r2ak: The Race Is On!
Two days into the wild and crazy Race to Alaska, Russell Brown’s Gougeon 32 PT Watercraft is already looking like the boat to beat. Last year, Brown set the solo record for the 710-mile race from Victoria, BC to Ketchikan, Alaska — 9 days, 6 hours. This year, he’s already won the 40-mile qualifier from Port Townsend to Victoria, which was sailed last Thursday.
First Federal’s Sail Like Girl, a Melges 32 from Bainbridge Island with eight crew, all women, is currently running in second, with Strait to the Pool Room, a Shaw 34 cat with four Canadian crew, running third.
Thirty-one boats answered the starting gun on Saturday for the fourth running of this crazy race whose main rule is "no motor." Anything else goes, so the Le Mans start saw entrants running down the docks at Victoria’s Northwest Marine Center to board keelboats, ultralights, trimarans, catamarans, daysailers, beach cats, rowboats, pedal-powered boats, kayaks, paddle boards (. . . we spotted pretty much everything except a submarine . . .) and start churning some water.
All the sailboats have been fitted with ‘rowing stations’ for the no-wind sections of the race. If you can’t quite picture Olson 30s, a Melges 24 and an old IOR battlewagon being rowed, we offer the following clip:
For those of you who want to track all the teams, go here. The entire r2ak website is a hoot.
The field this year is as eclectic as ever, and except for Brown and his nimble Gougeon cat, Las Vegas oddsmakers would have a hard time assessing the field — assuming they knew or cared about it in the first place, which they most likely don’t. About the only thing you can say with certainty — based on the three previous races — is that sailboats will top the leaderboard, with most taking one to two weeks to get to Ketchikan. In the past, human-powered craft (many of which pull ashore at night to sleep) have taken up to a month. The all-out course record is 3 days and 20 hours, set in 2016 by Team Maddog, a 32-ft cat with three crew.
Whoever arrives first gets $10,000. Second place, a set of steak knives. (We hear they’re really nice steak knives). Everyone else: the satisfaction of completing one of the most unique West Coast boating events ever dreamed up.