Well, it’s finally over.
This year’s Race to Alaska — a sailing competition from Port Townsend to Ketchikan, Alaska involving non-motorized boats— wrapped up as Team …
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Well, it’s finally over.
This year’s Race to Alaska — a sailing competition from Port Townsend to Ketchikan, Alaska involving non-motorized boats— wrapped up as Team Sockeye Voyages crossed the finish line, serving as the symbolic caboose to 21 days of non-stop racing.
From a field of 32 participants, 19 vessels finished a nautical voyage marked by miles of driftwood obstacles, wild waves, and a turbulent Day 1 that saw capsized vessels and a snapped mast leading to four teams being rescued by the Coast Guard and race-support boats after less than 24 hours of sailing.
Team Pure & Wild (consisting of captain Jonathan McKee, Alyosha Strum-Palerm, and Matt Pistay) won this year’s Race to Alaska after an extraordinary performance on the water saw them breeze past their peers to finish in four days, four hours, and 32 minutes. The team led by more than 200 nautical miles at one point in the competition and used an unorthodox route by sailing along the west coast of Vancouver Island after anchoring in Victoria. They won $10,000 in cash, nailed to a tree as part of the classic R2AK tradition.
Second place was awarded to Team Elsewhere, who won a set of steak knives, and Team Fashionably Late moseyed their way to third.
After the fastest of the racing pack breezed to Ketchikan, then came the grueling, weeks-long battle against the elements for many of the vessels as they made their way through the waterways of British Columbia.
A major mudslide from a year or two back surrounded a massive, miles-long section of British Columbia with driftwood logs, which severely slowed racers along the interior path.
When it wasn’t the driftwood or the heavy waves, participants battled with Mother Nature and themselves, pushing their bodies to the limit day after day.
All in all, 19 teams completed the 750-mile water race, with the first and final finishers separated by 17 days in total.
To learn more about the race, hear details of the daily happenings on the water during R2AK, or check the statistics for the participants, visit r2ak.com.
