I’m following a cool race. Race To Alaska or R2AK, a race from Port Townsend WA to Ketchikan AK with mandatory waypoint at Bella, via either the Inside Passage or the open water side of Vancouver Is.
There are sailing mono hulls, cats, trimarans, row boats, kayakers, and other boats, all with no engines at all. Strictly wind or muscle.
Website
https://r2ak.com/2022-daily-updates/
Map
https://r2ak2022.maprogress.com/
I’m focused on a couple teams that caught my fancy
- Lets Row Maybe, two super studly women from California who are competing in a freaking rowboat
- Don’t Tell Mom, another two person rowing team. At the moment, Lets Row and Don’t Tell are in the lead but they have beached for the night while the big sailboats will press on through the darkness.
- Pure And Wild, an experienced team in a fast 44’ monohull, who are one of only three teams choosing the outside route, which will apparently be either a really good choice or a really bad one. This is the first year that R2AK has permitted teams to choose the outside, and only if they are judged possibly able to make it. There are, apparently, no chase or support powerboats following the racers, and no Canadian Coast Guard on the west side of Vancouver Is, so they’re on their own.
- Malalo, a superfast foiling tri (not cat) maran with an experienced team that is running the inside route. In perfect conditions, Malalo can supposedly do 30 knots (!). But the passage is a minefield of submerged logs . . .
- Seas The Day, a family team in a Portland based sailboat, the only entry from the Weird City.
The shakedown was crossing the Straits of Juan de Fuca to Victoria. The weather was terrible, high wind and big seas, four boats were dismasted or capsized or pitchpoled, about a third of the racers didn’t make it to Victoria in the days allotted. Now the survivors are off on the real race.
The winner gets $10K, second place gets a set of steak knives.