Team members: Maxime Tremblay, Colin Pendziwol, Edmond Leahy, Dave Myers
Hometown: Campbell River, BC, Canada
Race vessel: Thunderbird 26
LOA: 25′
Human propulsion: Pedal (Prop)
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Seymour Narrows takes up a lot of daydream time for R2AK finish-line hopefuls. It’s the black wolf emerging from a cave, seeking to tear out Atreyu’s throat in service of The Nothing. Some teams get through, and in hindsight, the Narrows appears to them as nothing more than a bad animatronic, while others still wake up sweating and thinking about bloody teeth. For this team from Campbell River, the wolf is a family pet.
None of them are originally from Campbell River. They moved in at different times, then did the classic coastal thing: met through friends, docks, and shared poor judgment. Max—the acknowledged instigator—runs a sailing school in town and has spent years watching the race pass by, thinking they should give it a try. The rest of the crew came together the usual way: a dockside conversation with someone living aboard, a mutual friend from skiing and other outdoor schemes, and another who said yes before fully understanding that it was actually happening. They spend their free time winter camping and backcountry skiing for fun, so the idea of being cold, wet, and tired for days isn’t entirely foreign. Two of them have new kids at home, which means their support crews deserve most of the credit.
Their boat, a fiberglass Thunderbird named Scalowag, enters the race with modest historical precedent. Only one Thunderbird has finished before, in a campaign that stretched to seventeen days. The plan: beat that number. By at least a day.
The boat will move the usual R2AK ways, but we hear they’re building the pedal drive from unicycle parts—which raises the question of how many balls they can juggle.
After that, they’ll head north and see what other creatures Fantasia has waiting.
The Race to Alaska Podcast
Episode 8: Team Lillian Signed Up To Suffer, Team Jackalope, Team Against Wind And Reason
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What’s the one piece of advice you’re absolutely going to ignore?
Don’t do the race to Alaska
What’s your team’s origin story?
Max had an idea to join the race. During a Mountain bike ride with Colin, he foolishly thought that it sounded fun and would be down to join. 1 week later Max had found a boat and recruited Edmond to join the crew. Our plan was to compete in the 2024 edition of the R2AK but Max and his partner were expecting their first child 3 weeks before the start date. We decided to postpone till 2025, which turned to 2026.
Here we are, two years and 2 babies later and much too under prepared for having so much time to prep.
Duct Tape Fixes (Linear Feet)
50
Night-Before Sleep (hh:mm)
01:00