RACE TO ALASKA 2017

H

hardee

New member
The Race is on and the stakes are high. The winners get the $$$$$ and the rest get the experience. Oh, and the second place is still a set of stake knives.

https://r2ak.com

will get you to the home page. The race is running earlier this year, and this will, be the first one I have missed working the starting leg as safety boat. It's a great race, an exciting start, and a priveledge to get to meet the entrants and see their vessels up close.

Due to other responsibilities I will be away for this start, and will be relying on flakey I-net for coverage. I did get to see a piece on the "Sunday Morning" show this morning. Coverage from last years race.

Lots of fun, work, planning and pain going into this one.

Take a peek,

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
Since motors are not permitted and human power so miniscule in comparison to the task, I can'tsee anything other than sail power being adequate to the task, and a multihull boat being safer, faster, more stable, and otherwise better suited to the task if you really wanted to be competitive. Any foiling cats this year? Considerations of driftwood and deadheads might rule them out, though.

Joe. :teeth :thup
 
Joe, there have been foiling cats in the past, at least there was one last year, and it failed to finish. I don't remember the exact reason, but it was a structural failure of some part. There was also a BIG (I think 70ish) foot cat or tri that was on it's way to the race and had a catastrophic failure of the CA coast. I believe it was a foil boat as well.

You are right, no power so sail is pretty prime, BUT they have to be able to get into the harbor at Victoria, something like a mile or so, and that is a no sailing zone, so they also have to be able to provide manual propulsion of some kind.

Here is the link to the list of teams with info about crew and boats.

https://r2ak.com/2017-full-race-participants/

Some fun and informative reading there.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
It's Race Day. The boats are off and running, with only a few that are having trouble at the starting gate. It looks like there are a couple who just couldn't get past the Point Hudson buoy, and one who got around the corner at Point Wilson and is heading back for a second crack at the PW turn.

Not having Face(plant)book, I don't have any live feed where I am, but the R2AK Tracker page has the live show, with lots of links.

http://tracker.r2ak.com/

If you click on the boat icon, you can get speed, status, position and direction as well as the team info, and in the screen to the right, there is info about the teams or other race info with more links.

It is not like being on the water with the racers, but it sure is great to know there are folks like these who love being on the water and have the guts it takes to make this kind of a trip.

Enjoy.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Harvey, thanks for the links--lots of information this year. The list has been laminated and I'll be referring to it every hour until they finish (OK i'll get some sleep".)

Looks like very light air--those who have good human power plus sail, seem to be dong the best right now.

Not sure I fully agree with Joe. There are a number of boats which did finish under only oar power--and some of these were solo. Pretty hard to "win"--but anyone who finishes this challenge, is a winner in my book! Some of the peddle power rigs can get good sustained speeds. Some of the rowers have sliding seats and are very serious and in good condition.

As for foils--if a foiling boat were entered, it would be one which could foil and run at displacement speed. Tain't going to be like the America's Cup boats. however.
 
thataway":1ni6gqhp said:
. . .
Looks like very light air--those who have good human power plus sail, seem to be dong the best right now.

Not sure I fully agree with Joe. There are a number of boats which did finish under only oar power--and some of these were solo. Pretty hard to "win"--but anyone who finishes this challenge, is a winner in my book! Some of the peddle power rigs can get good sustained speeds. Some of the rowers have sliding seats and are very serious and in good condition. . . .
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Quite the mix of auxiliary human power systems on the sailing boats. I think if this race continues through enough years, there will come the time when paddles, peddles or oars will win. Here are a couple of shots of one of the more sophisticated prop powered systems on a larger boat.


Bill
This picture shows one of the two peddling stations:
P6070078.jpg


One of the props:
P6070079.jpg


Both props:
P6070080.jpg
 
Thanks for the great photos! The first to finish at Victoria, was a traditional oar boat--basically a scull. I doubt that they will do well overall, but a fantastic row!
 
I went over to PT yesterday to see things. The Strandberg bros on Big Broderna built my house in Anacortes. I see they are real close to Victoria harbour already!
 
thataway":2gby585i said:
Thanks for the great photos! The first to finish at Victoria, was a traditional oar boat--basically a scull. I doubt that they will do well overall, but a fantastic row!
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No doubt, a fantastic row! But I think they are entered in the Victoria "Proving Ground" division, same with the 2nd and 3rd finishers today, not going all the way to Alaska.
 
Mike there are a number of paddle / row boats entered into the full race. Consider the fastest row boats beat some very fast sailboats on a 35 +/- nautical mile course today. There are a number of these other boats either bouncing around in the middle of the night, in what turned out to be 30+ knots of breeze--at least one boat damaged and on the beach. One capsize and I know of 3 which have called for assistance, so far.

My point is that human powered boats should not be considered non- competitive. In the first Race to AK, one of the few boats which finished was a full paddle boat in a respectable pace of over 60 miles a day. In the 2016 race the 1st and 3rd to finish today completed the entire race to AK. (They wised up to just do the Victoria leg this year.) There could be certain conditions where the rowing boat could win first overall.

This year should be a very interesting and competitive race--what we don't know is what weather will bring all along the course.
 
Sorry Bob, I misunderstood "they" as Liteboat specifically, but you meant human powered boats in general. Totally agree though and couldn't keep my eyes off the tracker this afternoon watching so many boats getting literally blown into San Juan island and fighting the storm. Even now at 10:30 PM there are still many boats not yet to Victoria, some still out on the water, presumably taking advantage of the now calm winds and seas. Most impressive in my mind was the Stand Up Paddle boarder who made it to Victoria earlier in the day while many boats, including regular 27 foot sailboats, couldn't make it and in fact are still out there trying! I can't even stay upright on a SUP in calm water!!!
 
WOW, again, WOW!!!

I had to leave the tracker for most of the day, from noon on yesterday. What a surprise to see boats scattered all over the place when I checked in at 0530 this morning.

From a post by ProaSailor on Sailing Anarchy:

Of the 19 boats in the Victoria fleet, it looks like half of them haven't arrived yet? Even worse, of the 37 boats in the Ketchikan fleet, 24 (65%!) haven't made it to Victoria ~23 hours after the start!!?? Two are coming in now, and nine (1/4 of the fleet!) never made it past Dungeness? That sounds like a high percentage of woefully unqualified participants to me.

Again, the only source of this information is the tracker. No updates on the web site and the FB page is spotty at best, no list of finishers. I expected better for year three.
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Well, I saw a list of finishers, up to #9 before I left at noon. Not sure what happened after that except the storm front. The tracks are pretty wild. Sure wish I had more local info. Hard to watch from afar.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Another post from Sailing Anarchy:
A kind of running commentary of posts on the 'updates' page would make this so much better a virtual spectator sport. And if the tracker supposedly updates every 10 minutes, are the position reports from more than two hours ago just due to transponder issues? I want to know what is happening!
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I do agree with that. The Face Book side bar can be helpful, but much of the time it is annoying. Clicking on a boat symbol on the track should take you to that boats home page and specifically info about the boat and crew, not what they did last summer.

Here is the link to the Sailing Anarchy (page 3) -- Thanks for including that earlier Bob.

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index. ... ka/&page=3

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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hardee":u32p2bsc said:
"I want to know what is happening!" (from Sailing Anarchy post)

I do agree with that. The Face Book side bar can be helpful, but much of the time it is annoying. Clicking on a boat symbol on the track should take you to that boats home page and specifically info about the boat and crew, not what they did last summer.
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Harvey, I suspect it is what the boat teams themselves put up on their face book. For example "Chum"--When you link on the "Ghost" boat in the middle of the straits, right margin has wonderful story and quotes from their Facebook page. For those who don't follow, "Chum" is a 17 foot Siren 17, semi day sailing boat (has a small cuddy cabin and a 130 # swing keel for ballast.) The owner/skipper had his teen age daughter aboard. The boat had several knockdowns, and was clearly overpowered. A "Distress" call--not sure if it was a mayday, was sent, and a pilot boat and Coast Guard responded--towed the boat to Oak Bay Marina. I gather that there was substantial damage to the boat, and thus the second leg was canceled for this boat. The owner felt that there was a question of safety for his daughter--and she had been terrified. This is all very well documented on their link on the side bar (Facebook). (Were also on Instagram"
Well so much for that. I wake up not excited we finished leg 1 and full of anticipation for leg 2, but with the problem of how to retrieve the boat we abandoned in the oak bay marina, 3 weeks of vacation I don't need, and the realization I now have a bunch of crap and an funny little blue boat, all only designed to do one thing and thats not going to happen.
A year of hard work and dreams gone in less than an hour, and by one call to the coastguard, do I regret the decision to call them NO, will I always regret the decision to go yesterday and not hide like our friends who took shelter probably.
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Some boats don't have any Facebook pages--some don't have their entry bio complete, or crew members complete.

But I do think there is a lot of great information--and the lack of it, is due to the individual racer's, not those who run the race.
 
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