April 11, 2024 • 8 mins
Jibe Talking attends the Friends of the Mill party at the Toledo Yacht Club. We had the opportunity to talk with the photographer of the Mills Trophy Race! He talks a little about himself and about the coming 2024 Mills Trophy Race. You can see some of his amazing work at https://mi6657.wixsite.com/mills-trophy-race
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Now we are privileged to have with us the man who does
(00:04):
the photography for the Mills Trophy Race.
Why don't you introduce yourself?
Well, my name is Doug Hague.
I am a past Commodore of the North Cape Yacht Club.
Oh, that's an excellent club.
And I used to crew for Ron and Kay Soka.
Oh, excellent people.
Who have been the chairman of this event for,
I don't know, 25 years now.
(00:27):
And they've done an excellent job, by the way.
They used to crew on their boat.
And when they lost their photographer for the Mills Race,
who used to do them,
they knew I was very interested in photography.
I was kind of an advanced amateur.
They said, would I do it?
So I've been doing the photography
(00:47):
for probably about 10 years or so.
Now, go ahead, finish up, I'm sorry.
But in the early years, when I was still crewing with them,
I didn't do any of the start pictures.
I didn't do any of the pictures of the start
because I was on their boat racing.
Sure.
But I just did the shore events,
(01:08):
like the parties and the, like this event here.
Yeah, this is a great event.
And flag awards and that sort of thing.
But I always wondered whether I could do a good job
with taking the pictures of the boats, the starting line.
So after the 2015 race, I gave up racing
and now I'm on the start line boat every year.
So I've been doing all the photography,
(01:29):
including the start line since 2016.
Now, how many races did you race in yourself?
About, I think about 18.
You have to be 20, 25 races to be considered a-
A master?
A mills master.
And I'll never make that because I think I did 18 and out.
(01:54):
Did you win any?
No.
No.
No.
Now what was the name of the Soca's boat?
Meridian.
Meridian?
The sailboat, about a 33 foot Pearson named Meridian.
Okay, so now you take pictures.
Now, is there a special boat that will move you around
to take the pictures?
No, no.
(02:14):
How does that work?
Well, since the mills race is a night race.
It is, yeah.
So you're obviously not gonna take pictures
in the middle of the night out on the lake
and the boats get separated after the start.
So all the pictures are taken at the start line
from the committee boat, the starting,
the people who start the boats and fire the guns
(02:38):
and all that kind of stuff.
So I'm on that start boat.
And so the only pictures I take on the water
are from the start boat.
Now I have heard that this year,
the advanced registration has been higher than ever.
There's a lot of excitement about the 100th.
Not only, well, Kay told me a couple of weeks ago
that they started the registration earlier than usual
(03:04):
because they wanted to find out
whether it was gonna be a bigger year
because if it is, they're gonna have to find extra dockage
over a foot in the night.
Oh, that's a great point.
At the end, they wanted to start to get a handle
on how big it was gonna be.
And so they started the registration early
and this was a couple of weeks ago,
she said, we already have something like 30 boats.
(03:26):
Yeah.
And, but then she said, the next thing she said,
I've been doing this for so long
that I know the names of all the boats,
the names of all the skippers,
I even know their email addresses.
You know, I know everybody.
She does, yeah.
She said, about half of these boats
that have already signed up, I've never heard of before.
Isn't that a nice thing?
So they're not only getting a lot of people,
(03:49):
they're getting people who have never raced it before,
at least as far as Kay knows.
Well, you talked about needing more dock space.
I gotta tell you, I got to help dock boats last year
and I call that Million Dollar Tetris.
The way they strategically roll those boats in there.
It is, it's like a ballet.
(04:09):
Yeah, right.
I mean, they call in and then they line them up
and tell them where to go and what are they?
They're out about what, five deep off the dock or something?
About five deep, yeah.
I don't know what the exact number is, but.
I think it varies on how many people
probably they have, right?
Yeah, well, I think they're limited
with how many they can raft off.
(04:30):
I think there's some regulations
that says they can only raft so many off.
Now, do you then, after the race then,
do you go and take pictures at the party then?
Yes, yeah, I take pictures.
Well, I take pictures, they have a,
before the race, the week before the race,
(04:51):
they have a party here at the club
for everybody who's a Mills master.
The people who've been. Yeah, I would like to come
and do interviews at that.
And I take pictures at that event.
Then, the Wednesday night before the race,
they have a banquet here for the winners of the trophies.
These are only first place winners
(05:12):
of the major trophies that are in the trophy case
around the corner here.
By the way, we are right now near the Mills room
where all the trophies are. Go ahead.
So, that's on Wednesday night before the race.
These are the previous year's winners.
Yeah.
And they come, it's a big banquet with fancy dinner
and everybody's dressed up and they present the trophies,
(05:34):
which they don't get to take home.
We get pictures of everybody, but the trophies stay here
at the club. That's a cool thing, yeah.
And so then, Friday night, of course,
is the start of the race,
which I take the star line pictures.
And then Saturday afternoon is the party at Put-in Bay.
Which is a fun party.
Which is the party. I take pictures there.
(05:54):
And then on Sunday morning is the flag awards,
where they award the flags.
And I take the pictures there.
We only take the first place,
we only document the first place winners in every class.
We don't take second and third place pictures.
So, only one on the water thing do I photograph,
(06:15):
but there's several off the water,
shoreside things that I photograph.
Now, right now I see John Greiner over here,
who if anybody has sailed for like a day on Lake Erie,
you've heard his name.
How many mills do you think John's been in?
Oh, I don't know, but-
We gotta ask him.
You oughta ask him.
I bet 40.
Yeah.
(06:35):
He, interestingly enough, as long as he's been around,
and he was one of the early Commodores of Jolly Roger.
I know that.
And, but he actually followed me as Commodore of North Cape.
So, he's much older than I am,
but he was my vice Commodore and followed me back in,
I was 2003 and John was 2004.
(06:58):
You guys have a great club up at North Cape.
We were up there last year
and we did a little bit of a recording
when they had the Spectrum sailing,
the children with autism.
Oh yeah.
Your club did a fantastic job with that
and they deserve a big pat on the back.
That was so incredible.
They had food for everybody.
(07:18):
They had chase.
They had everything.
So you want to do- Yeah, they went above and beyond.
Great club, great club.
Well, we have hosted a number of national championships
for various classes of sailboats.
They've held their national,
I mean, people are here from California
(07:38):
and Mississippi and all over.
And so we've hosted,
so we know a little bit about putting on a major event
that people-
Don't be modest.
You know a lot of it.
It's a very nice club.
They got a nice beach.
They got nice people.
It's a very nice club, a very nice club.
Thank you very much for coming on.
(07:59):
I look forward to seeing you out at the mills
taking pictures.
Hopefully me with my winter's flag, but I doubt it.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Now we are privileged to have with us the man who does
(00:04):
the photography for the Mills Trophy Race.
Why don't you introduce yourself?
Well, my name is Doug Hague.
I am a past Commodore of the North Cape Yacht Club.
Oh, that's an excellent club.
And I used to crew for Ron and Kay Soka.
Oh, excellent people.
Who have been the chairman of this event for,
I don't know, 25 years now.
(00:27):
And they've done an excellent job, by the way.
They used to crew on their boat.
And when they lost their photographer for the Mills Race,
who used to do them,
they knew I was very interested in photography.
I was kind of an advanced amateur.
They said, would I do it?
So I've been doing the photography
(00:47):
for probably about 10 years or so.
Now, go ahead, finish up, I'm sorry.
But in the early years, when I was still crewing with them,
I didn't do any of the start pictures.
I didn't do any of the pictures of the start
because I was on their boat racing.
Sure.
But I just did the shore events,
(01:08):
like the parties and the, like this event here.
Yeah, this is a great event.
And flag awards and that sort of thing.
But I always wondered whether I could do a good job
with taking the pictures of the boats, the starting line.
So after the 2015 race, I gave up racing
and now I'm on the start line boat every year.
So I've been doing all the photography,
(01:29):
including the start line since 2016.
Now, how many races did you race in yourself?
About, I think about 18.
You have to be 20, 25 races to be considered a-
A master?
A mills master.
And I'll never make that because I think I did 18 and out.
(01:54):
Did you win any?
No.
No.
No.
Now what was the name of the Soca's boat?
Meridian.
Meridian?
The sailboat, about a 33 foot Pearson named Meridian.
Okay, so now you take pictures.
Now, is there a special boat that will move you around
to take the pictures?
No, no.
(02:14):
How does that work?
Well, since the mills race is a night race.
It is, yeah.
So you're obviously not gonna take pictures
in the middle of the night out on the lake
and the boats get separated after the start.
So all the pictures are taken at the start line
from the committee boat, the starting,
the people who start the boats and fire the guns
(02:38):
and all that kind of stuff.
So I'm on that start boat.
And so the only pictures I take on the water
are from the start boat.
Now I have heard that this year,
the advanced registration has been higher than ever.
There's a lot of excitement about the 100th.
Not only, well, Kay told me a couple of weeks ago
that they started the registration earlier than usual
(03:04):
because they wanted to find out
whether it was gonna be a bigger year
because if it is, they're gonna have to find extra dockage
over a foot in the night.
Oh, that's a great point.
At the end, they wanted to start to get a handle
on how big it was gonna be.
And so they started the registration early
and this was a couple of weeks ago,
she said, we already have something like 30 boats.
(03:26):
Yeah.
And, but then she said, the next thing she said,
I've been doing this for so long
that I know the names of all the boats,
the names of all the skippers,
I even know their email addresses.
You know, I know everybody.
She does, yeah.
She said, about half of these boats
that have already signed up, I've never heard of before.
Isn't that a nice thing?
So they're not only getting a lot of people,
(03:49):
they're getting people who have never raced it before,
at least as far as Kay knows.
Well, you talked about needing more dock space.
I gotta tell you, I got to help dock boats last year
and I call that Million Dollar Tetris.
The way they strategically roll those boats in there.
It is, it's like a ballet.
(04:09):
Yeah, right.
I mean, they call in and then they line them up
and tell them where to go and what are they?
They're out about what, five deep off the dock or something?
About five deep, yeah.
I don't know what the exact number is, but.
I think it varies on how many people
probably they have, right?
Yeah, well, I think they're limited
with how many they can raft off.
(04:30):
I think there's some regulations
that says they can only raft so many off.
Now, do you then, after the race then,
do you go and take pictures at the party then?
Yes, yeah, I take pictures.
Well, I take pictures, they have a,
before the race, the week before the race,
(04:51):
they have a party here at the club
for everybody who's a Mills master.
The people who've been. Yeah, I would like to come
and do interviews at that.
And I take pictures at that event.
Then, the Wednesday night before the race,
they have a banquet here for the winners of the trophies.
These are only first place winners
(05:12):
of the major trophies that are in the trophy case
around the corner here.
By the way, we are right now near the Mills room
where all the trophies are. Go ahead.
So, that's on Wednesday night before the race.
These are the previous year's winners.
Yeah.
And they come, it's a big banquet with fancy dinner
and everybody's dressed up and they present the trophies,
(05:34):
which they don't get to take home.
We get pictures of everybody, but the trophies stay here
at the club. That's a cool thing, yeah.
And so then, Friday night, of course,
is the start of the race,
which I take the star line pictures.
And then Saturday afternoon is the party at Put-in Bay.
Which is a fun party.
Which is the party. I take pictures there.
(05:54):
And then on Sunday morning is the flag awards,
where they award the flags.
And I take the pictures there.
We only take the first place,
we only document the first place winners in every class.
We don't take second and third place pictures.
So, only one on the water thing do I photograph,
(06:15):
but there's several off the water,
shoreside things that I photograph.
Now, right now I see John Greiner over here,
who if anybody has sailed for like a day on Lake Erie,
you've heard his name.
How many mills do you think John's been in?
Oh, I don't know, but-
We gotta ask him.
You oughta ask him.
I bet 40.
Yeah.
(06:35):
He, interestingly enough, as long as he's been around,
and he was one of the early Commodores of Jolly Roger.
I know that.
And, but he actually followed me as Commodore of North Cape.
So, he's much older than I am,
but he was my vice Commodore and followed me back in,
I was 2003 and John was 2004.
(06:58):
You guys have a great club up at North Cape.
We were up there last year
and we did a little bit of a recording
when they had the Spectrum sailing,
the children with autism.
Oh yeah.
Your club did a fantastic job with that
and they deserve a big pat on the back.
That was so incredible.
They had food for everybody.
(07:18):
They had chase.
They had everything.
So you want to do- Yeah, they went above and beyond.
Great club, great club.
Well, we have hosted a number of national championships
for various classes of sailboats.
They've held their national,
I mean, people are here from California
(07:38):
and Mississippi and all over.
And so we've hosted,
so we know a little bit about putting on a major event
that people-
Don't be modest.
You know a lot of it.
It's a very nice club.
They got a nice beach.
They got nice people.
It's a very nice club, a very nice club.
Thank you very much for coming on.
(07:59):
I look forward to seeing you out at the mills
taking pictures.
Hopefully me with my winter's flag, but I doubt it.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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