An additional event has been added in 2018: Seventy48. Tacoma to Port Townsend. Cover 70 miles in 48 hours:
https://www.seventy48.com/race-explained/
A walk in the park for some WaterTribers.
Clever—make the start just before dark, to weed out a lot of people who do not have experience with night navigation. AND, by sheer coincidence of course, the finish is at happy hour to amp up crowd numbers for sending off the R2AK boats.
This was no coincidence.
@pikabike said:
Clever—make the start just before dark, to weed out a lot of people who do not have experience with night navigation. AND, by sheer coincidence of course, the finish is at happy hour to amp up crowd numbers for sending off the R2AK boats.This was no coincidence.
I like the level playing field of the 70/48. Paddle, pedal or row. No sails. The application form and vetting process will eliminate some. Will be fun to follow this one.
Is there a hidden catch?
It is presented as “crazy stupid”, but the distance seems quite short for an 48 hour sea race.
They probably want to maximize participation but weed out idiots.
@Allan Olesen said:
Is there a hidden catch?It is presented as “crazy stupid”, but the distance seems quite short for an 48 hour sea race.
No catch other than Puget Sound and it’s hazards, paddling past heavily populated cities, five ferry path crossings, and lots of boat traffic - reportedly more than seen on the entire 750-mile course of R2AK. No rules, other than only paddle, pedal, or row (no sails). Unsupported. No safety boats, no support crews allowed to hand you a hot meal or drink, help fix your boat if something breaks, provide navigation information, etc.
As to distance, the WaterTribe’s UltraMarathon (Florida) is around 62 miles with a two-day time limit; it does have rules about what kit must be carried and sails are allowed. Also unsupported.
Quoting from the Race to Alaska website:
"R2AK was created to reduce the constructs to a bare minimum, trusting in the self-reliance, seamanship, and honor of our participants rather than relying on enforcement of an artificial body of rules. The spirit of this race lives in the camaraderie of the racers and the unwavering impartiality of the elements.
“In short: we’re all in this together, and nature bats last.”
No emergency assist?
If so, then the $100 entry fee might not go solely to the prize. Maybe it goes to subsidize R2AK?
@Rookie said:
As to distance, the WaterTribe’s UltraMarathon (Florida) is around 62 miles with a two-day time limit; it does have rules about what kit must be carried and sails are allowed. Also unsupported.
Strange. I would expect any 2 day sea kayaking event calling itself “Marathon” to be a lot longer than that.
I am neither a long distance paddler nor a fast paddler, but I have done a number of casual trips where we paddled 55 miles in around 30-36 hours. Out in the morning, camp somewhere, getting home in the afternoon the next day. And the camping was the main attraction of those trips - the distance was just something we did to get to the camping site.
On or near every the June soltice for the past dozen or so years, I have paddled either solo or with my race team what has unofficially been dubbed the “Adirondack Cannonball-90”, which takes the original 90-mile route through the Adirondacks. The goal is to complete the route, which includes 10 miles of portages between watersheds, all within a single calendar day. I like to begin at midnight and it usually takes about 19 hours to complete, depending on wind and weather. The official 90-mile Adirondack canoe classic race in September is a staged 3 day race of 35-30-25 miles by day,
On the other hand, the 440 mile Yukon River Quest is done in about 45 hours of paddling, not including a total of 10 hours in two mandatory required common location rest stops. The Yukon 1000 mile race takes a bit over 6 days, including mandatory 6 hour “night” rest stops (at team chosen opportunistic random river camping locations).
@Allan Olesen said:
@Rookie said:
As to distance, the WaterTribe’s UltraMarathon (Florida) is around 62 miles with a two-day time limit; it does have rules about what kit must be carried and sails are allowed. Also unsupported.
Strange. I would expect any 2 day sea kayaking event calling itself “Marathon” to be a lot longer than that.
I am neither a long distance paddler nor a fast paddler, but I have done a number of casual trips where we paddled 55 miles in around 30-36 hours. Out in the morning, camp somewhere, getting home in the afternoon the next day. And the camping was the main attraction of those trips - the distance was just something we did to get to the camping site.
That’s nice mileage and time. As to the race name, semantics, I guess. Oxford Dictionary defines “marathon” as a race “strictly one of 26 miles 385 yards (42.195 km)” Or “A long-lasting or difficult task or activity.” UltraMarathon seems appropriate using the latter definition.
On the other hand, the WaterTribe does have the Everglades Challenge which is 300 miles. Top paddlers in 2017 did it in four days and a handful of hours. The 750-mile Race to Alaska is even more formidable, yet Karl Kruger finished in 14 days. Paddling a SUP (17th out of 27 finishers). Great role models for perseverance, endurance and good technique.
@pikabike Not sure what you mean by emergency assist. Looked into the entry fee for the 70/48 and it totals $250, $100 of which goes into the winner’s pot. R2AK has a long list of sponsors and a much higher entry fee. Northwest Maritime Center runs both events.
Rookie said:
Not sure what you mean by emergency assist. Looked into the entry fee for the 70/48 and it totals $250, $100 of which goes into the winner’s pot. R2AK has a long list of sponsors and a much higher entry fee. Northwest Maritime Center runs both events.
By emergency assist, I mean the same safety-boat assistance that R2AK racers get on their first day, the leg from Port Townsend to Victoria, which participants may enter as a standalone event if they do not intend to go to Ketchikan. That standalone leg has—or used to have—an entry fee of $100. Some people did that because it was a chance to paddle across the Strait of Juan de Fuca with emergency assistance in case things went horribly wrong. They considered the $100 entry worth it for that (potential) support.
I fully realize who runs both events, and the growing discontentment among the self-propelled that they had no separate class. (I lived in PT for 4 yrs, including the first 2 yrs of R2AK.) But something in me wonders if the SUPer who got there in such a fast time last year made sailing folk nervous about a possible buttkicking from a mere paddler in the not-too-distant future! Quick, shunt those crazy Energizer Bunny types into a separate event!
One of the contenders in the first two R2AK told me that the top prospects all aimed to average 100 miles per day or more. All but one of these were sailing. BUT they were very nervous that if winds were calm for too long, good ol’ Soggy Beavers or Colin
Angus might win. So if last year’s speedy SUPer races when wind isn’t enough to keep giving sailors the edge…
$250 of which $100 goes to the prize does seem like subsidizing the big event, especially if there is no emergency support for Seventy48 provided from those entry fees. Really, what is the other $150 for given the relatively short event? If they get only 100 entrants, that is $15,000 beyond the prize amount. With the race baiting the densely-populated Puget Sound residents alone, they could easily get hundreds of entrants.
Do you know that some sailors refer to kayakers as speed bumps?
Thanks for your insider’s viewpoint. I was wrong about the safety boats for the first leg. Rules state: “We’ll have more of a safety structure in place for the first stage in case things get hairy. The second stage has no race specific safety net.”
Am guessing there will be even a bigger safety net for the paddlers/pedalers/rowers-no-sails-allowed group since their course is in a much more populated area. And they start at night.
No idea what the expenses are to present, oversee, and report a month-long race, but sure hope they make a healthy profit as it benefits the Northwest Maritime Center and they appear to do good work.
We’re speed bumps to some sailors, eh? That’s funny.
Yeah, a sail enthusiast from BC told me that way back before I got a sea kayak.
Kayaks = speed bumps
Sailing vessels = stick boats
Powerboats = stinkpots
Jetskis = lake lice
Of course, everybody has heard that last one!
FWIW, just as a reference, the first wave of paddlers to finish the 60 mile Watertribe Ultramarathon (which is also just checkpoint 1 of the longer 300 mile Everglades challenge), usually are done in about 12 hours or less, depending significantly on the conditions.
Current record for the 300 mile Everglades challenge is 2 days 22 hours (racing kayak class) and the touring canoe and kayak class (that allows 1 meter sails) is 3 days 13 hours.
Headwinds (20 mph+) have thwarted record attempts for the last several years, making it challenging enough just to finish.
Greg
@Rookie said:
@Allan Olesen said:
Strange. I would expect any 2 day sea kayaking event calling itself “Marathon” to be a lot longer than that.
Oxford Dictionary defines “marathon” as a race “strictly one of 26 miles 385 yards (42.195 km)”
The key is the 2 days.
You are right that a official marathon distance is 42.195 km - but those marathons take a few hours.
If someone made a 42.195 km “race” where you could not only walk all the way, but could actually walk at less than half the normal walking speed and still complete in the expected time, they would not call it a marathon.
Re: Seventy48:
Allowing 48 hrs means that if someone doesn’t “make time” as planned and as a result would have to slog against strong current, he or she has the option of pulling ashore. Getting a few hours of rest while awaiting a better time saves energy—then he can literally go with the flow instead of fighting the water. This is also a big safety consideration.
Overall winner:
Greg Barton and Kevin Olney paddling an Epic V-10 Double surfski. Time: 9 hours and 39 min.
He posted a report about the race on his public FB page. Don’t need to have a FB account to read it (just tell it “not now”)
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1888369001185720&id=114371611918810
Second place went to six guys paddling a Malolo Outrigger Canoe