RACE UPDATE Mr. Michelson was right. For the next few paragraphs we ask you to hold that as a common truth. Other than The Miller’s Tale being the only thing of Chaucer’s worth reading, if we remember anything from Mr. Michelson’s junior English class it’s that as opposed to our current linear understanding of the…
RACE UPDATE Like the sea itself, the Race to Alaska is what you make it and never the same twice. Different day, different weather, different boat, different attitude – from the strictest right-brained sense of waves reflecting the energy of the wind, to the incense and crystal-infused belief in aura projection, water is a medium…
RACE UPDATE There have been faster teams. 13 to be exact. There have been teams whose stories center around conflict, overcoming equipment failures, crew dissension, besting the elements and vision quest level fatigue. But so far, we’re not sure any team has had more fun than Team Boatyard Boys, who last night bounded off their…
RACE UPDATE After nearly thee weeks of hard-charging, all seventeen feet of Montgomery sailing fury, Team Excellent Adventure ghosted into Thomas Basin under a main sail and improvised rudder number two, stepped onto the dock and into the five cameras, six reporters, and a small crowd of well wishers – all of us wanted their…
RACE UPDATE It’s a slow news day in terms of info we have on the boats still making miles to the north. The reason isn’t that their stories aren’t worth reporting on, but mostly because the best day at sea is a boring one. A day when nothing happens worth mentioning is a day where…
RACE UPDATE We thought it would be simple. Like the rest of the rules of the R2AK, we tried as hard as we could for the “when does the race end?” solution set to be elegant. Not in that lace and candles sort of way, but in the same way that Euler’s Identity (e^i?+1=0) or…
RACE UPDATE The R2AK has seen its share of the impressive. From the rocket ship feats of the first few teams to finish to the indescribable Roger Mann-kind of incredible that has Chuck Norris-based superlatives filing for unemployment, all have been impressive, and the five teams currently making the long slog no less so. What…
RACE UPDATE If there is a single person who has captured the imagination of R2AK fan and racer alike, it’s without a question the humble force of nature that is Roger Mann, the solitary member of Team Discovery. While he might not believe or understand it, admiration for his effort has spread to the point…
Read on… 2015 June 21 – Part 2 – Roger Mann: So cool, sheep count him
RACE UPDATE The end of epic adventures are weird, unsatisfying. The beginnings are excitement itself – the lightning bolt of clarity that selects one idea from an infinite inventory of possibilities and transforms it into a path. Then preparation, so much preparation. Months of anticipation channeled into route planning, drying food, buying gear, packing gear,…
RACE UPDATE We see you there, in the four foot high fortress of your three and a half-sided workstation, sneaking peeks at the tracker and hoping that “Soggy Beaver” doesn’t red flag your search history to corporate. While you root for the teams of the R2AK, we’re rooting for you from the other side of…
RACE UPDATE The R2AK is ridiculous. Whether you took that to mean the definition closer to unbelievable and formidable or the definition closer to hilarious, you were right. Spot on. 750 miles without a motor: ridiculous. Steak knives for second place: ridiculous. A week of gales on the nose: ridiculous. Starting a 750 mile race…
RACE UPDATE Despite our cool titles, flashy van, and newly-acquired habits of being flown around by personal pilots and carrying out large transactions exclusively in cash, the R2AK high command is just like you: we put our pants on one self-impressed leg at a time. Like you, all day we glean as much information as…
RACE UPDATE What does it mean to get older? From the time we are born each trip around the sun brings new experiences that embolden and frighten us, caution grows for things we survive, skills are honed through repetition, bodies get stronger then broken, “youthful” transitions from an implication of our age in years to…
RACE UPDATE After the cleanup crew turned off the lights and locked the doors, the walls of the Fish House still glowed from the fellowship of the only finish line party we could plan for a race whose champions would finish over the better part of a month. On the 9th night of the R2AK,…
RACE UPDATE The grand experiment of the inaugural R2AK has had its share of surprises. Highly skilled mariners on purpose-built boats succumbing to the elements and hasty preparations, Roger Mann on Team Discovery catching up to Team Un-Cruise’s F-27 on a solo effort on his unadulterated Hobie Adventure Island (wow), the Soggy Beavers 6-man paddling…
RACE UPDATE On a boat at sea you are completely insignificant. Think of the forces involved. The liquid that makes up over 75% of the earth’s surface and a fair amount of our atmosphere isn’t just an impossibly large thing compared to a boat, but it’s an impossibly large thing that is affected by even…
RACE UPDATE When the R2AK fell out of our collective heads it was as much a challenge to the world as it was a riddle without precedent – simple challenge that contained a set of questions as wild and full of potential as the tree we nailed the wad of bills to. Given the right…
Read on… 2015 June 12 – 0200 hours. The last night of the unknown
RACE UPDATE While the leaders continued to bash forward through harrying conditions, the ongoing onslaught of an angry wind during the last 24 hours had teams finding shelter, resting, repairing, and waiting to fight another day. A few of the teams took time to reach out to Race Central. Here are their unfiltered reports that…
RACE UPDATE There are two types of people who follow the R2AK: the forgetful, the humble, and people who can’t count. All of us made predictions. In the months between when we announced the race and the moment that just passed, all of us have declared what the race would be, how it would play…
RACE UPDATE Team Real Thing limping home Photo by Air Boss Nick Reid When the R2AK woke up on the second day of the race it shook off the cobwebs, rubbed its eyes then looked around and started cleaning house, with a baseball bat. By the time your bathrobe-clad morning fantasy was midway through its…
Read on… 2015 June 8 – Carnage, humble pie, and jaws on the floor
RACE UPDATE June 7 – Race day, start of Stage 2 The Inner Harbour of Victoria is a vibrant and stately place where the Empress Hotel and the Provincial legislature stand sentinel, and despite the haze of hollandaise and maple syrup they still remember the Queen’s last visit (2002) and still separate the two sides…
RACE UPDATE June 6 Stage 1- We’ve seen what the starting line would look like in our heads for months and the actual start was every bit as improbable, stirring, celebratory and bad ass as we imagined. Hundreds of onlookers waded through a R2AK related traffic jam to cheer the 53 teams across the starting…