Race to Alaska

[havliii]

Last post really, then I'm leaving. FreeBurd is now headed into Port McNeill, equipment or rest or retiring?

[fjviola]

We just returned from Alaska Cruise aboard Holland America, and will spend 6 days in Victoria BC before returning to Lower 48.
Has been 16 years since my last trip to AK, and sadly, the glaciers are much smaller today than in 1998 ...

We did take a small boat excursion trip from Juneau to Sawyer Glacier, and along the way encountered a good size piece of ice.

Without any disrespect to the 'real' Race to Alaska sailors, I simply could not resist producing this collage from one of my existing images (Ernie Kamp on his SC19 'Nauti Habit') and a newly minted 'blue ice' digital pixel:

Sail to Alaska.jpg

Franklin Viola
ARC 21.01

[havliii]

Edited by author: Freeburd is moving steadily towards Ketchikan. Three boats are battling for 4th place, Kohara, Uncruise and Freeburd.

[havliii]

Latest pic I could find of the Burds. I'm guessing here but I would say that they needed more time on the boat. Things just seem a little a'kilter, can't figure the set-up, the 22 should be flying a hull and ripping a big wake if they need a reef in the main. My 2 cents, I ain't doing the suffering.
You can see a better copy of the pic here https://instagram.com/p/39mk3vwQej/

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[havliii]

Looks like the Freeburd will finish sometime tomorrow unless they press on tonight. They got the spinny out for a few minutes today and hit 13 kts boat speed, last posted pic they were actually rowing. The winning team Elsie Piddock passed by them on their way south sailing back down the course heading home!! In this photo you can see some of the mods they had done to the sails, reef points and reinforcement patches. They also added a boom. The boom required the addition of a gooseneck which failed during the race. The repair to the gooseneck was done in Port McNeil. If you look closely you will see they added reef points on the jib as well. more photos are on the R2AK facebook page.

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[havliii]

Story about two idiots on the SC20. http://threesheetsnw.com/blog/2015/06/h ... -the-r2ak/

[T Peterson]

I thought calling them idiots was a little unkind - then I read the article.

Spot On...

[cyberspeed]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1806&v=8EMET5lC90s

[havliii]

This isn't one of Waterlusts' best efforts. The snippets of sailing video are sparse and don't really illustrate the severity of the conditions. I liked the scene where one of the Burds is gushing over 17 kts of boat speed on an ARC 22, and says something to the effect of "these are the conditions they wanted for the whole race." (DUH) His other quip earlier in the movie illustrated the same point, "I would not have signed up had I known it was going to be a 750 mile beat to weather!!!" No doubt it was a suffer-fest, my hat is off to them for persevering and finishing.

For my money the ARC 22 was the star of the whole show, she clearly took a beating and brought those two numbskulls through. As the shaman divined, she was a happy and honorable boat, even tho the Burds did much to make her angry.

Buckets of money spent, many sponsors to thank.