AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOR THE RICH. The results are in for the Mackinac Race. There is a prize for getting there first.

Windquest, an 86-foot vessel that was the largest in the fleet of 300 sailboats, arrived in Michigan early Monday morning to capture the Royono Trophy in the 98th running of the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac.

The trophy is presented to the first monohull across the finish line regardless of boat size or category.

Strong headwinds on Lake Michigan limited the pace of the race that began Saturday in Chicago, and when Windquest reached Mackinac Island at 1:23 a.m., the elapsed time for the Tom Giesler-captained boat owned by Illinois' Doug DeVos was 34 hours 43 minutes 23 seconds.

That was about 11 hours slower than the 2002 record set by Pyewacket.

Windquest was cheered to shore by a small group of fans, more than six hours ahead of the runner-up, Chicago-based Nightmare.

Windquest also finished ahead of a storm that buffeted most of the other boats still on the lake.

"They beat the rain," race spokeswoman Christie Kirchner said. "They had headwinds the whole way. The winds and seas made for a challenging race."

Yes, a 333-mile beat is work. Windquest apparently set a record for velocity made good. But after handicapping, neither Windquest nor Nightmare win the race.

Eagle, owned by a family from Chicago, has won the Mackinac Cup, the top prize for the larger boats finishing the 98th running of the Race to Mackinac.The boat, owned by Jerry and Shawn O'Neill, finished the 333-mile race with a time of 43 hours, 28 minutes, 1 second.

Time adjustment rules. Pah. I'll stick to one-designs, where second place is first last. Check out the ultimate one design!