Team members: Steven Rogak, Vojta Zarsky, Ian Fenner, Charlotte Silverman, Spencer Hill, Tess Jakubec, Med Fermi
Hometown: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Race vessel: 1983 J/29
LOA: 29′
Human propulsion: Pedal (Prop)
Connect: website, facebook, instagram
A J/29 doesn’t ask for extreme brilliance. It asks for consistency. Weight where it belongs. Sails trimmed without drama and fuss. Someone awake enough to notice problems. Do that, and the thing goes. Stop doing that, and it doesn’t.
Team Outliers reads like a group that will make it go.
They’re intentional. To the point where not only have they appointed an actual “First Mate” (something not oft seen in R2AK), but furthermore they have their own Ohura—A Communications Officer. What that job entails, we are dying to find out.
For some of the team, there’s already an R2AK finish behind them: a 5th-place result, on this boat. So they’re carrying with them useful memories: what three bad decisions in a row feels like at hour 40, how quickly “fine” turns into “oh shit.”
These folks are amongst the crowd who also have the drive to do something useful while they compete in this useless race: they’re partnered up with the sciency types (actually, the Skipper is a PhD in Environmental Engineering Science) to collect data on particulate matter out in the briny where that type of info is hard to get. They’re carrying a vast array of (hopefully) blinking, beeping, and whirring sensors that hopefully also double as a high tech french press.Good luck, Outliers —all seven of you.
The Race to Alaska Podcast
Episode 14: Team Belly Full of Tea, Team Outliers, Team Lollipop
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What’s the one piece of advice you’re absolutely going to ignore?
Wearing suncreen.
What’s going to break first—and what’s your plan when it does?
Probably some rigging, I’m hoping we can get fancy with a snatch block, winches and hack saw, we should be able to untangle any mess. In the event of one of these “widow maker” dead heads, I’m hoping we can stuff a settee cushion in the hole asap, then throw on a snorkel mask, fix a tarp taught on the exterior of the hull… .and then I guess hope we have enough solar power so the pumps can keep up!
Actually we broke lots of things in past trips: the head of a jib, a mast, rudder parts. The things that broke were always unexpected. So I think what breaks on this next trip will be unexpected.
Friendship Survival Rate
92%
Confidence Level
50%