FULL RACE- Port Townsend to Ketchikan
Team name: Sea Runner
Team Captain: Thomas Nielson
Total crew: 2
Vessel: Polynesian Vikings meet the Patagonian Chonkeh (new build)
Website: Searunners.net
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/
As much as we are excited to welcome Team Sea Runner to the R2AK…well, there’s really no way around it- we kind of hate these guys. Yes, they are totally experienced on the route, and yes, they have built and sailed all kinds of craft and done some epic adventures across open water and up and down both coasts. Sure, they dive on vents in the ocean floor, climb mountains (lots of them), run non-stop around them when they don’t feel like going over them, and in so many ways make us look like slouches. There is skill-jealousy and life-envy that is at play here, but the R2AK attracts a fair number who make us look bad on that score. We get over that all the time.
Mostly we hate these guys because they can turn a phrase. They once did a trip from Saulsalito to Hilo on a Polynesian style boat with blue tarp sails.
(What? Really? Yes.) Their reason: ” To prove you don’t need Dacron and you don’t need diesel – you just need to go!”
Marvelous, truly Pulitzer stuff- screw you guys. The writing part was all we had, now we’ve got nothing.
PS: We don’t know what the heck a Chonkeh is either, but our Google image search yielded exactly zero boats, some bad art, and this guy. We like him very much.