Team members: Ian Lloyd, Randolph Speck, Damien Etchaubard, Peter Burns
Hometown: Richmond, BC, Canada
Race vessel: Grand Prix Monohull
LOA: 25’8″
Human propulsion: A mounted sea cycle pedal drive on the transom with a bicycle frame and seat above.
Connect: facebook
TL;DR: Hazing, the undead, kidnapping, horseracing, handguns, and the existence of Subarus.
Here in the R2AK command bunker, we like to think that the best way to let people know we care is to make fun of them, in front of their friends, in public, on the internet, in the only “official” story they will get from the Race to Alaska media machine.
If the R2AK is one big family, we like to think we’re the annoying/abusive older sibling. That’s not a noogie, that’s love… and two for flinching.
Usually, it’s easy. Who among us doesn’t have some ridiculous bit of hubris, a shameful side hustle, skeletons in the closet, porn in the browser history? We’re all human.
Once in a while, we get an application that is so free of flaws, so over-qualified, so overstocked with name-brand sailors, and a boat so hopped up on its own merits that you can hear Herreshoff get nervous from beyond the grave. Those teams? We make fun of them all day:
Rolex sailor of the year… *golf clap* why are you slumming with us? Olympic gold in Rio… what have you done lately? Nobel Prize… name your kid’s three best friends.
Team Wraith 2AK sets a standard that we didn’t think was possible: they are the only team in history to checkmate the entire R2AK writing staff from establishing a beachhead of ridicule. Every part of their application threaded the needle between impressive and arrogant; incredibly solid but not annoyingly so.
These guys are the 2018 Subaru Crosstrek of the R2AK.
We made a run at their crew. Nothing. The crew has no joke bona fides. Nothing that rises to the level of embarrassingly profitable, but double-plus solid sailing resumes: A slew of VanIsle360s, Vic-Maui’s to spare, wall-to-wall certification from the Royal Yachting Association, annual marathons, mountain climbing, South Africa to Fremantle southern ocean sleigh ride leg of the Clipper Round the World. Honestly, the list started to make us question our own life choices. One was even a professional engineer on the BC Ferries. Why is that impressive? Not only do they have the chops to flog their boat fast and upwind until the decals peel off, they’re sailing in their backyard and bringing a guy who’s professionally trained and practiced in the art of fixing things. This is not going well for us.
Fine, we’ll make fun of their boat‚ a Grand Prix 26. Making fun of a GP26? That dog won’t hunt.
If you need more explanation than the picture above, the GP26 is a sled and a half, or, if you take the common wisdom that it’s a 50% TP52, half a sled. A decade and a pandemic-old design that’s catching fire, the GP26 is fast, affordable as a high-twitch thoroughbred can get, and boasts a place to sleep inside. If that wasn’t enough, in 2019 this particular GP26 won its division in the VanIsle360.
Winning VanIsle was their warm-up lap for the R2AK.
America’s Cup we could have made fun of. Foiling we could have torn apart like a hyena and/or driftwood. Winning VanIsle on a keelboat? Children of a common mother and all that—doesn’t feel right.
Then we looked at their name. Bingo. We were locked and loaded, a sick burn in the chamber. Total misfire.
With nothing left and a paragraph to go, our plan was to downshift from loving/abusive sibling and go nuclear by channeling the schoolyard bully our scrawny childhood never allowed us to be. We could make fun of their name: Team Wraith 2AK. We were going to shut them in their own locker and tell the rest of the kids about how they can’t pronounce “race” correctly. Then Google happened and we learned that a “wraith” is a cool Scottish word for the ghost you see right before you die, a monster that D&D nerds fear, and a name so cool that Rolls Royce used it as the name of their $500K car. Looks like we wedgied ourselves, again.
Welcome to the Race2AK, Team Wraith 2AK. You should change your name to Team Teflon, nothing sticks. We give up. (*kicks rocks*)