Team members: Lillian Kuehl
Hometown: Port Angeles, WA, USA
Race vessel: Chesapeake Light Craft Expedition Wherry
LOA: 18′
Human propulsion: Row
Connect: website, facebook, strava
Race to Alaska’s Shit-Disturber-in-Chief is back.
Race fans know Lillian Kuehl, who first showed up in 2019 sailing north with her dad and uncle as Team Quillbillians. That effort looked suspiciously comfortable. Since then, she’s corrected the tone by returning solo in a rowboat named Patty B., a CLC Expedition Wherry she has endlessly modified, patched, and otherwise improved—while apparently making a firm decision never to clean it or make it look nice in any way.
Kuehl has attempted R2AK twice in Patty B. and finished exactly zero times.
Her broader relationship with R2AK High Command has always been… interactive. She asks pointed questions, challenges decisions, and generally buzzes around the Race Boss like a mosquito—occasionally texting criticisms and “ideas” well past his bedtime. As a side project, she also launched r2ak.org, a low-budget Angelfire-style mirror of the official site, where she seems to be trying to launch some kind of anti-race. Learn some HTML, Kuehl.
Her résumé in the broader race ecosystem contains a few additional entries worth noting. During one attempt, she detoured mid-race to attend a wedding—producing both the first known instance of an R2AK tracker traveling I-5 and the highest speed ever recorded. In 2021, during the inaugural WA360, she abandoned the route entirely, rowed the full length of Hood Canal (which does not connect by water to the rest of the course), and then dragged her boat overland to reach the first waypoint. Because. She was also quietly disqualified from a past SEVENTY48, a fact we are happy to make public now that some time has passed.
And yet, underneath all the foul language, side projects, and sleight of hand, there appears to be a real competitor in there somewhere—still trying to row her way to Ketchikan.
The Race to Alaska Podcast
Episode 8: Team Lillian Signed Up To Suffer, Team Jackalope, Team Against Wind And Reason
→ Listen on Spotify
→ Listen on YouTube
→ Listen on Apple Podcasts
What’s going to break first—and what’s your plan when it does?
Probably Race Boss, tbh
What’s the one piece of advice you’re absolutely going to ignore?
I think last time you told me to stop cursing out former race boss Daniel Evans? Screw you Daniel!! (But thanks for officiating our wedding)
Friendship Survival Rate
5%
Confidence Level
80%