Pacific Yachting

D e s i g n e d a s a r ac e “ t o r e s ta r t t h e
c o n v e r s at i o n o n w h at i t ta k e s t o
g e t o n t h e wa t e r , ” r 2 a k p r o v e d t h a t
adventure isn’t limited by the size
o f yo u r b oat
Race
to
Alaska
waterlust
By Marianne Scott
40
OCTOBER . 2015
Team Freeburd
sailing in the R2AK
aboard their ARC-22.
41
OCTOBER . 2015
The Winners Five days, one hour, 55
minutes. That’s what it took for trimaran
F-25c, Elsie Piddock, to sail the 700 miles
from Victoria to Ketchikan and win the
Race to Alaska, beating the second arrival, Team MOB Mentality’s Farrier 28,
by about two days, 14 hours. Retired U.S.
Coast Guard Captain Al Hughes and
crew Graeme Esarey and Matt Steverson
sailed “wickedly fast” around the clock to
capture the $10,000 prize offered by the
main sponsor, Port Townsend’s Northwest
Maritime Center.
Early in the race, whose one major rule
was “no engines,” it became clear the trimaran was on its way to beat competitors
in other sailboats, rowboats, canoes and
kayaks. “We’d only sailed Elsie for four
hours before the race,” said Hughes.“We’d
spent two months readying her.”The team
borrowed the boat, re-rigged it, added
simple oars and made it a “weight saving
adventure.” Bare, it weighed 590 kg, load-
community gets older and the boats bigger,” he said. “I’d like to restart the conversation on what it takes to get on the water.
How big a boat do you need to have an
adventure?”
That question was answered quickly.
A paddleboard was the smallest “boat”
signing up, though an injury prevented
the daredevil from setting off. Except
for Team Golden Oldies, an 11.5-metre
Crowther Shockwave and the 13.4-metre
OC-6 outrigger canoe paddled by Team
Soggy Beavers, the boats were small. Forty
racers signed up for the race that had two
legs: they left Port Townsend for Victoria
on June 4; those continuing the trek to Ketchikan departed Victoria on June 7. Armchair sailors could follow racers’ progress
on r2ak.com. Strong winds caused breakdowns and repairs on many boats. Several
contestants withdrew quickly, including
Colin Angus (PY June 2015), whose newly
designed rowboat fell off its trailer. Some
Team Por Favor, aboard
their Hobie 33, beat up
Johnstone Strait with
East Thurlow Island in
the background.
T hat question was answered quickly.
A paddleboard was the smallest “ boat ”
signing up, though an injury prevented
the daredevil from setting off
The Idea Northwest Maritime Center’s
executive director Jake Beattie cooked up
the Race to Alaska.“Every year the boating
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OCTOBER . 2015
quit the race because their holiday time
was up; others found the heavy winds too
much for their boat’s mettle.
The race had few stipulations: No engines aboard and no support. No limits on
boat or crew size. Only three checkpoints.
Safety items, including a SPOT (a realtime locator), VHF, lights, PFDs and sound
signals were required. Sailboats needed
one additional method of locomotion, like
oars or pedal drives.
Competitors The news about the
race spread quickly and enticed participants from all over. I met several competitors, mostly male, mostly bearded and
mostly young in Victoria Harbour. Here’s
a sampling of adventurers who participated in the race.
Brothers Tripp and Chris Burd (Team
Freeburd) heard about “the cool race,”
drove from Boston, collected their ARC
22 in Syracuse, hauled it to Anacortes and
spent weeks preparing their cat. It has no
accommodation and they planned on
sleeping on pads in drysuits. Sweeping
oars were their “back-up engine.”
Could they win? “No one knows who’ll
win this contest,” said Tripp, an experienced racer who’d attained a Sperry
sponsorship. “There are many variables.
Our 408 kg craft goes well upwind. We’ll
sail 24/7 if weather permits. We love the
adventure and it’s a great opportunity to
experience this part of the world.” Coming in fourth (nine days, eight-and-a-half
hours), Tripp said it’d been “a wild adventure with four days of non-stop intense
racing, but with something breaking every day. It was brutally cold. Even with
dry suits, clothing layers and wrapped in
a tarp, it was too cold to sleep.” But the
brothers delighted in the landscape’s
spectacular size and scale, the remoteness, the whales and orcas. “It was the
kind of experience we signed up for. But
we wouldn’t have finished but for the
kindness of strangers helping with repairs.”
Team Puffin’s Michael Dougherty, Sam
Rayaschoti and James Bharram sailed a
plywood cat. “It’s more a family cruis-
Nicholas Reid
ed with three sailors and gear, it tipped
the scales at 1,000 kg. Freeze-dried food,
energy bars, dry dinners, one battery and
a 15-watt solar panel for the VHF, plotter, cell and sat phones, a cruising guide,
65 litres of water, “semi-drysuits,” and an
EPIRB were the staples and equipment
aboard.
The trio had raced together before and
each had significant sailing experience
including three Transpacs, six Van Isles
360s and five Hawaii to Seattle deliveries.
Nearing Port Hardy—with 30-plus-knot
winds on Johnstone Strait being the most
challenging—they’d opened a big lead;
by Bella Bella it was clear they’d be first
unless they hit a log and were disabled—
Hughes’ biggest fear.“We hit one our third
night and were stopped abruptly. A chunk
out of the fibreglass but no water intrusion. With three aboard, we had a huge
advantage over solo or two-handed sailors. Two kept watch, the third slept so we
sailed 24/7.”
Public enthusiasm greeted them everywhere. “People waved from balconies and
boats. In Ketchikan, crowds came to the
dock, tracked us down, a cruise ship blew
its horn. Totally amazing. I’d do the race
again next week, but I’m a nutcase.”
ing boat and we’ve had it for years. We
don’t expect to race the boat that hard,
don’t expect to win, but anticipate a really cool trip” (DNF). Team Superfriends,
with Chris Adams, Colin Horton and Kit
Vanderjagt joined forces to race a San
Juan 21. They expected to sail around the
clock—two on watch, one sleeping. They
entered the race for “the adventure and
to meet other people who’d do something
crazy like this” (DNF).
Victoria-based submarine engineer Phil
Wampold and UBC student counsellor Joanna Ludlow were readying their Nacra
570, a 5.67-metre catamaran. I inspected
Team Mau’s tiny craft, their petite nylon
fold-down dodger on the trampoline,
the lack of bedding, and shivered. “We
have many layers of merino wool to keep
warm,” said Joanna. “We’d like to win and
can easily go 12 knots,” added Phil. “Besides, we’re young and able to endure
misery, but our first goal is to get up there
safely.” And misery it was, Phil told me
after the race. “Johnstone winds were so
fierce we hunkered down on Quadra,” he
said. “Yes, it was very cold. We used the
pedal drive in part to generate heat. But it
was worth it. We met awesome people. We
didn’t break the boat. It wasn’t really dangerous as long as the captain decides what
is safe. Hence the stay on Quadra. We are
thrilled to have completed the race. For
our boat, we did extremely well.” (Eighth,
11 days, 20.5 hours).
Team Real Things’ Todd Bryan, Ben El-
lenberger and Boris Elves hail from Santa
Barbara and were installing sturdier oarlock supports on their kit-built L7. “It’s a
great story,” said Todd. “We needed new
oarlock components and Trotac, the local
marine store, checked all over and found
parts in Coombs, had them couriered, and
then a foundry made us new brackets.
Wonderful help!” Todd was in the race on
a friend’s emailed dare: “Sack up for this
one,” it read. “The race’s idea was captivating,” he said, “and we’re damn well going
to try to win. That said, we’re prudent mariners” (DNF).
Some boats revealed ingenious design.
Team Sea Runners’ Thomas Nielsen and
Scott Veirs had broadened their Wharram
Hitia 17’s narrow catamaran hulls so a
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OCTOBER . 2015
Team Sea Wolf—17foot Windrider Rave.
Team Coastal
Express—38-foot
Crowther Super Shockwave.
Finish
Ketchikan
Team Barefoot
Wooden Boats—
custom design.
The course
Stage 2
Victoria to
Ketchikan
710 NM
Other than two
waypoints at
Seymour Narrows
and Bella Bella,
there is no official
course.
44
OCTOBER . 2015
hearing about a hamburger joint, they
started walking. An RCMP officer stopped
and queried them, then offered a ride.
They set off again when winds on Johnstone Strait moderated. “We were hooting
and hollering.” But the winds rose again,
and overpowered the catamaran’s mast,
which snapped at 02:00. “We used the
pedal drive, called the Coast Guard after
90 minutes. An RCMP boat came out in
the gale-force winds and towed us in. The
same officer was aboard!” And he rescued
them again by driving the brothers to
Campbell River’s airport. “He was such a
neat, humble guy who said he liked helping out. Unbelievable, such generosity!”
Would the Strandbergs race again? “Yesterday,” said Nels, “I’d have said no. Today?
Yeah.”
Team Soggy Beavers competed in a
13.4-metre canoe with two stabilizers
and two sails and were led by two more
brothers, Graham and Russell Henry.
They grew up to love human-powered
endeavours, as their father, Brian Henry,
owns Victoria’s Ocean Sports and they’ve
paddled since childhood. They, along with
their crew of Tanner Ockenden, MacKenzie Punter, Nick Rampen and Ryan
Schissler, had planned to paddle around
the clock, but they ended up paddling 21
hours a day, crashing on a beach, making a fire and sleeping. “We staggered the
paddling,” said Graham, “and ate energy
bars, cheese and sausage. We all lost five
pounds.” “They thought they could win
the race if winds were five knots or less,
but Johnstone Strait foiled that plan with
its 35-knot headwinds. Their sails weren’t
effective in strong weather conditions.
To stay energized and rhythmic, they
used eight-by-three-inch solar panels to
charge iPods and speakers. “We played
dance music.” Their toilet was “built in:
overboard.” Their GPS broke after Johnstone Strait and they lacked charts for
Alaska. “No problem,” said Graham.
“We’re used to finding our way, get along
well and worked frigging hard. We feel
super accomplished and feel like we have
done paddling proud.”
Asked if he thought the race too risky,
Graham was adamant. “It’s not irresponsible at all. It’s a question of personal
judgment. We know what we’re in for and
should be allowed to take risks. It was
humbling and we learned a lot but I certainly hope it will run again.” (Seventh, 11
days, five hours).
Just before Elsie Piddock reached Ketchi-
kan, I emailed trimaran designer Ian Farrier in New Zealand, hoping he was monitoring R2AK. He was.“Very happy with the
result, which was due to a great effort by
Al Hughes and the crew of Elsie Piddock…!”
Farrier wrote with glee. “Multihull owners remain just a little irritated with the
still frequent claims they don’t go well to
weather, but I think this race has demolished the old fallacy again. After five days
of sailing, and in mostly tough conditions
right on the nose, the F-25C was well over
100 miles in front of a 25 percent larger
monohull” (final tally for the F-25 over the
Hobie 33 was 62 hours).
Jake Beattie is delighted with the results
of his brainchild. “The high level of interest by racers and sponsors amazed me,” he
said from Ketchikan, where he was greeting the last of the racers in late June. “People all along the racetrack offered hospitality and brought food and help to the dock
or beach. The race exceeded my expectations, both in numbers and in enthusiasm.
Twenty-nine racers started, 10 bowed out
and 15 arrived within the timeframe.”
With the 2015 race now in the books, organizers are looking ahead to 2016, with
the race set to start at 06:00 on June 23.
r2ak.com
The winners: Team
Elsie Piddock and
their F-25c.
Seymour
Narrows
waypoint
Stage 1
Port Townsend to Victoria
Start
40 NM
body could sleep inside, added hatches to
stow supplies and installed an ingenious
swing-out jetboil stove. “It’s a Polynesian
crab claw with a lateen sail, an upsidedown triangle,” explained Thomas. “We
have a pedal drive as backup and 10 days
worth of freeze-dried food.” The team ran
into trouble on Johnstone Strait. “Winds in
the high 30s snapped the upper spar,” said
Thomas. “In Telegraph Cove, we restitched
the sail by hand, stuck it together with superglue, spray glue and double-sided tape.
But we quit because Scott had to get back
to work. Nevertheless, it was one heck of
an adventure.”
A broken mast ended the race for Team
Bröderno (Swedish for brothers), brawny
Lars and Nels Strandberg who bought
their Corsair 24 for the race. They’d never
sailed before. Nels is a homebuilder, Lars a
crab fisherman. “We are young and strong
and my brother asked me to do this,” Nels
told me. “I said yes.” The brothers experienced a gale on the Strait of Georgia and
suffered haystack waves. “ After two days
of no sleep, we tacked into a little cove and
had food, sleep, whiskey.” Their next windy
bout ripped the jib. “We didn’t know how
to reef it and almost capsized,” said Nels.
It forced a stop in Sayward. Hungry and
Nicholas Reid X4
Bella Bella
waypoint
Port Townsend
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OCTOBER . 2015