sailboat race to alaska

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• The Race to Alaska Documentary Now Available for Streaming

Now ready to stream nationally from the warm and dry comfort of home, the Race to Alaska movie captures the spirit of this wild adventure up the Inside Passage.

Called “The best worst idea”, this is the true story of the  Race to Alaska , the wildly challenging 750-mile  engineless boat race from Port Townsend, Washington to Ketchikan, Alaska using only wind or human power. Racing through one of the most complex waterways in the world, amateur adventurers face 15 knot currents, gale force winds, cold water, deep water, whirlpools, logs, bears, chilly temperatures, fatigue, and endless unknowns.

The prize for first place? Ten grand nailed to a log. The prize for second? A set of steak knives. For third? The satisfaction of finishing…

Directed by Seattle-raised Zach Carver,  The Race to Alaska  documentary explores the extreme and impressive individuals who accepted this utterly unique challenge with jaw-dropping camera footage and a surprising amount of humor. From the quirky to the sublime, from Olympic athletes to high schoolers, the characters in this film show that there’s no one way to do the hardest thing you’ve ever done.

Mixing raw, first-person footage with vast aerials and in-depth interviews, it tells the story of the race’s improbable inception and the epic journey of those who answer its call. From an all-female team, to the laid back, reggae-inspired “Bunny Whaler” crew, to the stubbornly solo stand-up paddler, you’ll be on the edge of your seat rooting for these unlikely heroes.

Watch the trailer:

STREAM THE RACE TO ALASKA Running Time: 98 mins  |  Unrated Directed by Zach Carver Presented by Blimp in association with Untethered Productions

48° North Editors are committed to telling the best stories from the world of Pacific Northwest boating. We live and breathe this stuff, and share your passion for the boat life. Feel free to keep in touch with tips, stories, photos, and feedback at [email protected].

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The Race to Alaska: answering the call of the wild

• Nikki Henderson
• October 23, 2023

Nikki Henderson braves grizzly bears, whales, whirlpools and ferocious winds to take part in the unique Race to Alaska

“Nikki, give up the tiller for a second. You gotta see this.” Ev Goussev, co-owner of the yacht Gray Wolf , shoved the binoculars in my hand. “Just there. That beach. That’s bear territory, for sure.” A shady stretch of sand lay a quarter of a mile to our starboard during the Race to Alaska. Looking through the lenses, I could see the tide gently rippling past the remains of old logs and bracken washed up on the shore.

Scanning left and right to see if there was any life out there, I almost got lost among the trees. So many trees, so thick, so old – so untouched by humankind. For sure, this place was inaccessible by land. Beyond it were hundreds of miles of dense forest, grizzly bears and uncharted wilderness. I guess some people might view this a desolate wasteland. I’d describe it as an untainted paradise. I wondered how many people had even seen this beach.

Meanwhile, with a dying wind, we were struggling to make headway against the 2-knot ebb. From recumbent bike seats at the transom, crewmembers Maisie and Andy were toiling on pedal drives connected to propellers at the stern of Gray Wolf , a replacement for the removed Beta engine.

The Race to Alaska starts at Port Townsend, British Columbia, and runs 750 miles to Ketchikan, Alaska

Gray Wolf is Jeanne and Ev Goussev’s family boat, a 40ft monohull built in 1995 from cold moulded cedar by Lyman-Morse in Maine. She has an unstayed rig we affectionately referred to as ‘the tree trunk’, a tapering, hollow stick of hand-laid carbon that bends in the wind like a branch so that she depowers her square-topped main independently, increasing twist and spilling air on each puff. Just over a tonne of water ballast adds a little extra when it starts blowing.

The Race to Alaska – the R2AK as it is known – is a 750-mile adventure race that takes place annually in early June. Jake Beattie, executive director of the Northwest Maritime Centre, and some pals came up with the idea late one night during the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend, Washington. “Imagine if we challenged people to a race from here to Alaska,” he mused. “And Rule Number 1: no engines.”

Like many good ideas, its absurdity made it irresistible.

Grizzly bear standing in the morning mist in British Columbia: the Race 2 Alaska passes remote areas of deep forest. Photo: Alamy

In 2015 he launched the first edition. Expecting only a couple of people crazy enough to sign up, Jake planned the opening party at his house in the woods. He lit the bonfire, put on a pot of chilli, and waited for a handful of people to show up. But something about the race inspired people. That first year 39 teams entered.

Jeanne Goussev called me to say she was doing the R2AK again. “Come with us,” she added.

Jeanne and I met in Seattle back in 2018, having just sailed in from China with the Clipper Round the World Race . We became friends and the following year I joined her The Race to Alaska Team ‘Sail Like a Girl’. In Jeanne’s words: “People do this race because they are running away from something or running towards something.”

After the intense responsibility of skippering a team in the Clipper Race, I was looking for a less regulated, more light-hearted adventure. That year, we finished 4th on her Melges 32, Maks to the Moon .

Monkey Fist crew using pedal auxiliary power. Photo: Joe Cline/R2AK

Yearning for adventure

Now I was back again, and mainly because of the community atmosphere. The Race to Alaska attracts people who have a lightness of spirit and a yearning for adventure.

The team for the 2023 Race to Alaska were Jeanne and Ev Goussev, local racers Lindsay Lind and Remy Lang, liveaboard cruiser John Guillote, R2AK veteran Maisie Bryant, windsurfer Andy Kleitch, and me.

Knowing it could be anything from five days of fast sailing to 15 days of pedalling if winds were light, Jeanne and Ev put together the team carefully. We had enough racing and offshore experience to navigate the course safely and competitively, but also have a laugh.

Two-stages of the Race to Alaska

The race is split into two stages. The first is known as ‘The Proving Ground’ and is a qualifying leg designed to filter out ahead of the 750-mile main event any vessels and crews that aren’t seaworthy.

At 0501 on Monday 5 June the starting cannon fired for the first 40-mile stage. It was hard to hear over the Red Army Choir’s rousing rendition of the old Soviet National Anthem blasting through the speakers (apparently that’s still funny in formerly Russian Alaska).

To starboard, the sun was rising over the Cascade Mountain Range, and to port the full moon was still visible, setting above Port Townsend. The aroma of bacon and eggs (my British contribution) wafted up from down below.

On board Gray Wolf at a busy start. Photo: John Guillote

Immediately, we were playing a game of chess with our fellow competitors in a fleet that included kayakers, rowing boats, monohulls skippered by solo sailors, trimarans and a wing foiler. Ev and Jeanne were bickering (co-skippering with your spouse is hard) about whether to stay left or right of the exclusion zone in the middle of Puget Sound.

The tension was broken as we very nearly ran aground the wrong side of a red buoy, but we arrived in Victoria before lunch, less than an hour ahead of a solo kayaker.

The start of Stage 2 is from Victoria, British Columbia, to Ketchikan, Alaska. There is just one waypoint: the tiny and remote town of Bella Bella in Northern BC. Any teams that traverse the 40 miles north of the ‘Proving Ground’ course, from Washington to Canada, within the allotted 36 hours without getting rescued go on to qualify for this stage.

Competitors must rely solely on wind or human power for propulsion. Disabling your motor is not an option; even inboard engines must be removed. No exclusive support is permitted, but anything that would be available to all competitors is fair game, so if you get hungry and fancy going ashore for a Big Mac or a craft beer, it’s OK.

Everything from kayaks to paddleboards take part in the adventure. Photo: Joe Cline/R2AK

You can borrow a can of bear spray from a hunter in the forest, or make friends with the guy down the dock with a welding shop in his garage (yes, these people exist up there and can fix up your steering quadrant as you go) but you can’t have a support crew standing by on shore. Disqualification is the penalty for poor sportsmanship. If a lawyer needs to be consulted for any reason, you’re automatically disqualified.

The event is somewhat anarchic, but the Race to Alaska manages to retain just the right balance of wit, responsibility and humility to be taken seriously. And rightly so. Fellow R2AK veterans, among them world record holders, Vendée Globe sailors and athletes, can all agree that navigating this route in late spring is no joke.

Some years, northerlies blow straight down from Alaska’s glaciers. These icy winds funnel through the mountains, accelerate off every headland and churn up the shallow waters of Hecate Straits into an almost impassable short, sharp chop. This forces the fleet inshore to endure relentless tacking marathons to snake up the inland waterways, most of which are barely more than a mile wide.

Humpback whale off Vancouver Island. Photo: HP Canada/Alamy

On other years, a Pacific depression might pass north and bring with it warm southerlies and powerful fronts. Thick sea fog can cloak the entire course as the warm southerly air flow meets these waters, still cold from winter. Competitors then have to blind-navigate the rocky shores, dodging partially submerged logs (a by-product of the logging industry), turbulent rapids, and currents exceeding double digits without actually being able to see much beyond the bow of their boat.

Don’t break the law

To make Gray Wolf race-ready, Ev had removed her Beta engine and wired up an EFOY fuel cell, which uses ethanol. He built a frame on the transom, added two recumbent bike seats and connected pedal drives to a couple of three-blade baby bronze propellers. They’d be more efficient than oars, and we’d use them when the boat speed dropped below 3 knots. Faster than that, they’d create more drag than propulsion.

For our team name we chose ‘We Brake for Whales’, an environmental message with a nod to the TV comedy Braking for Whales.

Stage 2 began on the pavement above the Victoria Inner Harbour Docks, a Le Mans-style start just before noon on 8 June. We were reminded of the main rule: “Don’t break the law”, and given a few final words of guidance: “Watch out for bears. Avoid the logs.”

Then, after a “3, 2, 1 Go!” everyone rushed down the steps to their boats and set off in a competitive frenzy. Hoisting sails is forbidden in Victoria Harbour, so after the sprint starts there was half an hour of chaos as 25ft monohulls with 20ft of oars vied for water with trimarans, our 40ft yacht, local ferries and even float planes.

Strategically, the race is fascinating. There’s just one compulsory waypoint among the myriad islands, so the route options are endless. Heavy tides create frequent opportunities for the fleet to restart. It’s a nailbiter all the way to the finish.

Gray Wolf is a 40ft one-off design built by Lyman-Morse that was modified for the event including removing the engine. Photo: John Guillote

Inside or outside?

The first big decision is whether to go outside or inside Vancouver Island. You have to weigh up whether to turn right out of Victoria and head for the consistent winds offshore, or turn left and risk light air, rapids, and logs in search of flat seas and better wind angles. This remained a theme for the entire course: weave through narrow waterways or brave open water.

Our priorities were safety, fun, fast sailing, and the spirit of R2AK – in that order. So we opted to sail inside Vancouver Island. We applied the same logic throughout the whole race, ducking inside when the wind was heavy and poking our noses outside when it dropped off.

Author Nikki Henderson on the bow. Photo: John Guillote

The most notorious divider of the fleet falls 180 miles after start. Seymour Narrows is a three-mile section of Discovery Passage, cutting between the mountains of Vancouver Island and mainland of British Columbia. The tidal streams here can exceed 15 knots.

Some 36 hours into the race, we were gybing up Campbell River, 10 miles south of Seymour Narrows looking for the safest way to wait out the tide. Do we anchor or hook a mooring buoy? Do we dock alongside a pontoon? Mid-discussion, the Navionics track showed us sailing a reciprocal COG. With no real plan or preparation, we slipped towards the nearest shore and threw the anchor over the side.

Before I did the race, I’d read reports of the ‘crazy’ tidal waters and put it down to hyperbole. How wrong I was. As we sipped bourbon waiting for darkness to fall, a whirlpool appeared just 50m away, and its centre was at least a metre lower than the surrounding water.

The rare spectacle of a pod of humpback whales bubble feeding. John Guillote

The entire length of the course is bordered by rugged mountains, which plunge underwater as steeply as they soar into the sky. The submarine cliffs and fast tidal flows paint mesmeric patterns of swirling lines on the surface of the water, and fork out tributaries that run like rivers.

Sailing these waterways is like running along a highway on the wrong side of the road, but the oncoming traffic is in the form of logs. A head-on collision with some of these would end your race, if not sink the boat. “Keep watch at all times” is a rule respected even by crazy adventurers.

Vancouver Island’s inside passage. Photo: John Guillote

A rugged passage

In the middle of this turbulence, we lifted anchor then cycled 15 miles on an inshore eddy to sneak through Seymour Narrows in the dead of night.

The moment we poked our noses out of the lee of the cliffs, the prevailing 25 knot winds hit us head on and smacked us sideways. Johnstone Straits is the race’s next challenge: a 100-mile long intestine of water that competitors must navigate in order to round Cape Caution and make it back to open water. Seymour Narrows divides the fleet, but the Straits can destroy it.

Ferocious winds funnelled down the mountains and decimated our competitors. The short head sea was particularly punishing for the multihulls. Many of the lightweight tris suffered structural damage. Exhausted short-handed crews were forced to stop and rest at anchor. A couple of boats hit rocks. After 24 hours and 63 tacks, we made it through battered, bruised but in one piece.

Ev and Nikki deliberate how to navigate light winds on the approach to Ketchikan. Photo: John Guillote

The latter 350 miles of the R2AK is more of a rugged voyage. The course widens and boats disappear from sight of one another as you sail into the wilderness. You are out there in bear territory.

By day four, we were resting up in anticipation of a gale that was forecast to blow in by dinner time.

Suddenly someone shouted: “Whales. Everyone wake-up!” I scrabbled on deck to see a pod of humpbacks bubble-feeding nearby. Perhaps 10 of them, together with their babies, were blowing air up and swimming around in circles. We huddled on deck to watch. The whales dived, the water settled, then they reared out of the water, mouths open wide as they fed in unison.

As is often the case, the further you get from civilisation, the closer you draw to the people around you. There’s a richness of memories in the smaller moments as well as the grand experiences.

Party atmosphere and a slightly anarchic vibe are traits of the R2AK. Photo: John Guillote

Our race ended by ringing the winners’ bell together in Ketchikan, damp, and slightly bruised. Opening the cast iron wood burning stove of Ketchikan’s local fish house, race director Jesse Wiegal pulled out the winner’s prize, $10,000 nailed to a log (there is only one other prize, a set of steak knives for 2nd place). Before handing it over, he asked us to describe the Race to Alaska.

Ev, not often a man of brevity, answered with just one word: “Adventure.”

For some the R2AK adventure begins with building a boat in their backyard. Yet others see the challenge as an individual physical test, perhaps to completing 750 miles on a paddleboard, pitching camp every night and keeping watch for grizzly bears.

We hadn’t defined our adventure before we set out. And maybe that’s the key: to embark on a journey without really knowing what you’ll find.

If you enjoyed this….

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750-mile engineless boat Race to Alaska returns with a new twist

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In conditions ‘between seasick and dangerous,’ Race to Alaska kicks off with multiple rescues

June 14, 2022 by Eric Stone, KRBD - Ketchikan

Rowboats, kayaks and racing sailboats cast off Monday from Port Townsend, Washington for the official start of the Race to Alaska . The unpowered boat race stretches 750 miles to Ketchikan.

It started at 5 a.m. Monday with a qualifying leg from Port Townsend to Victoria B.C. The 40-mile “proving ground” course is meant to make sure competitors are prepared to tackle a self-supported journey up the west coast of Canada.

Racers typically have 36 hours to complete the leg. This year, the deadline was extended by a day because of weather conditions near the start that organizers described as “ between seasick and dangerous .”

The first boat into Victoria Harbor  was  Pure and Wild . It’s a three-man crew on a Riptide 44-foot monohull sailboat featuring a member of the most recent Race to Alaska winning team and a two-time Olympic medalist.

Teams Pestou and Ruf Duck, both on multihull sailboats, followed behind Pure and Wild to round out the top three.

But not all fared so well. Organizers announced Monday morning that three smaller boats had capsized — two sailing dinghies and a sailing canoe — and a larger 32-foot catamaran lost its mast in the rough conditions.

#Update : (2/2) The vessels that capsized were sailing vessels and not kayaks. 4 people entered the water, 3 were rescued by #USCG crews, 1 was rescued by a standby safety boat. All remaining participants took shelter near Protection Island, Dungeness Spit, or returned to land. — USCGPacificNorthwest (@USCGPacificNW) June 13, 2022

According to King 5 in Seattle, the Coast Guard and race organizers rescued four participants who were taken to hospitals with signs of hypothermia .

Pure and Wild’s promising start on the proving ground doesn’t earn them any prize or advantage on the next leg, aside from bragging rights. Racers that make it through are scheduled to start their 710-mile journey to Ketchikan at noon Pacific Time on Thursday in Victoria.

From there, racers have just one waypoint they must reach, in Bella Bella, B.C., before crossing the finish line at Ketchikan’s Thomas Basin. Unlike previous years, teams are not required to sail through the Seymour Narrows on the east side of Vancouver Island — some pre-approved competitors will be allowed to sail west of the island on the open Pacific Ocean.

It’s the  first Race to Alaska since 2019 . And while the course options are a little different, the prize remains the same: $10,000 for first place, and for second place, a set of steak knives.

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Since its inception in 2015, Race to Alaska has drawn thousands of competitors from across the globe to race 750 cold-water miles from Port Townsend, Washington, to Ketchikan, Alaska. It’s the longest human and/or wind-powered race in North America. 

The race was dreamed up in a beer tent at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival by a few of the eccentrics at Northwest Maritime who wished to inspire people to adventure, to start a conversation about engineless voyaging, and to dare people to dream outside of their comfort zone.

Any boat without an engine can enter—each year there are a wide variety of vessels participating, from stand-up paddleboards to 40’ monohulls. Unlike other races, there are no classes or handicap systems for the different vessels. Racers must compete without support systems, and can only avail themselves of resources found along the way.

The prize for the first-place finisher? $10,000 cash—nailed unceremoniously to a piece of wood. Second place gets a set of steak knives. Everybody else? Bragging rights.

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Racers show you’re never too old, or too young, to pedal a sailboat to Alaska

Posted by Michael Fanelli | Jun 21, 2024

As the sun started to poke through gray skies, a small sailboat made its way into Ketchikan’s Thomas Basin harbor at 7:15 A.M. Thursday, greeted by a crowd of supporters cheering and ringing cowbells.

The boat had just completed the 750-mile Race to Alaska from Port Townsend, Washington, using only the power of the wind and its sailors’ quad muscles. The race is unique in a few ways, but most notably because motors are strictly prohibited, leaving participants to navigate using only sails and bicycle-like pedals.

This team finished 8th overall, which is pretty impressive considering all four members of the team are still teenagers — which inspired their name, Juvenile Delinquents.

“A little bit of a grab for attention, because we’re kids,” said Dagny Kruger, explaining the name. “And also we thought it was funny, because we’re skipping school to be here.”

Kruger is a junior in high school on Orcas Island, Washington, who is by no means a delinquent. She was just named student of the month. Since she was on a boat for the past week, Kruger’s friends back home crafted a mini paper cutout of her to receive the award. 

Her teammate, Willow Gray, graduated from high school during their trip through the Inside Passage.

“We had a fun little photo shoot in her graduation outfit on the boat,” Kruger said.

Gray said there are pros and cons to having to pedal a sailboat — their only means of propulsion when the wind died down.

“You get a lot of weird looks from passing boats, and it’s not terribly efficient, but it feels kind of good to know that you’re not polluting anything,” Gray said. “There’s no noise coming off your boat, you’re just going… Well, there’s no engine noise, but it does squeak!”

The team, which also included Bryce Lutz and Else Ranker, said they saw plenty of whales on the way, but the wildlife highlight seemed to be the glowing jellyfish.

“Some crazy bioluminescence and lots of jellyfish,” said Gray.

“She woke me up last night, you screamed, ‘We’re sailing! There’s jellyfish! There’s millions of jellyfish!’” Kruger remembered.

“More jellyfish than I’ve ever seen in my life, that was nuts,” said Gray.

As the Juvenile Delinquents would likely tell you, the spirit of the Race to Alaska is less about when you finish and more about enjoying the ride. The race was founded in that spirit back in 2013, when Jake Beattie said the idea came to him in a beer tent at a wooden boat festival.

“It was early in the evening, so I like to think of it as a lightly-lubricated idea,” Beattie explained.

Beattie is CEO of Northwest Maritime, the nonprofit that puts on the Race to Alaska, or “R2AK.” He said he and his marine-minded friends were reflecting on the beauty of the northwest coastline, and what a powerful experience it is to traverse without an engine. 

“How do we get more people to do that? And I blurted out, ‘What if we nailed $10,000 to a tree in Ketchikan and told people to go get it?’ And that’s basically what the race has become and has remained,” Beattie said.

Indeed, this year’s cash prize was handed to the winner pre-nailed to a large chunk of lumber. Team Malolo became the first all-Canadian team to win the race, taking five days, three hours, and thirty-six minutes to cross the finish line in their trimaran sailboat.

Beattie said there are other sailing races that have no-motor rules, but this is the only one he knows of that requires participants to physically remove the engines from the boat.

“It’s really informed by the culture of Ketchikan and the culture of Port Townsend,” Beattie said of the race. “So it’s as much a love letter to who we are as a coastline and as communities as it is a sailing race.”

It’s also the only race Beattie knows of that gives out a set of steak knives for second place, an award that’s arguably more coveted than the $10,000. This year, that prize went to team Brio, led by Doug Walker from Colorado.

“I mean, you can get cash at the bank,” Walker said. “But you can’t get R2AK knives anywhere else, except by coming in second.” 

At the Tuesday night award ceremony, Walker said they didn’t intentionally slow down, but they were very happy to claim the knives. He planned to distribute them among the team members, saying they have to bring their knives whenever they come to visit.

Walker turns 80 years old in August, and that was part of his motivation to compete.

“Part of the reason I did it is just to show people that you’re not too old. You can do things,” Walker said. “It may not be this. You may not know how to sail, but don’t stop your life just because you’ve lived for so many years.”

Race to Alaska participants will continue pedaling up the coast to Ketchikan until at least the first week of July, with organizers and friends waiting to cheer them on at the finish line.

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Race to Alaska: No Motor, Just Grit

August 23, 2018

Katrina Zoë Norbom, a contributing writer and photographer for Quantum Sails, knows firsthand the grit required to sail the Race to Alaska. She reported back to us after the 2018 race for this spotlight on the epic 750-mile event.

"This isn't for everyone. It's like the Iditarod, on a boat, with a chance of drowning, being run down by a freighter, or eaten by a grizzly bear." - Race To Alaska website.

Team Sail Like A Girl won the 2018 race and set a record as the first monohull and first all-female team to win the Race to Alaska (R2AK). The event is a 750-mile no-motors race from Port Townsend, Washington, to Ketchikan, Alaska. R2AK is North America’s longest human- and wind-powered race and currently has the largest cash prize for a race of its kind. The rules of the race are simple, but the challenge is immense. The waters that stretch between Port Townsend and Ketchikan are known for their squalls and tidal currents that can run upwards of 20 miles an hour.

There are no classes in this race, and the start date is intentionally chosen for a time period when the winds are typically unpredictable in strength and duration. Any engineless boat is welcome in the R2AK, but there is an ongoing debate about whether sail, oar, or paddle power is best. Whether human- or wind-powered, it takes a tremendous amount of physical endurance, determination, grit, and “saltwater know-how” to successfully navigate this extreme race.

The prize for first place is a $10,000 stack of cash nailed to a log (the winners have to figure out how to get it off the wood). The second-place prize is “a pretty good set of steak knives.” There are other side bets and annual awards, but just finishing the race and claiming the rights to say you’ve completed 750 cold-water miles through one of the most beautiful passages on earth is a prize in and of itself. This race is typically finished between four days and never. The R2AK sweep boat, nicknamed the Grim Sweeper, decides when the race is over. The Grim Sweeper leaves Port Townsend and travels north at roughly 75 miles a day as it heads to Ketchikan and “taps” out any racing vessel it passes along the way. The 2018 race started with 37 teams; only 21 teams dropped lines in Ketchikan.

R2AK is an official event of The Northwest Maritime Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit in Port Townsend, Washington, committed to engaging people in the waters of our world in a spirit of adventure and discovery. Port Townsend is a maritime town well known for its artistic spirit, Victorian buildings, and the largest Wooden Boat Festival in North America.

The Proving Ground, Stage 1 of the race, launches at The Northwest Maritime Center and crosses 40 open-water miles, two sets of shipping lanes, and an international border to Victoria, British Columbia. Stage 1 is designed “as a qualifier for the full race and as a stand-alone 40-mile sprint” for participants who want to test their limits and get a taste of R2AK.

Victoria’s Inner Harbor ends Stage 1 and launches Stage 2 of the race, called To The Bitter End. The long haul north stretches over 710 fierce miles from Victoria to Ketchikan. “Other than two waypoints along the way, Seymour Narrows and Bella Bella, there is no official race course.”

When team Sail Like A Girl crossed the finish line in Ketchikan for the win, the docks were bursting with the cheer of excited fans and bottles of champagne. From the participants to the fans, there is so much heart and soul in this race. R2AK knows how to throw a party and does so at every major point in the race. But all of the love behind R2AK really shines in Ketchikan, where the whole town is invited to celebrate the 750 hard-earned miles that the teams have completed.

The 2019 Race To Alaska will start on June 3 at 0500, marking the 5th annual race. Want to go?

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The Race to Alaska is 750 miles, on a boat, with no motors and no support

Ayesha Rascoe

This week, nonmotorized boats are competing in an annual 750-mile race from Washington to Alaska. Ayesha Rasco speaks to competitor Janice Mason.

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Sail like a girl: How an all-female team made history and won the 750-mile Race to Alaska

Last month, eight women from the Seattle area set out on the journey of a lifetime: A 750-mile adventure race to Alaska on a sailboat with no motor. With limited experience and some novice sailors, they never imagined they would win it all.

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Two of the most inconvenient things that can happen in a boat race are for the wind to die and for the current to turn against you.

So of course both happened simultaneously last month, on Day 3 of the Race to Alaska, as Sail Like a Girl, an all-women’s team from the Seattle area, was sailing through Johnstone Strait, a channel sandwiched between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia.

At that point in the adventure race, Sail Like a Girl was jostling for the lead with two boats. But as the wind died and current worsened, the team noticed the other boats had stopped, tucking themselves behind islands to wait it out.

The Race to Alaska prohibits the use of motors, so, the teams on other boats figured, how much progress could anyone make with the current and wind working this much against them?

But the women on Sail Like a Girl kept going. They decided to find out.

The team sailed along the shore, feverishly pedaling the pair of bikes hanging off the stern for extra propulsion. It took them three hours to go one mile. But they continued inching forward, and because they did, they were the first to get the new wind.

That sort of determination helped the women conquer the elements and surpass the competition to become the first all-female crew and first monohull to win the grueling 750-mile adventure race from Port Townsend to Ketchikan.

“It was the greatest experience that I’ve had in my adult life of teamwork,” team captain Jeanne Goussev said. “Our entire existence out there was to make that boat move. And we never dropped the ball on that for an instant.”

There were some close calls, tears of fear and moments of uncertainty. But in the end, it was all worth it. This is how the adventure of a lifetime unfolded, through the eyes of the women who won it all.

Coming together

The premise of the Race to Alaska is simple: Get from Port Townsend to Ketchikan completely self-supported and without a motor.

The mode of transport? That’s up to you. An official route? None, besides a requirement to sail through Seymour Narrows and Bella Bella, British Columbia.

The first-place prize is $10,000 in cash nailed to a block of wood. The runner up gets a set of steak knives.

Teams must complete the first leg of the race, from Port Townsend to Victoria, British Columbia, to move on to the main sector. Of the 30 teams that set off from Victoria for the 710-mile main leg of the race, only 21 actually finished. The final team to complete the race arrived in Ketchikan on July 9, just over three weeks after the race’s start.

Anna Stevens, a 41-year-old marine logistics director from Seattle, first approached Goussev in October with the idea of competing in the race.

They decided to assemble an all-female crew to encourage more women to take up sailing – a sport they say is male-dominated – and to push back against stereotypes about female sailors.

“At first when we would say, ‘This is our team, Sail Like a Girl,’ we got some negative (reactions) from people,” Stevens said. “(They’d say) ‘Oh, what’s wrong with sailing like a boy?’ … That’s not what we mean. We’re not saying we’re better. We’re just trying to squash the attitude that (sailing like a girl) is an insult.”

When they filled out the roster, Goussev, 41, was the common denominator. She knew Stevens, Morgana Buell, and Kate Hearsey McKay from the local sailing circuit, and Kelly Danielson, Aimee Fulwell and Allison Ekberg Dvaladze as fellow Bainbridge Islanders. She met Haley Lhamon at a boat show in January, and Lhamon was the last one to sign on in May.

The women did not all know each other beforehand, and of the eight, Danielson, Fulwell and Ekberg Dvaladze had never sailed or were fairly inexperienced.

We like to joke and say we took a Ferrari and we took it off-road. We converted a Ferrari to be a Hummer.” - Jeanne Goussev, skipper

The experienced women didn’t mind because they appreciated the athleticism and sense of adventure the rookie sailors brought to the team. Danielson was a triathlete and Fulwell had done many other water sports. Ekberg Dvaladze had not sailed since high school, but she had what Goussev calls “a natural sailing sense.”

Next on the to-do list: Get a boat, and learn to sail it. Goussev bought their vessel, a Melges 32, second-hand in January. None of the women had experience with that kind of boat, a 32-foot-long racing vessel that’s known for its speed and maneuverability.

It was in need of serious maintenance and required hundreds of hours of refurbishment. The women enlisted their families to help. They also had to build it to go farther offshore.

“We like to joke and say we took a Ferrari and we took it off-road,” Goussev said. “We converted a Ferrari to be a Hummer.”

At the onset, Sail Like a Girl wasn’t dead-set on winning the Race to Alaska, but wanted to do the whole thing without stopping.

“Our goal was to look back, reflect, and say, ‘We sailed this boat the best we could, it was a well-sailed boat, and we tried really hard and it paid off,’ ” Hearsey McKay said.

At noon on Sunday, June 17, the Race to Alaska participants — a mix of monohulls, catamarans, trimarans, and kayakers — set off from Victoria’s Inner Harbor and effectively said goodbye to civilization.

On the water, particularly the treacherous Inside Passage, there are no day jobs to worry about, no kids to take care of, and you’re lucky if you get any cell service.

“Life gets really simple when you’re out in an ocean,” Goussev said. “It really does come down to eating, sleeping, hydration and moving a boat.”

The women of Sail Like a Girl did little more than those four things on repeat until they arrived in Ketchikan on June 24 at 12:17 a.m., six days, 13 hours, and 17 minutes after they set out from Victoria.

Goussev estimates the crew packed more than a ton of goods, equipment, and other supplies — including 400 pounds of water — onto their 3,700-pound boat in preparation for the voyage. That added weight is not ideal for racing a boat, but was necessary.

Much of that added weight was food for the journey (though, in retrospect, they think they over-provisioned). They packed dehydrated meals and had a jet boiler to make hot food, but they mostly ate snacks: candy, peanut-butter pretzels, gummy bears, vegetables, hummus and pita, and salami and cheese sticks.

Sleep was hard to come by. Though each woman was allotted six hours a day, about three hours at a time, they all generally slept much less than that. It was normal for them to be too excited or worried to sleep.

The women worked on three-hour rotations: three hours on duty, three hours off, and a three-hour flex period where they could catch up on sleep, clean the boat or eat. Aside from helping sail, they took turns pedaling the bikes attached to the back of the boat to provide propulsion when there was little wind.

The women estimate they biked about 50 percent of the time, and that on the last day alone, they biked 15 hours straight.

The stress and struggle of the day-to-day was nothing compared with the night they found themselves in what Goussev describes as a “head-on car crash.”

Early Friday morning, the women had just passed through Bella Bella and were taking an inside channel hoping for some breeze.

They were in first place but had other boats on their tail, and they were starting to feel the pressure of the race.

At 2 a.m., on the pitch-black, foggy night, they crashed into a 20-foot log, a collision that caused what Goussev describes as “the loudest noise that you could imagine.”

“We’re basically thinking, ‘Our boat is going down' ... And it’s a small boat —it’s not going to take long.” - Amy Stevens, team member

The boat went from six knots to a dead stop.

“We’re in an incredibly remote place,” Goussev said. “The Coast Guard is probably a 30-hour rescue away, and I’m thinking, ‘Did we just breach our hull?’ ”

The log was pinned against the keel and hanging off the stern of the boat. The women couldn’t tell right away how much damage the boat had sustained. But they weren’t optimistic. Immediately, they started thinking through evacuation scenarios.

“We’re basically thinking, ‘Our boat is going down,’ ” Stevens said. “And it’s a small boat —it’s not going to take long.”

Eventually, they managed to sail off the log. They took the headsail down and went as slowly as possible until daylight, when they checked the boat for damage. Fortunately, when they hoisted the sails back up and picked up speed, the boat sailed perfectly.

“She’s a really tough boat,” Stevens said.

The women didn’t have cell signal to check the race tracker, but because they’d slowed for so long, they figured they’d lost the lead. The thought was demoralizing, but all they could do was push hard to see if they could catch up.

About 24 hours after hitting the log, the team regained cell service.

Stevens received a text from her son with a timestamp of 1:12 a.m. It said they were in the lead.

Incredulous, they got the race tracker up. There it was. First place: First Federal Sail Like a Girl.

They didn’t believe it. Stevens hit refresh. The rankings stood.

“We’re just screaming,” Stevens said. “I’m losing my mind.”

Victory, finally

Six and a half days after leaving Victoria, Sail Like a Girl approached Ketchikan in the lead.

There were so many lights on shore and from outgoing fishing boats that the women had trouble seeing and almost sailed past the finish line. But when they heard the crowd on the dock start to cheer, they knew they’d made it. The women took the sails down, got on the bikes and pedaled in.

Their legs were weak from not having walked on land for almost a week, but, with their arms around each other, they all managed to step off the boat and onto the dock at the same time. They went up to the bell at the finish line and rang it together.

Looking back, they say that while it was rewarding to win, it was just as fulfilling to see what the act of plunging into the unknown had brought out in themselves.

“We found the warrior inside of us that we know lives in there,” Goussev said. “We know that we’re strong women, but when you’re running your daily life, you don’t always get to meet her.

“To feel that emerge, and to see that in this team and in all of these women’s faces and with all of the grit that we had, there’s just no better feeling in the world than to be in touch with that. I hope we can inspire other women to seek that and to tackle it.”

From the beginning, the women faced skepticism and concern from others because they’d started preparations for the race relatively late and their crew included three novice sailors. It was seen as a risky decision for a journey through treacherous waters in such a high-speed boat.

But the women think the unique makeup of their team was one of their biggest strengths.

Goussev and Lhamon were the main drivers, Hearsey McKay was a master trimmer and ran the headsails, and Buell – who was able to only sail the first leg – did foredeck work, which includes taking down and putting up the correct sails.

Goussev refers to Stevens as “MacGyver,” because she could fix any problem that arose and help anywhere on the boat.

The newer sailors pulled their weight, too. Ekberg Dvaladze and Danielson, the triathlete, performed like veterans and were the go-to bikers. Ekberg Dvaladze helped with driving and Danielson became the team’s caretaker. Fulwell ran the foredeck flawlessly despite having learned to sail only in March.

And with such a variety of strengths, they could attack issues from all different angles.

“We would not have succeeded without any one of these women,” Goussev said.

But beyond their personal goals and a desire to make their families and communities proud, the women were powered by a belief that the race was about something bigger than themselves.

They wanted to honor their “warriors” – their loved ones who have been affected by breast cancer. The team wrote the names of their warriors on the boat’s mast before setting sail.

“Whenever I felt a moment of weakness or exhaustion, I’d just go down and look at those names and think, ‘This is nothing in comparison to what these women are battling,’ ” Goussev said.

Accordingly, after accounting for boat expenses, Sail Like a Girl will donate its Race to Alaska prize money to the Pink Boat Regatta, a local race that raises money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The team will also race in that regatta in September.

So after that, what’s next?

They’ve floated the idea of doing Race to Alaska again, but in a different way. They could take their time and enjoy the scenery of the route, something that they had to forgo this year. But they also want to see what their boat can do as a racing vessel, weaving through buoys minus the 2,000 pounds of added weight in supplies needed for their Alaska adventure.

After all, the journey has always been about much more than just this one race.

“Some people thought we were fast,” Lhamon said. “Just wait to see how fast we are later.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that the two boats jostling for the lead with Sail Like a Girl at Johnstone Strait stopped, but did not anchor, and the wind conditions worsened when the wind died. 

Frequently Asked Questions

No rules, really.

Yes. Well, mostly. Bring a boat to Port Townsend, finish in Ketchikan, don’t have a motor, be self-supported along the way. Other than a single waypoint the route choice is yours.

Do you vet the racers? Will you say no?

Why yes, in fact we do. Every aspirant seeking fame, glory, and sunburns must submit an application, which includes adventure resumes and a pitch as to why we should think you’re ready for this thing. The vetting team takes it pretty seriously, so if you don’t have enough real-world experience for them to think you can try this thing without the direst of consequences, they will say no. In 2023, the vetting team rejected 11 applications – 20% of those who applied.

When is the race?

Yeah, good question. Sunday, June 9, 2024 at 0500 in Port Townsend. The big party for everyone is the day before.

What does self-supported mean?

Teams may resupply food / equipment, rent a room, do laundry, eat at restaurants, even service their boats along the way. The intent is to be unsupported between towns, and function self-supported when in towns. Any services utilized must always be available to all challengers and not pre-arranged. No private resupply, support boats, food drops, etc.

Can I have pre-arranged food drops?

Still no, but you can resupply in towns along the way, go fishing (get a license), or eat nothing but kelp you’ve pulled off your rudder.

What if someone cheats?

First, just don’t do that. Let’s try to be better than the people who think a win is more important than integrity. This ain’t professional cycling.

What is the best boat for R2AK?

Great question. We have no idea. We intentionally picked the start date because the winds are of unpredictable strength and duration. There is an ongoing debate on whether the optimal boat will favor sail, oars, pedals, or paddles. If you’re trying to win, you should know that it’s always been a sailboat. If you want to win a marathon you should wear shoes, if you want to win this you should probably sail. But, how many people enter marathons to win? Our best advice is to choose a boat design based on your skills, then go for it.

How long will it take?

If past results are any guide, this race can be finished between 4 days and never.

What if my boat breaks?

Fix it. Duct tape doesn’t work great in saltwater so if you can’t fix it yourself or live without it maybe you shouldn’t bring it. You can use outside resources to help you; other boats, people who live along the route, etc. As long as the assistance was not prearranged in any way it is in the spirit of the challenge. Be prepared for anything. Check out our Unofficial R2AK Damage Control Kit  list.

What if I use my satphone to call my logistics crew/wife/boyfriend/etc who then arranges a repair/food drop/anything else for me?

Poor form and a disqualification. This is about self-reliance, the only people arranging things, obtaining food or making/arranging for repairs should be members of your onboard crew and only after the race starts.

What if I change my mind?

• Cancellations must be received in writing (email ok) 60 days prior to event. We’ll keep 30% to teach you a lesson.
• Cancellations made less than 60 days prior to event will not be refunded.
• If NWMC cancels, 100% of fees will be refunded.

Who are you people?

Don’t worry, we’re legit. Race to Alaska is a project of the Northwest Maritime Center , a 501(c)(3) non-profit committed to engaging people in the waters of our world in a spirit of adventure and discovery. To learn more about us and the other things we do visit our website: nwmaritime.org

I’ve got a great job and am not sure I can take the time off. Any advice you could offer from a movie star sailor?

Funny you should ask:

“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… “cruising” it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of “security.” And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all – in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice.

Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life? ”

Sterling Hayden, Wanderer

Shouldn’t there be more divisions?

Probably, but we only have one prize. OK, two if you count the steak knives, and those are for fastest passages within the given rules. There are also “ Sidebets ” that our sponsors put up to reward one type of behavior or another.

Can I portage my boat?

Sure, but remember this is a boat race so as long as you portage it under human and/or wind power it’s totally inbounds. We’ll take a dim view of portages done on the roof rack of a Subaru.

What’s to stop Larry Elison’s foil-riding multihull from entering?

$10k is a lot to most of us, but probably not enough to have people risk high twitch boats that break a lot and need a ton of support. The prize is real money but somewhat self-limiting for the high end yacht set…but we hear he might be interested in a set of steak knives.

How do I not get run over by a freighter?

Each boat will be required to have a location tracker and a VHF radio. You should be proficient in their use prior to the race so you know how to make sure big boats don’t run you over. Also, routes closer to the shoreline should reduce the exposure for smaller vessels that require less depth than cruise ships, tugs, fishing boats, etc.

But then you are closer to the bears, so choose your poison…

How do I not get eaten by a bear?

Here’s a link to a website by the state of Alaska that talks about bear safety.

I’ve read the website, now I’m scared of bears.

We don’t know how to answer that, it’s not a question.

I’ve never done a trip this long- should I enter?

It’s the longest race of its kind in North America, so most people won’t have done a race that is this epic. A better consideration for whether or not you should enter is your fitness, ability to make hard decisions (IE, quit if that’s the smart choice), tolerance for hardship, and your ability to operate and repair your boat safely with no support and in a variety of adverse conditions.

Are there books about similar trips?

Yes, there are books about everything. Here is one on the care and breeding of Poison Dart Frogs , but we digress. There is also a list of folks online who have done the trip in engineless craft. There are also a bunch of articles about the race online, at least some of them are on the R2AK media page . Oh, and the forum .

Do I have to go at night?

You don’t have to, you don’t have to do anything, but at least some crews will travel at night at least some of the time. If you have never traveled by boat at night it is highly recommended that you become competent in operating your vessel in the dark prior to attempting it during the race. If you plan on this being your first go at night nav, the vetting team will likely wag their finger and direct you to the nearest remedial sailing course taught by a couple high-schoolers.

But isn’t there a lot of driftwood floating around? How will I see it at night?

Yes, there is, and we don’t know. There is a lot of driftwood along the race route, sometimes floating just under the surface of the water. It is definitely something to consider if you are attempting night travel- especially on boats with high-end speed like multihulls, planing sailboats, etc. In all seriousness, hitting a log that puts a hole in your hull is probably more of a safety risk than the bears.

Wait, how do I get my boat back from Ketchikan?

Great question. So far we have thought of the following answers:

• Turn around and do the same trip in reverse
• Get a tow from a southbound boat
• Put it on the Alaska State Ferries
• Go to this forum about getting boats back from Ketchikan and let the community help figure it out.
• Put it on deck of a fishing boat
• Have someone meet you in Alaska with a trailer (trailerable boats only)
• Deflate it and put it on your carry-on luggage (inflatable boats only)
• Sell it to someone up there—Alaskans need boats, too
• Just keep going. We call that move “ The Moitessier ” (Google it) and it’s probably better than finishing first. We should have a prize for anyone who does that.

If it’s really stormy can I just get a hotel room for a month or so and finish the course in August?

It’s a race. We won’t wait for you forever. As a matter a fact our sweep boat—nicknamed the Grim Sweeper—will leave Port Townsend either as soon as the first racer crosses the finish line in Ketchikan or on June 21, whichever happens last. The sweep boat will travel north at roughly 75 miles a day as it heads to Ketchikan. If they pass you on the way north you will be “tapped out” and will be officially out of the race. They will come by, collect your SPOT tracker and say hello. They probably won’t be able to tow you to Ketchikan, but can help in figuring out which way you want to go next.

Where do babies come from?

Ask your mother.

Are we not specific enough for you?

Check out the 2024 Race Packet here – it’s got a lot of answers. Not all of them, but as many as we think you need.

Go to the Race Forum and find all your questions answered…not really, but this is where we are hashing out a lot of the details. There are also a bunch of other helpful people who might be able to answer your questions there.

Published on June 15th, 2023 | by Editor

Race to Alaska at its finest

Published on June 15th, 2023 by Editor -->

The 7th edition of the 750 mile Race to Alaska (R2AK) began June 5 with a 40-mile “proving stage” from Port Townsend, WA to Victoria, BC. For those that finished within 36 hours, they were allowed to start the remaining 710 miles on June 8 to Ketchikan, AK. Here’s the Stage 2/Day 8 report :

They say that the root cause of accidents extends beyond the moment it occurs; that when a ship sinks, a space shuttle explodes, or the USA’s entry into the Miss Universe pageant wears a 30-pound/space-themed costume in front of, apparently, the universe—there is for sure a bucket of blame that will be splashed on the captain, the flight engineers, and the nice looking lady wearing the planet on her head (respectively).

But right after hopes and prayers, there’s a hard look at what factors contributed to those people making those decisions. Like our meemaw used to say: It takes a village to raise an idiot.

What’s the straight line between Team We Brake for Whales ’s R2AK win and the 1986 Challenger shuttle explosion/2023 Miss Universe heavy metal wardrobe? Potentially only this: Team We Brake for Whales’ victory is a testament that the causal chain of custody holds true for not just failure, but the optimistic side of victory, too.

That at least today, the 40 feet of boat and 8 humans’ worth of success that hit the docks in Ketchikan is the result of compounding good decisions. Yes, this week, but Team We Brake for Whales’ victory didn’t start in Victoria, it started an indefinable number of years ago and converged between Victoria and Ketchikan over the last 5 days, 18 hours, and 59 minutes. Bravo—effing—Zulu.

Breaking down that bunch of effusive ambiguity:

Their boat:

If you were to ask 100 experts to name three words that describe the ideal R2AK race vessel, “heavy,” “wooden,” and “monohull” wouldn’t just be missing from the top ten, they likely wouldn’t make the list at all.

Apparently, our 100 experts ain’t sh#t, because TWBFW was all of those.

A 1995 custom design/build, Gray Wolf is a cold molded, cold-blooded racer/cruiser designed and built with an unstayed rig—custom made, custom paid, and custom fitted for the circumnavigating ocean racer it was built for until a decade ago when Jeanne and Evgeniy Goussev fell in love (not with each other—that happened years before when they met sailing dinghies on Boston Harbor) and bought Graywolf at first sight.

Jeanne had been stalking it online for weeks, and after cajoling Ev into a viewing appointment “We came around the corner, I saw the shape of the bow, and I was like ‘Aww sh#t, get out the checkbook. That’s our boat.’”

The decade between bow love at first sight and Ketchikan glory has been filled with racing and adventure. “Usually we doublehand, the water ballast helps a ton.” That 2,000 pound pun not withstanding and dumbing things down: sailboats heel. The wind blows on the sails, the sail/mast industrial complex acts as a lever that tips the boat over. Counteracting the inclination to tip all the way over is all of the weight in the hull that acts as a counter balance.

Adding weight and credence to “Team Counterbalance” are the weighted keel protruding from the bottom of the boat, a bunch of people sitting on the upwind/uphill side of the boat as ‘rail meat’, and (for some boats) water ballast that can be pumped from the low side to the high side to level the boat out each time you flop over and switch sides.

For Gray Wolf, it’s roughly 2,000 pounds of water that switches sides each time they tack across the wind. That’s like 10 people worth of water that you don’t have to feed or talk to that gets pumped to the high side each time you tack. The result? More miles to windward and crew who were scrambling to find charging stations once they hit Ketchikan to power up the cell phones they weren’t allowed to charge during the race.

“All of our power went to that pump.”

They never could have known it a month ago, but the upwind, bashy, and heavy conditions of the 2023 R2AK lent itself to the upwind survivability of Gray Wolf, ringing in deep and heavy at 6+ feet depth and 22,000 pounds. She was the hands-down heavyweight of the race fleet.

For comparison’s sake, Team Mojo’s race-ready F25c trimaran weighs in at 1,760—less than 10% of the weight and more than the reciprocal in complexity. Team WBFW has more weight in water ballast than Team Mojo’s whole boat.

Light and fast in the right conditions, trimarans are twitchy three-headed greyhounds. Gray Wolf is a purpose-bred, sled-pulling malamute; not as fast around the track as its jittery cousins in perfect conditions, but give it a cold night and steep hill and it’ll run miles of tundra before the greyhound can find its sweater.

Translation: TWBFW raced the boat they had, they’ve been racing it for years, and this year the Race to Alaska was tailor-made for Gray Wolf; upwind, steep, and uncomfortable.

Their crew:

Less excited than their boat about the three days of 30 knots on the nose, Team We Brake for Whales crammed a total of eight people (!!!) onboard their 40-foot boat; the largest set of humans we have ever seen enter the Race to Alaska, let alone win it.

Despite being encased in the relative opulence promised by the only winning boat in R2AK history to have varnished wood below decks, and even if they only actually baked one batch of cookies underway (still current “Cookies per mile” record holder of any team that has rung the bell in Ketchikan), despite all of that, it’s the humans that drive boats to victory—not the other way around.

Who are these eight salty souls and how did they become a crew? While unofficial team lead and now two-time R2AK champion Jeanne Goussev knew all of the TWBFW before they started, the crew was new to each other when they shoved off. The collective talent onboard was epic:

• R2AK experience: TWBFW had four trips to Ketchikan under its belt, and one victory. • Crazy offshore experience: From Nikki Henderson’s 2018 stint as the youngest-ever skipper of the Clipper Round the World Race (she was 25, what have you done lately?), to the thousands of ocean miles they held collectively. “A lot of these teams have one, maybe two drivers. We have five offshore veteran racers so during the sh#t we could rotate through one hour helm stints knowing that whoever was driving knew what they were doing.” • MacGyver skills, get along vibes; this is Jeanne’s husband Evgeniy’s first R2AK onboard, but he was the honorary ‘girl’ behind Team Sail Like a Girl’s 2018 and 2019 campaigns. “He built our bikes, and got our boat dialed in so we could just sail.” Evgeniy is the team MacGyver, a diesel mechanic by trade, a global sailor by upbringing. He and his family sailed from the Soviet Union to the US with a few years of wind powered globe trotting in the interim. Ev can sail, fix things, and remove then reinstall the diesel so they have options for the return trip.

More than experience, Jeanne chose their crew because of who they could trust and their underlying motivations. “From what I’ve seen, people do this race because they are running towards something or running away from something.”

They filled the boat with the former, and while they didn’t all know each other before the race start, by the end they were bonded for life. “The last two nights we were cuddling to keep warm. It was cold.”

Easy memories and smells of fresh baked cookies days in the rear view, by the last nights they were bashing upwind through the wave factory where Hecate Strait collides with Dixon Entrance and things were wet above and below.

“The V-berth was just wet, so was the middle, also the stern.”

Standing water sloshing in the cabin, the crew led a sleepless, upwind existence for days—all at a 20-degree angle as the boat heeled from ear to ear and the boat bash tacked upwind through heavy seas. Heavy boats don’t skip across waves, they belly flop, and TWBFW caught air as they flopped off each wave, their “sleeping” crew caught air below.

Cuddling to keep warm wasn’t cute, it was necessary as they all hung to stay in their bunks and within hypothermic tolerances. Type 2 fun.

The disease:

“I’m just so glad I can talk about this in the light of success.”

Despite all of the success and all of the regular mid-race adversity from waves and wind, there has been another factor in TWBFW’s win that until this sentence had been largely unnamed: MS.

Late in 2020, at age 43, R2AK champ captain of Team Sail Like a Girl, Jeanne Goussev thought she was having a stroke. She wasn’t, but it was just as scary and debilitating and it would be four months before she would know what was going on.

Until then, all she knew was that she was losing control of her own body. She lost control of her right side, lost vision in her right eye, endured ten hours of tremors at a time—all in the terrifying shadow of not knowing. There were tumors and lesions and surgeries on at least five parts of her from her brain to her spine.

She has kids, a career, a life rooted in doing things, and she hid from and hid from the world the physical upheaval for months of unknowing. Acknowledging it would make it real, and how would the world react?

“I was scared of seeming weak.” The diagnosis would come, eventually, but for four months of a failing body, “not stroke” was all she had.

It was the pandemic, Zoomlife, and work from home mandates offered a convenient anonymity. On bad days, Evgeniy would carry her from her bed to her desk and back again. For months she showered by laying down. Eventually, the diagnosis came: Multiple Sclerosis, the relapsing-remitting kind. “I’m lucky.”

MS comes in many forms, relapsing-remitting will flare up and then back off. Progressive MS would mean that her condition could only go in one direction: worse. Relapsing-remitting means that she can get worse and then better again. What brings on the worse? Stress, lack of sleep, physical exertion— three of the four food groups of R2AK.

Given the realities of her disease and the realities of racing to Alaska, Team WBFW might as well name themselves Team WTF, because why TF would someone with MS even think that this thing might be a good idea?

Her answer? A few weeks back she told us this: “I’m going to live as long as I can.”

In 2021, post diagnosis she reconvened Team Sail Like A Girl and entered the WA360 on the Melges 32 racecar that they Raced to Alaska glory in 2018. A Melges 32 is a hopped-up buoy racer that needs 100% of whatever you can give it, both mentally and physically.

“I was on a cane for two weeks. I’m not driving Ferraris anymore, but I’m going to effing sail.”

Her choice to Race to Alaska, her choice to bring her family boat, her choice of crew, the decision to bring her overqualified husband—all of those were rooted in her desire to keep going, keep doing for as long as possible.

“I get muscle spasms on a good day, living at 20 degrees (of heel) for the past three days, I got spasms in muscles I didn’t even know I had.”

To undertake such an endeavor, let alone win, she would need to surround herself with people who she could trust, in a boat she knew like the back of her hand. This campaign wasn’t about overcoming, it was about adapting. Five years since her first R2AK win she offered this perspective:

“I’m aging into a disabled body, and I’m going to keep doing what I can do as long as I can.”

There will undoubtedly be those who question the safety launching an MS-diagnosed sailor into the wilds of the BC coast. By her account, there were three times when her disease rose to the level that required attention from her crew. The biggest?

“It was a sail change, and I couldn’t get my body temperature down and I was losing control of my body.” Her team sprang into action, got her below, out of her weather-shedding/heat-trapping layers and into ice packs. “We were trying to get warm for days, but there I was, in Alaska in ice packs.”

What would happen if things took a turn for the worse? “You die with MS, not from MS.” They had contingencies on top of contingencies. They were apparently enough, they won.

If Race to Alaska is anything, on its best days it’s a mirror into which the eye of the beholder can stare at itself and find beauty. Today, the fairest of them all isn’t defined by seven dwarfs or the false eyelash reported to have flown off in a 40 knot gust in Hecate Strait.

From our beholding eye’s perspective, it’s in the wide-eyed, accepting triumph of the human spirit that Jeanne exemplifies. Her second R2AK victory wasn’t against all odds, off the top turnbuckle body slam smackdown of the sea or her disease—quite the opposite.

TWBFW finished first because they embraced the sum total of it all; they ended up Ketchikan victorious not by overcoming but by aligning and inspiring.

“What’s my new limit with MS? I didn’t find it.” Jeanne Goussev is an example to us all of the possibility of living to the edge of our capacities, whatever they are.

Adversity and fellowship, joy and reflection. This is Race to Alaska at its finest.

Full disclosure : Jeanne Goussev is a board member of the Northwest Maritime Center, the parent non-profit organization of the Race to Alaska. Despite/because of that, we still like her.

Race details – Entry list – Tracker – Facebook

To save people from themselves, and possibly fulfill event insurance coverage requirements, the distance is divided into two stages. Anyone that completes the 40-mile crossing from Port Townsend to Victoria, BC can pass Go and proceed. Those that fail Stage 1 go to R2AK Jail. Their race is done. Here is the 2023 plan:

Stage 1 Race start: June 5 – Port Townsend, Washington Stage 2 Race start: June 8 – Victoria, BC

While the Stage 1 course is simple enough, the route to Ketchikan is less so. Other than a waypoint at Bella Bella, there is no official course. Whereas previous races mandated an inside passage of Vancouver Island via Seymour Narrows, the gloves came off in 2022. For teams that can prove their seaworthiness, they now had the option of the western route.

There is $10,000 if you finish first, a set of steak knives if you’re second. Cathartic elation if you can simply complete the course. R2AK is a self-supported race with no supply drops and no safety net. Any boat without an engine can enter.

There were no races in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. In 2022, there were 45 starters for Stage 1 and 34 finishers. Of those finishers, 32 took on Stage 2 of which 19 made it to Ketchikan.

Source: R2AK

Tags: Race to Alaska

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