers on 355 boats participated.

In 1970, more than half of the yachts participating in the race took refuge from northerly winds gusting at more than 60 miles an hour.

In 1937, only eight of 42 boats finished because of high winds.