Race to Alaska 2016 (Pre-race mostly)

Port Townsend's Pope Park statue was the center of the pre-
Race to Alaska Ruckus.

Last year I was intrigued by the Race to Alaska (2015) a race of non-motorized vessels without any additional support from Port Townsend, WA, to Ketchikan, AK. I read about it and became interested enough to follow it from beginning to end. The winning boat, Elsie Piddock, did the race in less than a week.

As a former ocean racer on AVIVA (my 45-ft. Hunter Legend sloop), I was able to extrapolate the conditions from reports by contestants, videos and photos, weather reports and the tracking devices on each boat.

So I decided to volunteer this year, to be a little closer to the action. I have no desire to be close enough that I can feel the very cold salt spray from the waters of Puget Sound in my face, so working as a volunteer in the Chandlery at Northwest Maritime for the pre-race Ruckus was a good choice.

And after finding a parking space (that takes a considerable bit of time in Port Townsend when there is an event these days) I still had time to walk around and look at all the various types of watercraft that people were going to use for this second race.

There was everything from a stand-up paddle board to an 8-person catamaran, which included skiffs, kayaks, scows, monohulls and a Boston Whaler Harpoon. There are all women crews, all men, mixes and two fellows who left their wheelchairs on the dock.

This screenshot of the tracking of the race shows Team Mad
Dog way ahead of the rest at 8 a.m. Winds were dying, but
not before they caught their lift and flew across the sound
with speeds of 18 knots at times. They won this part.

I had a chance to speak to some of the crew members of various boats and in their words felt the excitement I used to enjoy of imagining the start and the race ahead. I do miss it, for sure. But part of being safe is knowing when it is time to do something else on a regular basis, like walking or biking.

Competitors are prepping for the race the next day in this
Port Townsend marina. 65 boats (watercraft) entered the race.

Wednesday was a bit cool but mid afternoon the sun came out for awhile. 

Then by six p.m. when the Ruckus was in full swing, the promised front arrived with cooler air and by 7:30 p.m. it was showering everyone. I doubt anyone had to be shooed away from the event for staying too late.

Thursday was cloudy and there was enough wind to get everyone off at the start, except for five boats that for some reason or other did not get to the start within the proscribed 'golden hour.' 

You can visit R2AK.com for videos and replays and listings of all those signed up and those who were eliminated or withdrew.

The challenge that any race on the water faces is how to keep the spectators happy. And a race of 750 miles over water that is bordered by bears is even more difficult. But the tracker system provides a way to 'watch' a team's progress and thus stay involved to a degree. You can find the tracker here.

(For your information, once the race is completed, the tracker will no longer be operational.) 

Apparently the tracker developed some kind of glitch and stopped giving information mid-afternoon on Thursday, creating some anxiety for followers.

If a vessel has a large number on the bow, it is in the race.

Team Mad Dog Racing won that first stage with a Marstrom M32 catamaran sporting a red hull, a clear sail and three crew members. If you look in the photo (second in sequence) above, you can see the boat almost in the center. 

I have posted a bunch of photos (most have captions) for your enjoyment.

If you are interested in more about the race, please go to the links posted. And thanks for stopping by.

Vessels in the slips are generally contestants.

The general level of excitement on the docks was high, for
the participants and the followers.

The fellow in the wheelchair is a competitor on Team Alula,
one of three leg-challenged crew members on a 27-foot
Corsair trimaran. They are racing to Alaska.

Team Hodge came in 53rd in the Stage One race to Victoria.
When we were racing and didn't place, we would say "It
took X boats to beat us!" They finished and that's something!

Team Alula prepping for the race. They are #7, a good number.

Team Nordica finished in Victoria, too.

If I was going to buy another boat, I'd seriously look at the
Seascape 18. They were 24th across the Sound.

All by yourself...

Noddy's Noggins only planned to do Stage One and they did
it, coming in 45th. Impressive as it looks like something for
the Owl and the Pussycat.

It's the rowboat on deck that is competing... No. 60. They were only going to Victoria. Not much room for food, water.

The only stand-up paddle boarder did make
it to Victoria. Not my way to go there.

Excellent Adventure is a Montgomery 17.
They are going to Alaska.

Navocean had to withdraw after the start.

All kinds of boats entered the race; I think this is #11. If it is,
this boat did not finish the first stage. No shame in trying.

The 'Minions' of the R2AK... we think we are important (LOL)!

Celebration of Life: Renn Tolman

From the Homer (Alaska) Tribune: "Homer boatbuilder and musician Renn Tolman passed away peacefully in his tiny beachfront cabin on the afternoon of Saturday, July 5. He was 80.
A celebration of Renn’s life will be held at his boat shop in Homer at 4 p.m. Saturday, July 12.
Renn was well-known in Alaska coastal communities for designing and building the Tolman skiff, a practical dory-style v-bottom boat that found wide use among hardy seafarers on Kachemak Bay and around the world. His two do-it-yourself books, describing an economical “stitch-and-glue” construction process involving plywood and epoxy resin, sold thousands of copies. Tolman skiffs can be found in Germany, Norway, Australia and other countries. An old-school outdoorsman, Renn traveled far across open water on hunting and fishing trips. At his death he had just completed a new design, the Tolman Trawler." (The link on his name has many photographs of his boats and a few of him.)

I have only just heard this news, and while I haven't actually talked to Renn in decades, he is part of the memory of my teen years in New Hampshire.

To celebrate his life today, at this great distance from his boat shop, let me just say that one of my treasured memories is sitting up in his cabin in Nelson, before he moved to Alaska, listening to my older brother and Renn playing music with their other pals. The cabin was smoky, dim, small and spare. It must have been a cool evening as there was a fire blazing while the harmonicas, fiddles, guitars, flutes and voices combined for a lovely flow of energy.

Renn was not an easy man to know, even if you were an adoring fan just because your brother was. But even then, he gave off the air of a hermit, a man who had much to think about and little to say, unless he sang it.

He was an integral part of the Nelson 'scene' with music and picnics and other dramas which others may or may not remember during those vibrant summers of the late '50s. Renn would have been in his mid-twenties then, and there were plenty of women who had their eyes on him. But there was something remote about him, almost ethereal, and however much I studied him, he was not someone I could easily describe to anyone else.

I know that when he moved away, his father, Newt Tolman, did not like to speak much about him. One night when we were having dinner at the Tolman's house, I asked him, "Are you angry at your son?" Newt cleared his throat several times, gathered up his voice, and with unusual sentiment for that crusty old man, he replied, "No, not at all... I just miss him something terrible."

Sometime after Renn moved to Alaska, my brother drove up there to visit, taking with him his strong-minded male Wiemaraner as company for the long drive from Massachusetts. I'm not sure where it happened, but along the way, apparently the dog decided he needed to get out to pee and opened the back of the camper and jumped out. My brother saw nothing until the flashing lights of a state trooper pulled him over to ask him if the dog that was chasing him was his. Reunited, they went on together and spent some of the summer with Renn. 

Having just watched the movie "Cloud Atlas," supporting the theory of reincarnation, which I tend to align with, I should expect Renn might be promoted to a distant star colony where his music and delicate soul can flourish.

(A more detailed obituary was published by The Sentinel (Keene, NH) and can be read here.)

Godspeed, Renn.

I'm not THAT Sandy...

At first I was excited to learn on Twitter that there was a tropical storm named "Sandy" and it initially appeared it was going to do the right thing and head out to sea, causing as few problems as possible.

 This 'snapshot' of the Other Sandy was off the wunderground.com site courtesy of NASA.

But the latest possibilities are considerably more sinister since it has been classified as a hurricane, and I just want to go on the record and say, "I am NOT that Sandy!" The worst possible scenario is a repeat of the Halloween storm of 1991, causing the loss of lives in a 'perfect storm' which was the basis for the book and then the movie of the same name (link is to the extensive Wikipedia report on that storm). I do recall exactly where I was that weekend - in Scituate, Massachusetts, watching my (thankfully) heavy duty sailboat wrenching and tugging at the anchor lines and praying she would be able to stay connected.

We had done all the right things to avoid chafing and splitting of the lines, set out anchors in two directions knowing that after the eye passed, the sudden shift in wind direction could pull up an anchor and set her free. She stayed in place. But plenty of other boats did not. As the eye was passing, we managed to drive down to the harbor and saw a pretty little red boat dashing herself to death on the rocks. The wind turned suddenly and caught my son off-guard, (he wasn't 6'3" then) and billowed out his raincoat like a sail, lifting him a foot up in the air before I grabbed him and pulled him into the lee of the wind behind a building.

Me at the helm some years ago...

There was a lot of chatter around the marina about the "May Day!!" calls for help from the fishing boats and others caught in an almost unbelievable and catastrophic event; three systems coming together. It could happen again, according to the meteorologists. Recreational sailors don't understand the drive for commercial fishermen (and women) and the risks they take daily to bring home the catch. But I had a cousin who spent some time on a fishing boat in the Pacific and got a much better appreciation for what it is all about. Sadly, the drive to stay out a little longer to bring home a full boat of fish may have been partly the cause of the sinking of the Andrea Gail.

I certainly hope that mariners of all kinds take the weather warnings seriously and stay in port until this storm passes. There will be a full moon on the 28th, so tidal rise will be higher and the potential for storm surge flooding increases. I  miss sailing, but I don't miss the anxiety of trying to find a safe harbor!

NOTE: as of 10/28, this storm was measured to be 900 (!!) miles across, so when it makes landfall, wherever it is, people who live inland will feel the effects. Looks like Sandy will be a record-maker. And at least 10 flights from Colombia have been suspended due to the storm. None of these affected me this time, but it goes to show how a Sandy in New England could possibly affect a Sandy in Colombia....

Flooded marina from storm surge of Hurricane Sandy on North River
 near Scituate, MA. Photo by Greg M. Cooper, U.S. PRESSWIRE.

IWITNESS WEATHER