The Race to Alaska (R2AK) is an annual 750-mile adventure race from Port Townsend, Washington up the Inside Passage to Ketchikan, Alaska. Any form of boat is allowed, so long as it has no motors. Support crews are not allowed. [1] [2] Nearly half the teams do not make it to Alaska. [3] The record time is 4 days, set in 2016. [4]
The race takes place in two stages. The "Proving Ground" is a 40-mile race from Port Townsend to Victoria, British Columbia, and acts as a qualifier. The second stage continues on to Alaska. In 2018, SEVENTY48, a human-powered-only on-water race was introduced, with racers sprinting from Tacoma, Washington to Port Townsend. [5]
R2AK is a project of The Northwest Maritime Center.
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2018) |
The first race was in 2015.
In 2016, 44 teams were accepted and 26 finished. [6]
In 2017, the race introduced the "Boat Buyback Prize", through which the race organizers would offer each boat that finished $10,000 to buy their boat, regardless of the boat's value. [7]
In 2018, the race introduced the Seventy48 race, a pre-race from Tacoma to Port Townsend. [8] [9] It is a 70-statute-mile human-powered only race in which the winner of the race receives as a prize all of the entry fees paid by participants.
With the 2020 race scrapped by officials caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 6th was deferred to 2021. When the 2021 race was also cancelled due to the Canadian border closure, R2AK High Command introduced WA360, a race using the structure of Race to Alaska, but contained within the waters of Washington State.
R2AK 2022, the first race after a 2 year hiatus, was won by Team Pure & Wild.
R2AK 2023 (main race) began on June 8 with 29 teams at the start line and was won by Team We Brake for Whales
Year | Winning Team | Boat Make | Crew | Time |
---|---|---|---|---|
2015 | Elsie Piddock | 26.9’ (8.2m) Tri - Corsair F-25C | 3 | 5d 1h 55m |
2016 | MAD Dog Racing | 31.8’ (9.7m) Cat - Marstrom M32 | 3 | 3d 20h 13m* |
2017 | Pure & Wild / Freeburd | 28’ (8.5m) Tri - Cust. Tetzlaff / Melvin 8.5m Class | 3 | 4d 3h 5m |
2018 | First Federal’s Sail Like A Girl | 31.8’ (9.7m) Mono - Melges 32 | 7 | 6d 13h 17m |
2019 | Angry Beaver - Skiff Sailing Foundation | 40.0’ (12.2m) Mono - Shock 40 | 6 | 4d 3h 56m |
2020 | Race Cancelled | |||
2021 | Race Cancelled | |||
2022 | Pure & Wild | 44.0’ (13.4m) Mono - Riptide 44 | 3 | 4d 4h 32m |
2023 | We Brake for Whales | 40' (12.2m) Mono - Cust. Lyman Morse 40 | 8 | 5d 18h 59m |
* Current Record
The race begins in Port Townsend and proceeds to Victoria, which the racers are required to complete in 36 hours. Several days are spent in Victoria to give the racers the opportunity to correct any problems found or made during the first leg, and from there the race continues on to Ketchikan. The racers are required to pass through a checkpoint at Bella Bella, but are free to choose their course besides this. [11] A checkpoint at Seymour Narrows, present since the first R2AK, has been removed by race organizers for the 2022 race, allowing racers to choose an offshore route for the first time.
The Race to Alaska is noted for having many eccentricities in its organization and prizes. Many were created to help advertise the race, such as the $10,000 first-place prize, and steak knife set second-place prize. [12] The race also features a Le Mans Start in the Victoria start; this is a starting method where racers are gathered outside of the race area and must run to their vessels to begin the race. Race updates and team write-ups are styled to be humorous rather than professional, and often make reference to the racers themselves as being overly devoted or unintelligent for being willing to participate. [13]
Sidebets have also been introduced, wherein sponsors offer a prize to whichever boat first completes the sponsor's criteria. An example of this is the Small Craft Advisor Magazine's offer of $1,000 and a place on the front cover to the first boat under 20' in length to complete the race. [14]
Prince of Wales–Hyder Census Area is a census area located in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census, the population was 5,753, up from 5,559 in 2010. It is part of the unorganized borough and therefore has no borough seat. Its largest communities are Metlakatla and Craig. It was formerly part of the Census Bureau's Prince of Wales–Outer Ketchikan Census Area, but the name was changed in 2008 after most of the Outer Ketchikan was lost to annexation by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough.
Ketchikan is a city in and the borough seat of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough of Alaska. It is the state's southeasternmost major settlement. Downtown Ketchikan is a National Historic Landmark District.
Port Townsend is a city on the Quimper Peninsula in Jefferson County, Washington, United States. The population was 10,148 at the 2020 United States Census. It is the county seat and only incorporated city of Jefferson County.
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, more commonly known as The Iditarod, is an annual long-distance sled dog race held in Alaska in early March. It travels from Anchorage to Nome. Mushers and a team of between 12 and 16 dogs, of which at least 5 must be on the towline at the finish line, cover the distance in 8–15 days or more. The Iditarod began in 1973 as an event to test the best sled dog mushers and teams but evolved into today's highly competitive race.
The Ocean Race is a yacht race around the world, held every three or four years since 1973. Originally named the Whitbread Round the World Race after its initiating sponsor, British brewing company Whitbread, in 2001 it became the Volvo Ocean Race after Swedish automobile manufacturer Volvo took up the sponsorship, and in 2019 it was renamed The Ocean Race
Martin Buser is a champion of sled dog racing.
The Yukon Quest, formally the Yukon Quest 1,000-mile International Sled Dog Race, is a sled dog race scheduled every February since 1984 between Fairbanks, Alaska, and Whitehorse, Yukon, switching directions each year. Because of the harsh winter conditions, difficult trail, and the limited support that competitors are allowed, it is considered the "most difficult sled dog race in the world", or even the "toughest race in the world"—"even tougher, more selective and less attention-seeking than the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race." The originator envisioned it as "a race so rugged that only purists would participate."
SS Princess Sophia was a steel-built passenger liner in the coastal service fleet of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Along with SS Princess Adelaide, SS Princess Alice, and SS Princess Mary, Princess Sophia was one of four similar ships built for CPR during 1910-1911.
The Gravina Island Bridge, commonly referred to as the "Bridge to Nowhere", was a proposed bridge to replace the ferry that currently connects the town of Ketchikan, Alaska, United States, with Gravina Island, an island that contains the Ketchikan International Airport as well as 50 residents. The bridge was projected to cost $398 million. Members of the Alaskan congressional delegation, particularly Representative Don Young and Senator Ted Stevens, were the bridge's biggest advocates in Congress, and helped push for federal funding. The project encountered fierce opposition outside Alaska as a symbol of pork barrel spending and is labeled as one of the more prominent "bridges to nowhere". As a result, Congress removed the federal earmark for the bridge in 2005. Funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere" was continued as of March 2, 2011, in the passing of H.R. 662: Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011 by the House of Representatives, and finally cancelled in 2015.
NOAA Ship John N. Cobb was a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel in commission from 1970 to 2008. She was named for John Nathan Cobb and was the oldest commissioned ship in the NOAA fleet when she was decommissioned, having previously served in the United States Department of the Interior′s Fish and Wildlife Service from 1950 to 1956 and in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service′s Bureau of Commercial Fisheries from 1956 to 1970 as US FWS John N. Cobb.
The Mount Marathon Race is a mountain race that is run every Fourth of July in Seward, Alaska.
Olympian was a large side-wheel inland steamship that operated in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Olympian operated from early 1884 to late 1891 on the Columbia River, Puget Sound, and the Inside Passage of British Columbia and Alaska.
Gregory Mark Barton is an American sprint kayaker who competed from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.
USS Raeo (SP-588) was a United States Navy patrol vessel in commission from 1917 to 1919. Prior to her U.S. Navy service, she operated as the motor passenger vessel Raeo from 1908 to 1917. After the conclusion of her U.S. Navy career, she served as the fishery patrol vessel USFS Kittiwake in the United States Bureau of Fisheries fleet from 1919 to 1940 and as US FWS Kittiwake in the Fish and Wildlife Service fleet from 1940 to 1942 and from 1944 to at least 1945, and perhaps as late as 1948. During World War II, she again served in the U.S. Navy, this time as the yard patrol boat USS YP-199. She was the civilian fishing vessel Raeo from 1948 to 1957, then operated in various roles as Harbor Queen from 1957 to 1997. She became Entiat Princess in 1998 and as of 2009 was still in service.
General Miles was a steamship constructed in 1882 which served in various coastal areas of the states of Oregon and Washington, as well as British Columbia and the territory of Alaska. It was apparently named after US General Nelson A. Miles.
Princess Louise was a sidewheel steamboat built in 1869. From 1869 to 1879 this ship was named Olympia. In 1879 the name was changed to Princess Louise, after Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, a daughter of Queen Victoria who was married to Marquess of Lorne (1845–1914), Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. Princess Louise was the last sidewheeler to be operated commercially on the coast of British Columbia.
Vigor Industrial (Vigor) is an American shipbuilding, shiprepair, and industrial service provider in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Based in Portland, Oregon, the company consists of several subsidiary companies for a combined total of seven facilities with ten drydocks, more than 17,000 feet of pier space, and over 2,000 employees.
USCGC John McCormick (WPC-1121) is the United States Coast Guard's 21st Sentinel-class cutter, and the first to be stationed in Alaska, where she is homeported at Coast Guard Base Ketchikan.
Nicola Henderson is a British professional yachtswoman. In 2018, she became the youngest ever skipper to lead a team in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race at the age of 25.
The 2021 Iditarod was the 49th edition of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska. The race began on Sunday, March 7, 2021, in Anchorage, Alaska. 46 mushers participated in the race including past winners and noted racers Aliy Zirkle, Martin Buser, Dallas Seavey, Peter Kaiser, Joar Leifseth Ulsom, and Nicolas Petit.