By Charlie Bermant
Peninsula Daily News
KETCHIKAN — The winner of the second race to Alaska arrived in Ketchikan at 7:30 a.m. Thursday when Mad Dog Racing pulled into the harbor with a final time of 3 days, 20 hours, 13 minutes.
This bested last year’s winner, Team Elsie Piddock, which completed the first race in five days.
The 710-mile Victoria to Ketchikan race course followed a 40-mile qualifying run from Port Townsend to Victoria, B.C.
The winner arrived at the finish line almost one week after the beginning of the qualifying run, which started at 6:05 a.m. June 23 in Port Townsend Harbor.
The race, which is sponsored by the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend, has one major rule: No boats with engines are eligible to compete.
The race is self-supported, meaning no supply drops and no other safety nets are provided.
This year 58 teams began the race, with 55 successfully completing the 40-mile trip from Port Townsend to Victoria, the qualifying leg of the competition.
Thirty-three teams were still in play headed for Ketchikan by Thursday afternoon, according to Jared Scott, communication director for the race and for the maritime center.
Three-person crew
Bay Area resident Randy Miller and his Seattle-based crew Ian Andrewes and Colin Dunphy made up the three-person Mad Dog team who completed the trip on an M32 high-performance catamaran, a twin-hulled sailboat with no cabin, according to a news release.
The unconventional choice for the race was deliberate.
“This boat is fast,” Miller, Team Mad Dog’s captain, was quoted as saying in a news release.
“But there is no way to get out of the elements. You’re just out there.”
Team Mad Dog was able to beat the time of last year’s winner through boat choice and by sailing their boat nonstop, sleeping in shifts and sometimes only 20 minutes a day, the release said.
“This is an active boat to sail,” Miller said.
“The M32 is a fast boat, but it took all three of us to sustain speeds and not be in danger. This is a wild coast, and self-rescue is really the only option out here.”
The R2AK is a race without classes or handicaps. This year’s fleet of competitors was composed of high-performance sailboats like Team Mad Dog, garage-built small boats, trimarans, more conventional sailboats, a kayak and even a paddleboard.
Prizes
The winners received a $10,000 cash prize nailed to a piece of firewood.
The second-place finisher gets a set of steak knives.
Second place will most likely be decided sometime Friday, Scott said.
As of Thursday afternoon, Team Skiff Foundation Jungle Kitty, Team Big Broderna, Team Madrona and Team Mail Order Bride were battling it out for the steak knives, Scott said.
“People get really excited about them,” he said.
“Last year, the two teams rowed through the night and finished within minutes of each other, and the team that won them (the set of steak knives) ended up sharing them with the third-place (winner) because it was so close,” said Jake Beattie, Northwest Maritime Center executive director.
“There’s a real spirit of community in this race. Everyone is rooting for each other.”
Sponsors have provided a constant stream of blogs, videos, messages and up-to-the moment tracking maps in two locations: www.r2ak.com and the race’s Facebook page, http://tinyurl.com/PDN-racebook.
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