Team members: Brian Fahy, Cillian Cotter, Paul Kelly
Hometown: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Race vessel: Structures Pogo 2
LOA: 21’4″
Human propulsion: Pedal drive propeller system and backup paddles
Connect: instagram
TL;DR: These big a** Hobbits got a sick ride, yo.
As long as humans thought that they mattered, a common and recurring navel gazing debate is the unanswerable question of fate vs free will. To what extent are any of our actions predestined and how much are our choices our own? How much are our actions a part of a cosmic unity that guides our lives and how much are we independent minds with the power to shape our own destiny?
To be fair, it’s not just humans that have wondered that since self-awareness collided with epistemology, Hobbits too. If you think Frodo and friends didn’t wonder if the whole trip to Mordor was their destiny or something that they had control of, well, you’d be wrong. Sure, a modern take on it might examine the role of the Shire as a system of oppression unto itself. On the surface, it appeared it was for their protection, but in reality, it was probably designed to isolate Hobbits and limit their opportunities while Rohan rode roughshod over Middle Earth like some simp of Sauron. It’s entirely possible that Frodo was neither driven by free will nor by some divine force, but the whole quest for the ring was simply a violent eventuality brought about by the real and designed systems put in place to keep a Hobbit down.
What does any of this have to do with R2AK’s Kentucky Fried anything? Hang tight hairfoot, we’ll get there.
We don’t know/care if Team Hardship is the product of fate, free will, or simply how things converge inside of global human systems, but it’s not nothing that three Irish lads were born and grown within the same 10 years, across the same 26 counties, became civil engineers, emigrated to Vancouver BC, to work at the same company, and then decided to R2AK. For real though; they grew up not knowing each other, in different parts of Ireland, then after a life of global rambling slowly became essentially the same person in exactly the same place. Luck of the Irish and all that, but Leprechaun all you like: all of that convergence is more than a little weird.
Yes, we know we’re mixing Tolkien analogies, but Canadian/Engineer/R2AK is the weirdest and most specific sorting hat we have ever heard of.
Construction guys, mountain climbers, and national level Gaelic Footballers, ringing in at a combined weight of over 600 pounds—these are the biggest Hobbits we’ve ever heard of. Between the three of them, they can claim 2 of the 7 summits, multiple triathlons, surfing cred, Royal Yacht Association and Irish boating certifications, various acts of dirt baggery including backpacking across mountains and the US on shoestring budgets, and bonus: they may or may not be pen pals with Gandalf.
If the story of Team Hardship’s crew is one of convergence, their boat choice is one of ascendency. The Structures Pogo 3 is a French-built, 21-foot mini-transat, micro sled that Transat-ed twice before three Irish engineers decided that the thing they should do to complete their self-assimilation was to buy it in the Caribbean, sail it to Florida, then make 60 knots to windward on the back of a truck cross-continent. Yes, on a truck.
For those who need the crib notes, the Transat is a 4000+ mile race from France to the Caribbean, singlehanded—mini Transat does it on 21’ boats.
Dude.
The Pogo 3’s seven meters and change of a hopped-up, Francophone race boat: Twin rudders, big rig, planing hull—it could be the boat to rule them all.
TL;DR: These big a** Hobbits got a sick ride, yo.
Fast boat, proven to cross oceans with one person aboard? How will it fare for 750 high twitch coastal miles navigating a course with significantly more logs/bears, with more human/hobbits onboard than their sled was designed for? Time and the R2AK will tell.
Welcome to the R2AK, Team Hardship. Don’t pay attention to Gandalf. Keep your head down and sails up, and you too shall pass… possibly like a kidney stone.