Team members: Shad Lemke, Shiloh Lemke, Jefferson Franklin, Mark Bostrom, Scott Wood
Hometown: Wilsall, MT, USA
Race vessel: Olson 30 Monohull
LOA: 30′
Human propulsion: Two recumbent pedal drives
Connect: facebook
R2AK Cred: Impressively boring 6th place finish in 2019 (2019 bio here), Exciting WA360 champions in 2021
TL;DR: Boredom, carob, more boredom, cowboys, so bored… also they won the WA360.
“We are going to be one of those boring teams.” – Team High Seas Drifter’s application, 2020
Remember when boring was bad? When sneezing was harmless, masks were for Halloween, and Russia only threatened war?
When we eventually COVID-canceled R2AK’s 2020 we would have gladly taken an Olson 30’s worth of boring—especially those guys. 2020 was going to be their R2AK sequel season. In 2019, they did great, a solid social yawn of a 6th place finish. They were the kind of team that showed up in Ketchikan, tired but nowhere near the shitshow flambe, 1,000-yard stare from the teams with too many moments that landed in the lucky portion of lucky that would make for fun rather than tragic stories after the next 5–20 days/beers. Nothing like good execution, inside of your skill level, on a capable and well-maintained boat: the crew survives but the potential for a sea story is dead. For the sake of race coverage and the fans at home, if you’re just going to be “Capable to Alaska” someone better make out so we can recast this as a Rom-Com.
Then came 2021, a closed Canadian Border, and three days of flat calm in the WA360—R2AK’s COVID year, carob-flavored workaround.
The exciting thing about the first three days of WA360: a kayak was cleaning up—two guys who seemed to never sleep just churned water for days and outpaced the everyone else who were busy swearing and biking their boats most of the way around the course. On the morning of day four, winds had picked up, finally. Overnight a trimaran crew with a fast boat and local experience had taken the logical path to victory; more miles but better tide and better chance for wind. The trail pack took Rosario Strait, the wind and tide lured some too far west looking for the same wind that never came, and by 10am Team High Seas Drifters had gone from “That yellow boat back there” to “Holy shit I think I think they won!” They crossed the line a quick, but important, 7 minutes before the second-place team, becoming the most exciting boring team in that race’s short history.
Behind their low-key champion status is a collective resume that includes crazy tales from the sea and mountains: single-handed TransPacs, sailing from SF Bay to the BVIs and race week in St. Martin, competitive racing around the buoys in the fastest/most exclusive yacht club in Montana. Off the water, they are high-G ski junkies with documented speeds in excess of 70 mph, self-supported big mountain climbs, and triathlons across the western expanse of the Rockies, Tetons, and Cascade Ranges. The cherry on top: 10 years as a working cowboy. Broke over 200 wild horses. (That last sentence is punctuated with a period because there is no mark in standard English to denote spitting tobacco juice onto a saloon floor.) Take that boring.
Welcome back to the R2AK, Team High Seas Drifters.
Sorry, fell asleep there. Did you just win again?