Storm gust backflips sailor off boat during 101st Bayview Mackinac Race
'It was instantaneous, violent and strong' -- then came Epic rescue
They remember seeing feet go overboard.
That’s it. Just feet.
Sudden winds hit with such force that Epic, a Beneteau First 42s, lurched to one side and sent sailor Phil Zyskowski, 68, of Beverly Hills, Mich., into an overboard backflip on Day 1 of the 101st Port Huron to Mackinac Race.
“It was instantaneous, violent and strong,” said sail trimmer Tiffany Ellis. “We think more than 40 knots” wind speed.
Below deck, the impact ripped Winnie Adams from the navigator seat and smashed her up against the door. She couldn’t immediately get to the instrument dials to alert area boats for an emergency response just hours into a 2-day race.
“I took a big knock down,” said Adams, 80, a retired special education teacher and librarian from West Bloomfield, Mich. “The boat was on its side. I heard ‘man overboard.’”
On deck, Ellis kept pointing to her crew mate so as not to lose sight. This was the first afternoon of a 41-hour race. The crew threw a flotation device that unwinds a cord attached to the boat — like a tow line that water-skiers use. Then crew tossed a horseshoe-shaped life ring with a strobe light, which is not attached to the boat.
Everyone had on life jackets at the start, knowing a storm was in the forecast.
Ray Adams, 79, a retired band teacher from Beverly Hills, Mich., was driving the boat when the man overboard incident occurred just after 2:30 p.m. His team took down sails, cleared all the lines so nothing could get tangled and he started the engine to go get the sailor.
Rescue completed within 30 minutes, maybe 27 minutes.
“As scary as the moment was, it was a textbook rescue,” said Ellis, 44, a lawyer from Detroit. “We started the race and because of the way the wind was going, we had a chute — a spinnaker sail — that had the potential to overpower us. We knew we needed to get it down. In the process of trying to get that sail down, and put the other one up, a gust of wind came out of nowhere.”
She continued, “As the crew came up into cockpit to help us, Phil very literally sat down and was tossed out head first within seconds because we broached. Imagine a roller-coaster where you sit in a chair and it tips backward and you could fall out without a seatbelt. That's what happened to him. It happened at the moment we were trying to change a sail as we were planning and working on doing.”
Ellis spotted the feet — wearing sailing boots — going overboard.
“It was such an unexpected swell of wind that caught everybody off guard. It was a downburst. It came out of nowhere. We knew the storm was coming but this gust of wind came so far in front of it,” said Nick Hayes, 47, a college administrator from Cottam, Ontario, Canada.
Epic skipper Ray Adams said, “It was a really fast storm front that went through. Usually you get winds building. This was like a blast, a surprise. It just knocked our boat over sideways with our spinnaker and main (sails) still up.”
No one panicked, but people on the boat were scared.
These sailors had been together longer than most marriages.
They knew to trust each other, do their jobs and focus.
“One person kept an eye on Phil the whole time, pointing. His life jacket deployed successfully and the bright yellow inflatable part of it was incredibly important. It really saved us,” Ellis said. “Waves were getting bigger. Our boat was getting farther away and there were a lot of dynamics at play. Everybody stayed pretty calm. We got him back on the boat, took a deep breath and kept going. Phil said, ‘I knew you guys weren’t going to leave me.’”
“We had a handle on it.” — Nick Hayes, foredeck
After the rescue, Zyskowski was still wearing his hat and glasses.
“I didn't do a back flip intentionally but I went in head first backwards,” said Zyskowski, a retired government business manager.
Resting on the dock on Mackinac Island on Monday, he said he wasn’t scared during the rescue because he could see everything was going right. “The water was not cold to me. I had my foul weather jacket on with an inflatable vest. I went in head first and (the vest) popped in a couple seconds and pulled me right up.”
While he floated in the water, things didn’t look good on Epic as the 42-foot boat jerked around in the waves and wind, he said.
“I just started swimming easily towards the boat. I waved three or four times so they knew I was still around and alive and kicking, said Zyskowski, who has sailed 41 races to Mackinac with Ray and Winnie Adams.
(Crew members credited the safety at sea course taught through U.S. Sailing, which includes jumping into a pool at the Detroit Yacht Club in full sailing gear. )
As soon as Zyskowki rejoined Epic, he put on another life jacket and began cranking winches and helping with sails. Then he went below, dried off and took a short break for an hour. “Then I got dressed. I needed to get back to work.”
Epic placed 4th in Class E, finishing the Cove Island course in 41 hours, 39 minutes and 52 seconds, according to the YB race tracker. The course is 259 nautical miles.
Despite it all, Epic missed the podium by minutes, based on unofficial finish times.
“We’re getting old. We’ve had mostly the same crew for almost 40 years,” Winnie Adams said. “As much as it distresses you when someone goes overboard, we know what to do.”
This wasn’t Ray Adams’ first rodeo.
“My wife went overboard a long time ago in a race in the late ‘70s on Lake St. Clair,” Adams said. “It was late April, cold water.”
Back then, the flotation device had a manual pull tab and Winnie had trouble getting the inflatable to deploy. She kept sinking. A second crew member went overboard during the same race, swam over to Winnie Adams and pulled the tab.
“We’ve got experience,” Ray Adams said.
While he didn’t place first, second or third place in the Mackinac race this year, Adams will make the podium anyway. He’s one of three sailors being recognized as a Grand Ram, racing their 50th Bayview Mackinac — along with Tom Vigrass of Port Huron, Mich., and Dan Aitken of Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich.
“We get a big flag that recognizes our commitment to sailing,” Adams said. “I thought I’d probably remember my 50th race but I never imagined it would have this kind of connotation. Experienced crew members know what to do when something happens.”
Epic was one of two race boats that experienced man overboard incidents. The other incident involved Trident, a Santa Cruz 70 based at Bayview Yacht Club in Detroit, and required rescue by Amante 2 based at Bay City Yacht Club in Michigan.
Phoebe Wall Howard covered sailing for The Detroit Free Press for seven years, until 2024. Find her recent sailing stories here.
Editor’s note: She is a member of the Port Huron Yacht Club. Her husband sailed Good Lookin’ in the 101st Mackinac Bayview Race and placed first in class. Phoebe knew Tiffany Ellis as a friend through sailing previous to this story.
More: As Tomahawk sank, T.K. Lowry said he couldn't fit into the life raft
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I am enjoying this series! Vivid writing!
Hi Phoebe,
Great article as usual.
Epic's Request For Redress adds some interesting detail to the story as well.