Un-race to Alaska


Race to Alaska

I'm sailing to Alaska this Spring/Summer.  That's the plan, anyway.  I have friends who will be rendezvousing [is that really how you spell that?] with me for various parts of the journey.  People who have spent cold, hard cash on plane tickets.  So... this is real.

But I am NOT racing.  I hate racing, and have, since the summer of '68 when my father and I campaigned an aging Star class sloop (sail # 1500, christened Surprise) through a summer of racing in the Kaneohe Yacht club.  Our racing confederates were state sailing champions in Hawaii, and raced Stars to keep their hands busy between TransPac seasons.  Dad and I were dwarfs, without the experience or the mass to keep Surprise on her sailing lines, and our single victory that summer was that we avoided finishing last in a single race, by a single second.  [insert pump fist here].

But others, of course, ARE racing to Alaska this summer, and it just may be that we will arrive in Ketchikan in the same calendar week.  If you haven't seen any of the hoopla, it is fun stuff.  First prize: $10 K.  Second prize: a set of steak knives.  But really, you need to read the team profiles.  If the race is as interesting as the team profiles are funny, it should be an interesting time.  I hope to see some of these characters on the water.


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