Seventy48

Seventy48 New Records

Kurt Hoehne Northwest Maritime Center 0 Comment
Photo of the start by Dean Burke

Northwest Maritime Center’s non-sailing adventure race Seventy48 (results here) saw a record number of entries and new elapsed time record. How do folk row and paddle that fast? Here’s the recap from race headquarters and a few photos:

SEVENTY48: 2022 RECAP

In 2021, Puget Sound was vindictive—less than half of the teams rang the finish bell—enough so, that we were flummoxed at the record number of teams enlisting for 2022, until we saw names, like Paddle On…Paddle On, Ted, Bad Rabbit, and Get Kraken; all back for another try. We knew a grudge match was brewing. Puget Sound clearly had been doing burpees for a year and was ready. More like a race through a water park, rain drove through the Gore-tex layers and even the start line held sodden eagerness in every eye. We stood on the dock yearning to utter the now-familiar benediction. Namaste racers. But it was not time for that. It was time to Namasgo. And Namasgo quickly.

89 teams crossed the finish line in Port Townsend with Team Imua taking line honors and setting a new SEVENTY48 record of 9h 35m. Team Wave Forager set the solo record of 9h 39m, and Teams like Get Kraken avenged their 2021 losses—a favorite line uttered by a team was, “I gotta stop, so my daughter will still want to hang out with me in the future.”

Every team’s worst moment is different and personal, but all involve one of the universal three: broken gear, broken body, or broken spirit (preferably not more than one at a time). The inverse is avoiding those three. However, what makes success will always be philosophically and/or drunkenly debated. Second-guessing will be rampant because we are human, loving to nag on ourselves and others. The only unifying point of all the seesaw of emotion and vociferous debate is this; 116 teams decided to line up on June 10th and put their best and worst to the test. Without that kind of risk—the kind that leaves you raw and vulnerable, scared and hopeful, daring and adventurous—all our lives would be dimmer sadder copies of ourselves. And we’d have nothing to talk about today. Huzzah to the racers of SEVENTY48. We’ll always want you to stay, but will always ask you to go.

HERE ARE THE 2022 SEVENTY48 CLASS WINNERS:

First Overall: Team Imua. 9hrs 35mins
By Yourself: Team Wave Forager. 9 hrs 39 mins
Facing Forward: Team Boat. 11 hrs 6 mins
Standing Up: Team KrugerSEA. 14 hrs 12 mins

Team Boogie Barge, Photo by Kelsey Brenner
Team Dumas Bay Brethren. Photo by Audry Rogers
Team Convergence Zone, photo by Vicki Beaver

Lots of Adventures

Kurt Hoehne Adventure Sailing, Racing , , , , 0 Comment
Lots of Adventures

If you’re like me, you’ve lost track of which adventure races are coming up. This, as far as I know, is the list. If you’ve got an event you want sailish readers to hear about, adventurous or not, let me know.

Today: Northwest Maritime’s Seventy48, a human powered non-sailing event from Tacoma to Port Townsend. The start is today at 7pm, giving paddlers a chance to go all night and then some. They have 48 hours to go 70 miles, including SUPs.

Tomorrow: Seattle Yacht Club’s Blake Island Race. NOR here.

June 7: WA360. The Northwest Maritime’s world renowned R2AK is another Covid victim for this year, but here’s a good alternative. One difference between this event and the R2AK is that engines are allowed onboard, though if they’re used the boat will not be scored. I imagine that’s a concession to safety in the heavily trafficked Puget Sound. Start and finish in Port Townsend

June 10: Pacific NW Offshore Race: You’ll be forgiven if you think of this as the Oregon Offshore. Because of Covid restrictions, there is no Canada, but there is a start at Ilwaco and a finish in Port Angeles, so the course remains largely the same. Bruce Hedrick will be providing a weather outlook for the racers, which we’ll print here on sailish.com

June 19: Salish 200. Back for the second annual tour of the Sound. Actually, there are three races, the Puget Sound 100, San Juan 100 and Salish 200. Here’s the page with more details.

There will be trackers and/or AIS to follow on each of these, for those of us stuck mowing lawns or sitting in offices. We have embedded sailors on each of these events, even if they don’t know they are, so we hope to have some first-hand reports. Thanks to all the clubs and organizations that are making this happen despite the Covid limitations. If racers or organizers have anything to add, please send thoughts and pictures to me.

Seventy48 Photos

Kurt Hoehne Community , 0 Comment
Seventy48 Photos

I’m still hoping to get some inside stories from the Seventy48. For those of you unaware, last weekend’s race was a non-sailing (all human powered) prelude to the R2AK. Seventy miles in 48 hours. The course, simply from Tacoma to Port Townsend. The winners Greg Spooner and Thiago Silva did it in about 11 hours in the two person shell Imua.

Jan Anderson stepped up once again with some great shots. Like the R2AK, this event is much more about participation than it is the winning and losing. Check these pix out, the check out the full gallery.

Web site here.

If anyone wants to write about their Seventy48 experience, please send it my way.

Bruce’s Briefs: Weather for 31 May, 1, 2, and 3 June, Van Isle 360 and Seventy48.

Bruce Hedrick Bruce's Briefs, Racing , 1 Comment
Bruce’s Briefs: Weather for 31 May, 1, 2, and 3 June, Van Isle 360 and Seventy48.

Yesterday the Pacific Northwest lost not only a great sailor but one of the classiest gentleman I have ever had the privilege to sail with. Dick Robbins, the owner and skipper of the legendary 68- foot Perry designed ICON passed away from complications of a stroke he had suffered recently. His talents went far beyond sailing having designed and built revolutionary tunnel boring machines, including the ones that dug the Chunnel beneath the English Channel. He was a delight to sail with as there was never a cross word nor did he ever raise his voice. Just always a very quiet competence as well as a love of sailing and having fun while on the water. He made the world a much better place and he will be missed. 

Lots going on this weekend and plenty of great weather to go along with it. The Van Isle 360 has a huge and very talented fleet on a very challenging course. The Seventy48 project doesn’t involve sailing but it is still a very cool event. Basically, any way you can get from Tacoma to Port Townsend by way of rowing, paddling or pedaling and by pedaling I don’t mean on land. It all has to be on the water, 70 miles in 48 hours.  They start tonight at 1900 hours going out of the Foss Waterway, up Colvos Passage then to the Port Townsend Canal or Hadlock Canal, then finish in Port Townsend. A great tune-up for the R2AK which starts on the 3rd. We’ll have a special update for that on the 2nd of June.

  • May 31 500MB
  • May 31 Surface Analysis
  • June 1 Surface Forecast
  • June 2 Surface Forecast
  • June 3 Surface Forecast
  • June 4 Surface Forecast

As you can see from the Surface Analysis, we have a weak high-pressure system off the Northern California coast and a weak low-pressure system in Eastern Washington. As our fog burns off and the sun heats up the land, this will bring a strong onshore flow down the Straits of JdF bringing with it Gale Warnings for the Central and Eastern Straits as well as a Small Craft Advisory for Admiralty Inlet. After midnight, this will ease and we should have a very nice weekend to be on the water.

For the Van Isle folks, this will mean a nice beat from Nanaimo to Deep Bay in 8 to 15 knots of northwesterly.

For the Seventy48 teams, there will be northerly of about 8-12-knots from the start until they get into Colvos Passage and then after about 2100 hours they should have just about ideal conditions for whatever manner of propulsion they have selected. After midnight, there maybe a drainage east-northeasterly of 5-10-knots in the early morning hours then as the sun comes up that will die until the onshore flow develops in the early afternoon bringing 10-12-knots of northwesterly down the Sound.

Of course, if your paddling or rowing you’re going to want to keep track of the tidal current however with most of these craft being of very shallow draft you can really get in close to stay out of the anti-water. It seems to me they took some fun out of the event by making them go through the Hadlock Canal but they probably had a very good reason for doing that. It’s just that in the flood tide you can get 3 to 3.5 knots of current in there while you could avoid that by going around the outside of Marrowstone.

The good news is that since the current always flows north in Colvos Passage, it will be a free ride until they get up to Blake Island. The other good news is that the currents in the central Sound will be less than one knot almost all weekend. In Admiralty Inlet, the max currents will be around two knots and since the shortest possible course will take keep you on the beach anyway, you’ll be able to avoid the worst of it until Hadlock.

Currents at West Point

Friday

2000      Slack

Saturday

0018      Max Flood            .72 knots

0330      Slack

0518      Max Ebb                 .47 knots

0742      Slack

1300      Max Flood            .89 knots

1618      Slack

1800      Max Ebb                 .48 knots

2054      Slack

All in all, it looks like a lot of exercise but should be a total hoot.

Be safe and have fun out there.