Little Traverse Bay Yacht Club "Ugotta Regatta"

                                July 25 - 27, 2014

Every year the Little Traverse Bay Yacht Club hosts the annual "Ugotta Regatta". It starts on Friday morning and runs through Sunday. On Saturday, we drove over to the dog park in Harbor Springs to see if we could get a better view of the races.

It was a cloudy but warm on the 2nd day of the races.

There are 88 sailboats allowed in the race. It is a first come (sign up) first serve to be in the races.
( one of many close up shots with zoom lens)

After viewing at several spots in Harbor Springs, we headed back toward Magnus RV Park, and stopped at the Sunset Park, just past Bay View on Hwy 31 to see if this was a better viewing spot.

View of Little Traverse Bay from Sunset Park. I tried to find on the internet about the size of the bay, but the best I could find is that it is about 10 miles long and 4 to 5 miles wide, according to someone.

In Sunset Park, Joe and I found this informative plaque about the Little Traverse Bay. The town of Petoskey, first settled in 1852 was named after the Ottawa Indian's chief that lived in this area. In 1873 the railroad came through changing the area rapidly into America's leading summer resort city. Bay View, an adjoining summer colony was established in 1875. I will show you more about Bay View in up coming blogs.

In this picture you can see the point where Little Traverse Bay ends into Lake Michigan to the west.

The Ugotta Regatta is held 2 weekends after the Chicago and Port Huron to Mackinac races are held. Many of the participants in those races come to the Ugotta races.

Here is a view of the bike trail that runs from Charlevoix to Harbor Springs past our park, Magnus RV Park on the Little Traverse Bay.

There seemed to be different categories of sailboat races going on throughout the weekend.

The Little Traverse Bay Yacht Club was established in 1895 and is one of the oldest clubs in Michigan. There are sailing lessons for youth from 8 to 18, but I don't know the particulars of cost or membership requirements.

Anyone can enter into the race, if you are among the first 88 sailboats to register.

We left Sunset Park and returned back to Magnus RV Park. We had just as good views as anywhere we could find along the bay.

On Sunday during the race a lighting storm came through. We wondered if the race's would discontinue, but they didn't and soon the storm passed. I would have been a bit nervous out on the water with that metal pole sticking straight up in the air!