r2ak

Sail Like a Girl, Lagopus and Wild Card are 1, 2, 3 in R2AK

Kurt Hoehne r2ak 0 Comment
Sail Like a Girl, Lagopus and Wild Card are 1, 2, 3 in R2AK

Sail Like a Girl held off a very persistent Lagopus to claim the $10K prize and 2018 R2AK bragging rights. Lagopus got the steak knives. Wild Card had a great race to finish third. It looks like Ptarmigan is going to hold off a hard-charging Strait to the Pool Room.

We’ll do more later.

Photo from last night as the boys from Wild Card smelled the barn door – still a long night away.

Wild Card Loses Momentum But Spirits Remain High

Andy Cross r2ak 0 Comment
Wild Card Loses Momentum But Spirits Remain High

My how things have changed. After a less than stellar entrance to Bella Bella by going from 1st to 3rd in a snap, we haven’t been able to regain much momentum. Riding a fresh southwesterly out into Hecate Strait on Thursday night and then hoping for the predicted 10 to 20 knot northwesterly turned into a bust. We basically parked in the doldrums while Sail Like A Girl made it out and Lagopus went to the inside. It happens in racing, though, we’re well aware of that. When the northerly did finally show up at 5 pm, we used every bit of it and made big strides on the leaders. Alas, as we sit in the doldrums again, it seems to be too little too late. We’re 80 miles from Ketchikan and are pedaling. It’s all we can do. Fortunately, spirits amongst the boys are high. Did we ever imagine being in this position in the R2AK in a 1978 Santa Cruz 27 that was purchased off Craigslist and then brought back from the ashes in less than a year? Hell no. And to have kept pace and even lead a Melges 32, Olson 30 and others. We’ll take it. We’re having the time of our lives!

Ed. Note: Sail Like a Girl is still ahead and appears to be moving out a little on Lagopus. But of course it wouldn’t be R2AK if there wasn’t potential for surprise. While it looks like our friends on Wild Card won’t even get the steak knives (damn), they won everyone’s respect. The fleet behind appears to be enjoying the southerly that Hedrick wrote about yesterday. 

R2AK Split Around Hunter Island, Sail Like A Girl and Lagopus

Kurt Hoehne r2ak 0 Comment
R2AK Split Around Hunter Island, Sail Like A Girl and Lagopus

Sail Like A Girl, Lagopus and Wild Card continue to lead the multihulls, with Sail Like A Girl leaving Banks Island to starboard and Lagopus leaving it to port. In the meantime, dark horse Wild Card lost the lead going inside Hecate and Hunter Islands, then lost a lot of ground in the hours after the Bella Bella checkpoint. Right now all three are relatively slow, with the big question mark as to who will have chosen the right path, Sail Like A Girl or Lagopus. The trimaran Ptarmigan is coming on fast while Wild Card seems to be wallowing a bit offshore.

It’ll be an interesting last 1/4 of the race. Tracker here.

Here’s a little video by Jackie Philpott on the Wild Card program.

 

This Afternoon’s R2AK report from Wild Card

Andy Cross r2ak 0 Comment
This Afternoon’s R2AK report from Wild Card
(filed 16:15) Finally got some real breeze today and we’re loving life. We’re south of Blunden Harbor sailing in 15 knots with a guy on the trap. Last night was mixed bag of conditions with with wind, no wind, lots of current and some fog in the morning. We sailed well upwind in the fog and were delighted to get out of JS.
Ed. Note: The Wild Cards may be out in front, but they’ll be hard pressed to stay there. The Olson 30, Melges 32 and F-28 chasing them are all considered “faster” boats. But so are a lot of boats far behind! In the last couple hours Sail Like A Girl and Lagopus have been slowly gaining ground, with the Melges seemingly a quarter knot faster. Ptarmigan has made big gains as well. -KH 

Wild Card in the R2AK Lead!

Andy Cross r2ak 1 Comment

(On the water update, via texting!)

Andy Cross and his son Porter

Currently (0341 6/20) we’re beating up Johnstone Strait in fog, we’re chasing Sail Like a Girl with Lagopus hot on our heels. The story of how we got here is this: after parking in a hole north of Gabriola and watching the leaders step away, we needed to make a move. Knowing that they were going to hit adverse current and park up between Hornby and Lesqueti, we gambled. In the light and variable conditions, I was confident we’d find wind on the west side of Texada. Boy, did we. A warm southeasterly spilled us through the slot and up Texada on a fast reach.

Wild Card – optional paint job (not opted for) for R2AK

We put the kite up soon after and stuck close to the island and out of current. At one point we were consistently hitting 8s with some 9s in the surf. What a fun night. By morning, we were back in it chasing leaders into Campbell River and Seymour Narrows.

We’ve strung together two solid days and nights. Hopefully we can keep it going. (Ed. note: actually 3 days/3 nights, but they can be forgiven for losing track)
Update: At this time, Wild Card is leading (!), chased by the Olson 30 Lagopus and the Melges 32 Sail Like A Girl. The first multihull, Ptarmigan, is in fourth. 

Wild Card Video from Johnstone Strait

Kurt Hoehne r2ak 0 Comment

Through the marvels of modern technology, we have a video update from Team Wild Card as they paced the trimaran Ptarmigan through Johnstone Strait. Putting a trapeze on an SC27 apparently does something for boatspeed, along with an oversize asymmetrical chute. These guys are having way too much fun. As I write this they’re in third place overall, behind PT Watercraft and First Federal Sail Like A Girl.

Great Stories Leading the R2AK, Sail Like a Girl and PT Watercraft – with Wild Card giving chase

Kurt Hoehne r2ak 2 Comments
Great Stories Leading the R2AK, Sail Like a Girl and PT Watercraft – with Wild Card giving chase

I’ve been expecting an R2AK update from Andy Cross aboard Wild Card to pass along, but alas, he and the Wild Card bunch have been too busy kicking butt! Currently in fourth place, the Craigslist Santa Cruz 27 is into Johnstone Strait and has (for the time being at least) are establishing a big lead on rest of the fleet. The multihulls PT Watercraft and Ptarmigan are ahead, and the Olson 30 Lagopus behind. Leading everyone is the Melges 32 First Federal Sail Like A Girl, sailed by an outstanding team of all women. Appropriate enough in the year of #metoo.

PT Watercraft, photo by Katrina Zoe Norbom.

But even more sentimental favorite is singlehander Russell Brown in his Gougeon 32 catamaran. Brown epitomizes the quiet adventurer and craftsmen, and his boatbuilding and seamanship are legend, despite his reticence about blowing his own horn. Brown is not only sailing fast, he’s sailing smart. While he’s been leading most of the race, he still stops for a few hours at night to get some rest. He woke up today in fourth, but is looking like he’ll retake the lead by nightfall.

The Craigslist Santa Cruz

Back to Team Wild Card. This group (Mark Aberle, Andy Cross, Mike Descheemaeker, Robert Robinson) took shape originally at D-dock at Shilshole where they all kept, and most lived on, boats. R2AK was a great conversation starter, and now some years later they combined their efforts to purchase a Santa Cruz 27 and take this on. They fixed up the old girl, painted her and bought her some new sails. Alex Simanis at Ballard Sails made their asymmetrical “just a big enough to scare them at night.” They purchased a pedal drive system from the Burd brothers (previous winners), and they were ready to go.

Take Me To The Volcano, photo by Katrina Zoe Norbom.

Andy’s works on Threesheets Northwest web site, and his full stories will eventually appear there. But anything he sends to me en route I’ll be posting here. In the meantime I’ll be staying up late and getting up early to root them on.

In other news, Take Me To The Volcano (Matt Johnson), has withdrawn to a knee injury first suffered in the proving ground leg.

It should be noted that when you go to the tracker and click on a boat, the R2AK Facebook feed shows up in the right hand column with all the postings of a given boat. There are photos, videos and updates.

Bruce’s Briefs: R2AK drags on but hope is on the (distant) horizon

Bruce Hedrick Bruce's Briefs, r2ak, Weather 2 Comments
Bruce’s Briefs: R2AK drags on but hope is on the (distant) horizon
Tyee Pool Campbell River – click to enlarge. Looks like First Federal Sails like a Girl with the red spin and Ptarmigan.

It is setting up to be a very interesting race, especially after last night where Pt Watercraft(PtW), after having been well in the lead, had to get some sleep. That allowed Sail Like a Girl (FFSLAG), Ptarmigan (Pmg), and Wild Card (WC) to all slip by leaving PtW about 5 miles behind at dawn. That didn’t last long as PtW lit the afterburners and is now slowly but inexorably grinding them all down and as of 1200 is back into third place and rapidly closing in on second.

Then there’s the weather. From the surface chart, you can see it’s a bit of a complex situation that is preventing any kind of typical summer weather from setting up. The ridge of high-pressure offshore is continuing to weaken as low-pressure systems continue to push into it. Being elongated from north to south doesn’t help it and with another low with an attached frontal system approaching it will continue to weaken and eventually it will be absorbed by a strengthening high-pressure system on the backside of that occluded front. Then there are the two weakly organized low-pressure systems just two the northeast of the race course. That’s the good news and the bad news. This will provide SE breeze for most of the racers over a pretty large area today. This may be enough for the current crop of leaders to get through the Narrows and into Johnstone Strait. The problem will be that as these lows dissipate, a new ridge will try to form over the western end of Johnstone Straits. This will bring light westerlies down Johnstone by mid to late afternoon. By early evening this could be 8-knots near Hardwicke Island. Unfortunately, by around midnight, this ridge will start to break down and racers will be in for another night of very light and shifty breeze.

It looks like the first six boats will make it through this tidal gate with a big slamming noise occurring around 1630 hours this afternoon. If FFSLAG can get around Chatham Pt and into Johnstone they have the potential to really put some distance on the rest of this group. Lagopus, Pmg, and Blue Flash are at risk of becoming stranded on the tidal treadmill if they don’t get past the Narrows.

The long-term outlook doesn’t start looking much better until the 23rd or 24th of June when another low-pressure system will start pushing into the area between the north end of Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands. That will bring a pre-frontal SE breeze over the area and give racers a welcome tailwind.

Thanks Bruce. I’ll be following this up with a little post of my own. Go Wild Card! –KH

R2AK Navigation

David Burch Navigation, r2ak 0 Comment
R2AK Navigation

While those R2AK sailors, paddlers and rowers make their way north to Ketchikan, we can eat popcorn, root for our faves and even learn a bit. Bruce Hedrick has been (and will be) monitoring the weather. Here, David Burch of Starpath Navigation lays out some of the navigational challenges facing the fleet. –KH

Race to Alaska (R2AK) Navigation

By David Burch

A question came up in our online nav course about R2AK navigation. As it turns out we have worked on this route in great detail a couple years ago as we assisted the Team MAD Dog in preparation for their record setting race. I started to answer this longish question in our class discussion forum, but decided it could be of broader interest, so I put these notes here.

All such planning starts with the waypoints. We made this set for the full race that the team then transferred into their two handheld GPS units and also into Navionics “Boat US and Canada” app on two iPhones and one Android phone. This app for about $50 includes all Canadian charts. They are not as good as the official Canadian echarts, but those cost $200 or $300 from EC… although there is a very good set from RosePoint Navigation for $99 the last I Checked, but these may only work on Coastal Explorer.

PS. There are some tricks to getting an external gpx file into a mobile app version of Navionics. On the other hand, it is relatively easy to get them into a Garmin handheld.

R2AK-1.gpx is the full route Port Townsend to Ketchikan, with logical waypoints numbered and named from start to finish.  R2AK-2.gpx and R2AK-3.gpx are two short alternative legs if the main route has bad weather in these regions. [ Might have to right click and choose save, else you might look directly at the xml files.]

These files can be loaded into OpenCPN or other enav program and then studied in on the screen and on the routes manager display. Without Canadian charts, however, the details are hard to discern. The WA and AK charts are free downloads.

You can also drag these gpx files onto Google Earth to see what the routes look like in detail. There is some thought that there could be very many routes to Ketchikan, and probably so, but there is a logical direct route if weather permits.

Next we used current predictions from the Canadian Current Atlas that we customized and made into ebooks that could be loaded into their phones. Then each day and hour is a book mark, easy to find. Recall that MADDOG was all navigated from the trampoline of an open catamaran. No nav station and no other electronics.

Once into AK waters, we used our own publication called Southeast Alaska Current Atlas, and did the same ebook layout with that data. Both of these convenient current presentations paid off.

This was an unassisted race, so they had to get their weather info underway themselves, but we could run a day or so out at least as starting points. We considered the key was getting to Seymour Narrows on time, so this was focused upon.  They hit the Narrows, exactly as the current turned in their favor, flying by at 20 kts as the fishing boats hanging out for the right time were pulling their anchors.

Now we have better wind data than we had at that time.  For US waters WA and AK you can use the HRRR (our 19 hr, updated hourly) or 3-km NAM for longer runs.  The best data once into Canada would be HRDPS – High Resolution Deterministic Prediction System, which is 1.3 km run every 6h out to 2 days.  You can get that from LuckGrib on an iPad and transfer it to Expedition for routing… or just look at it on the luckgrib app. OpenCPN and other popular nav programs may not be able to read it.

Our new book Modern Marine Weather 3rd edition includes detailed discussions of latest high resolution models.

Another key factor to the navigation of this route is floating logs and sometimes deadheads—meaning logs floating vertical with not much showing.  The latter is a risk throughout the Pacific Northwest, but the probability of colliding with one is small.   The when seen they should be reported to the Coast Guard who will then tag them with a flag.

On the other hand, after a very high tide, many of the logs that were beached find there way back into the water,  and these can be a serious impediment in some channels.  I have seen cases there where we had to navigate through a maze of these at dead slow.  This means navigation at night in these conditions takes special care.

As always, a careful reading the the US and Canadian Coast Pilots (the latter called Sailing Directions) is mandatory for this route.  The US versions are free downloads, the Canadian Sailing Directions for BCcome in four volumes.  There are also numerous cruising guides to these waters with discussions of anchorages and small boat facilities.

If questions come up on this navigation, then post a question here or in the classroom.

We have other more general weather notes on the inside passage at

www.starpath.com/insidepassage  Be sure to get a copy of the BC Mariner’s Weather Guide which is a top left link on that page. This shows where all the reporting stations are located.

See also this link that gives a gpx file of the current station locations.

Reprinted with permission. Original post here.

R2AK Start – Following Wild Card, and Good Luck to All

Kurt Hoehne r2ak 1 Comment
R2AK Start – Following Wild Card, and Good Luck to All

In a couple hours (at noon) the intrepid R2AK adventurers will be starting from Victoria for Ketchikan. They might have it slow going at the start, but a northwesterly should develop later in the day for the sailors to take advantage of. And while there’s a certain amount of competition for the $10K first prize, and of course the steak knives second prize, this remains more of an adventure than a race for most of the fleet.

We’ll be following Andy Cross and Team Wild Card, a Santa Cruz 27. I’ve done part of the course with Andy already on  the Van Isle 360 aboard Double Take. You can find Andy’s posts on Threesheets Northwest, but when he gets out of range of a good Internet connection he’ll be texting some reports out, which I’ll post on sailish along with a few words about how the race is going. And when there’s a Threesheets post – I’ll post parts of it here, and deliver a bit more info on the team, which basically took form on D Dock at Shilshole.

Also Bruce Hedrick is going to be watching the weather. Check out his latests “Briefs” here and here. He’s looking at doing an update for tomorrow.

Again, good luck to all the adventurers, and once again to Jake Beattie and his crew for coming up with this race and keeping it going!

Here’s part of Andy’s Threesheets post about The Proving Ground leg:

R2AK 2018: It’s go time in Victoria!

by  on June 17, 2018 in Events, Features, News, Racing 2
UPDATE, June, 17:

The first rays of sunshine trickle through the fleet.

Tucked into the port pipe-berth on Wild Card, our team’s spritely Santa Cruz 27, I woke quickly to the sound of seagulls saying good morning while cruising over Victoria harbor. Rubbing my eyes, I looked at my watch for the time: 6 a.m.

Six hours to go time.

After a couple lay days, we’re finally about to shove off and get this great big 750-mile adventure to Alaska rolling again. I’m ready. Our team is ready. From cruising the docks, checking out other boats and meeting the teams, it seems like lots of other competitors are, too. And if the smiles and laughter from last evenings impromptu happy hour were any indication, people are definitely having fun.

Right now the wind is supposed to be light at the high noon start time (weather brief here), which might suit paddlers and pedals until the sailors can hook into a breeze. Fortunately, as the day wears on and the fleet heads around the bottom corner of Vancouver Island, we’ll have a favorable current to do it on. From there it’s going to be anyone’s ballgame.

Get your trackers on, folks!

UPDATE, June, 15: The fourth incarnation of the Race to Alaska got underway yesterday on Port Townsend Bay and conditions did not disappoint.

A gorgeous sunrise greeted racers right after the start.

When the gun went off at 5 a.m., all manner of craft were on or near the line in a sort of dance that can only happen during this race. Standup paddleboards, kayaks, sailboats, row boats and home-built pedal boats jockeyed for position as a modest southerly wind and ebbing current coaxed racers out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

For Team Wild Card, our start left a lot to be desired. A lot. I botched it. Fortunately, our team stayed cool and once out into the Strait we used the now westerly breeze to rocket northwest with focus. Our capable Santa Cruz 27 skipped over a building sea state that never fully soaked the boat, and we finished in 5-and-a-half hours in 11th place. It was one of those sails that you want to bottle, brand and sell — it was that good.

Team Wild Card sending it across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. (And yes, we put a trapeze on an SC27).

Meanwhile, other teams were crushing it too. Team PT Watercraft finished first with Team Sail Like a Girl coming in second and Team Strait to the Pool Room ringing the bell shortly there after.

As of noon today, some folks are still working their way towards Victoria’s inner harbor. Here’s an update from Race Boss Daniel Evans: “Mulig is trying to cross the straits but being swept West. Tri-Harder left out of Sequim Bay today and is expected to finish Stage 1. Fly Baby Fly after suffering mechanical issues late last night was towed into Oak Bay by C-Tow Marine Assist. Dock Rat completed Stage 1 after being anchored in the harbor. WaterWorld Impending has pulled out after losing a prop but is hoping to sail over to Victoria for the fun of it on Saturday. Way to make lemonade, WaterWorld.”

The race to Ketchikan kicks off again Sunday at noon — tracker is here!

There’s more here on Threesheets Northwest.