While HIGH COMMAND continues its important work – specifically, sitting in a lonely Ketchikan hotel room with a typewriter and fingers gently drumming the table while waiting for Sea Peas and Jackalope to appear – we’ve turned to what every serious sporting organization does in moments like these: statistics.
Or at least things that have the general shape and confidence of statistics.
The Race to Alaska, Day 13, by the Numbers:
- Total pedal strokes pedaled: 6,194,247
- Total number of tacks Chilliwillwa has made in Grenville Channel: 141
- Total number of “We’ll just poke out our nose. Oh shit, let’s turn around.”: 9
- Number of boots drank out of: 4
- Masts no longer attached to the boat they started attached to: 2
- Highest gust observed: 54 knots
- Cash raised for charitable causes by teams: At least $250,000
- Miles remaining for Oaracle: 378 nautical miles
- Team currently having the best time: Oaracle
- Number of actual old people on Team Old Farts: 0
- Whales seen: 109
- Zip ties promoted to structural components: Several
- Total miles traveled by teams so far: 30,894 nautical miles
- Shortest distance traveled to finish: 665 nautical miles (Boogie Barge)
- Longest distance traveled to finish: 778 nautical miles (Tips Up)
- Number of problems Moana had: Mo
Should anyone feel compelled to audit these statistics, please remember that Race to Alaska has always favored a strong tailwind over methodological rigor. Any errors are almost certainly within the acceptable margin for a race in which “several” is occasionally the most precise unit of measurement available.
Header photo by Taylor Amble | Video by Garret Weintrob