{"id":42700,"date":"2015-09-23T21:48:42","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T01:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/?p=42700"},"modified":"2023-05-06T17:29:31","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T21:29:31","slug":"r2ak-go-small-go-simple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/r2ak-go-small-go-simple\/","title":{"rendered":"R2AK: Go Small, Go Simple"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\" <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Scott Veirs, along with his teammate, Thomas Nielsen, sail their home-built 17-foot Wharram catamaran past Mount Baker in the Race to Alaska.<\/span>\n <\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

The inaugural Race to Alaska (R2AK)\nwas a great big roll of the dice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From conception, over a beer at the Port\nTownsend Wooden Boat Festival in 2013,\nuntil the race began on June 4, 2015, no\none knew what to expect \u2014 that was a\nhuge part of the appeal. The concept was\nsimple: sail, paddle, pedal or row, with no\nsupport or motors, 750 miles from Port\nTownsend, Washington, to Ketchikan,\nAlaska. Cross the finish line first, win\n$10,000. Second place gets a set of steak\nknives. And, finally, if you asked the race\ncommittee a question that required them\nto call a lawyer, you\u2019d be disqualified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the requirements were minimal\n\u2014 make two waypoints along the route,\nand carry a SPOT tracker and a VHF \u2014\nthe execution for the racers proved both\nexhausting and exhilarating. As anticipated,\nan innovative array of 55 craft\nshowed up at the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott Veirs and teammate Thomas\nNielsen, who competed in a home-built\n17-foot Polynesian-rigged Wharram catamaran\nwith pedal assist, appreciated the\nbody heat generated by pedaling in the\nrain and wind, while also increasing the\napparent wind to point higher. \u201cFacilitated\nby the boat tracking on the website\ntracker.r2ak.com, it was not uncommon\nfor locals to show up within 15 minutes of\nhitting a beach, bearing gifts and offers of\nhelp and local knowledge of currents and\nwinds,\u201d Veirs stated. \u201cSeeing humpback\nand orca whales was amazing, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Race organizers picked a June time\nframe to leverage long hours of daylight\nand unpredictable weather. Early in the\nrace, unexpectedly strong and persistent\nheadwinds favored sturdy productionbuilt\nmultihulls, while knocking out\nmany of those who were counting on performance\nin light air via human-powered\ncraft. And yet, a sail-assisted outrigger\ncanoe paddled by a six-man team did finish\nin seventh place. Despite heavy attrition,\na feeling of man-against-the-sea camaraderie\nprevailed throughout the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty-eight boats remained in the\nrace after the qualifying leg from Port\nTownsend. Fifteen finished in Ketchikan\nbefore the sweep boat\nreached them on July 4, and,\nyes, there were fireworks that\nnight! An F-25C trimaran\nhandily won the cash after a\nfive-day, one-stop sprint. An\nF-25SR trimaran and Hobie\n33 battled for the steak knives\n\u2014finishing within four minutes\nof each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By all accounts, race organizers\nat the Northwest Maritime\nCenter in Port Townsend\nmet their goal: to \u201ccreate a\nconversation about engineless\nvoyaging and connect mariners\nto the sea in an adventurous\nway that doesn\u2019t require a\nhuge budget\u201d \u2014 similar to voyagers\nLin and Larry Pardey\u2019s\nadage, \u201cGo small, go simple, go now.\u201d\nScott Veirs, whose boat cost $2,000\nin materials, felt that \u201ccollectively we\nlearned that many small boats can be effectively\nmoved without an engine, even\nwhere tides rule.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maritime Center executive director\nJake Beattie was \u201cblown away\u201d by the\nenthusiasm and worldwide interest in\nR2AK, which was due in part to the entertaining\nwebsite R2AK.com, the race\nblog and social media posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The R2AK isn’t for everyone and even the best sailors can meet their match on the way to Alaska. The race is so tough in fact, that the race organizers have called out Larry Ellison himself, offering up a set of the coveted R2AK steak knives if any boat that has sailed an America’s Cup can even finish the race \u2013 Check out the video below for their callout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think you have what it takes? The next installment starts in June of 2016, so get prepping!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information, visit the R2AK website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

35 teams rolled the dice on the inaugural Race to Alaska, sailing, rowing and pedaling 750 miles from Washington to Alaska in an epic man vs. sea battle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Barbara Marrett","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20150923","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"165","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"35 teams rolled the dice on the inaugural Race to Alaska, sailing, rowing and pedaling 750 miles from Washington to Alaska in an epic man vs. sea battle.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"R2AK: Go Small, Go Simple %%sep%% %%sitename%%","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"4RXKCJLIQNCHWWWV7C5CXKUS6U","arc_website_url":"r2ak-go-small-go-simple\/","custom_permalink":"r2ak-go-small-go-simple\/","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":false,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":"","ad_settings_ads_on_this_page":true,"ad_settings_automatic_ad_injection_into_the_content":true,"ad_targeting":"","sponsored_url":"","social_share":true},"categories":[165],"tags":[300,1132],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42700"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}