How girl (and pedal) power helped us finish a 750-mile race to Alaska
A trio of mothers in their mid-40s were among more than 100 intrepid sailors in a motley armada sailing the unpredictable and spectacular Inside Passage in the Pacific Northwest.
As we walked through the dark marina at 3.30am, I swallowed the last bite of my banana then tossed the skin on a pile of others on the dock. Bananas are considered to bring bad luck on boats and we needed all the good fortune we could summon to make it the next 750 cold, wild, watery miles. The eighth Race to Alaska (R2AK) was about to start and I was crewing on one of the 44 teams heading to the start line. A few teams aimed to be first; the rest of us just aimed to survive.
More than 100 adventurers from four countries converged in Port Townsend, near Seattle, in June to test their mettle against the unpredictable elements in the Pacific Northwest’s famed Inside Passage. Our goal was to make it to Ketchikan, Alaska, before the “Grim Sweeper”– a boat that slowly follows racers up the course – tapped us out.
Unlike other sailing races that are fraught with complex regulations, the Race to Alaska is purposely simple: no motors and no outside support. My team – a trio of women in their mid-40s dubbed Sail Like A Mother – were unanimous as to why we were taking part in the race: we were hoping for a midlife reboot.
Katie Gaut, a fellow sailing addict, myself and the third stalwart crew member, Melissa Roberts, were also doing the R2AK to prove to ourselves and to our children that we had “the courage to travel a hard quest”, as my nine-year-old son wrote in a note he stowed onboard.
My stomach was knotted with nerves as we hustled through our final preparations. A ragtag fleet of vessels – most of them smaller than a pickup truck – ghosted towards the start line as sunrise painted the horizon pink.
The first leg of the race entails crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a notorious stretch of ocean that separates the US state of Washington from Vancouver Island in Canada. Part of the “graveyard of the Pacific”, the strait’s stormy seas, dense fog and strong, variable currents have left dozens of shipwrecks littering the bottom of the channel.
Long before the race began, all of the teams had to deal with mind-bending logistics. Questions such as: what do we eat for five to 25 days at sea without a kitchen or refrigeration? Where do we sleep? Where do we pee?
If you want to know the answers, they are: dehydrated dinners, oatmeal, jerky, nuts and a lot of chocolate. Luckily, our sailing boat had two cots below the cockpit, which I lovingly referred to as the “coffin berths”, and that’s where we slept. We peed overboard or, in rough seas, in a bucket that was dumped overboard.
During low points while racing in the ensuing days, I reminded myself of my son’s belief in my bravery to shore up my commitment to continuing. Like when I was changing a sail on the bow in 30-knot gusts as we pounded into steep, breaking waves that doused me from head to toe.