PORT ANGELES — With light southerly winds and a northern current, the first day of the Race to Alaska’s second leg went to human power, much like the competition’s first leg.
As of Sunday afternoon, paddleboarder Karl Kruger, Team Heart Of Gold, led the pack. The Orcas Island man was traveling an average of 5 knots, said Race Boss Daniel Evans.
“He’s been training all year.”
Last year Kruger’s paddleboard broke on the third day of the race as he approached Nanaimo, B.C. He had a custom board built for this race, Evans said.
He is one of 35 teams competing in the second leg of the Race to Alaska.
Hundreds of miles
Teams are racing 710 cold-water miles from Victoria to Ketchikan, Alaska, without motors or any outside support in an attempt to earn the Race to Alaska’s $10,000 grand prize.
The second-place team gets a set of steak knives.
The race, hosted by the Northwest Maritime Center and sponsored by UnCruise Adventures, has two legs: the “proving ground” — the 40 miles from Port Townsend to Victoria, which began Thursday — and the second stage, “to the bitter end,” which began Sunday. Forty-one boats originally signed up for the longer leg.
The human-powered Team Liteboat won the first leg and made it to Victoria by 11:30 a.m. Thursday. The race started at 5 a.m.
Final results showed that 49 teams made it to Victoria.
Rod Price, a canoer from Orlando, Fla., overtook Ellensburg kayaker Matt Pruis of Team Viz Reporter at about 4 p.m. Sunday as they battled for their spots in the top 5. Their exact ranking was unclear Sunday afternoon.
“It’s still looking like this human power is really doing it,” Evans said. “They are really killing it. This is definitely paddling weather.”
Evans said winds were expected to pick up in the evening and the current would be heading against the racers.
“It’ll be a different story when that wind kicks up,” he said. “That will be the story in the next couple of days.”
While most human-powered watercraft seemed to have everything going for them Sunday, Evans said Team Oaracle, made up of Victoria rowers Janice Mason and Ian Graeme, ran into a few mishaps that knocked them into the middle of the pack.
As they were preparing to get their rowboat back into the water in Victoria, their truck ran into problems.
Evans said they had to scramble to find another truck to get their boat back into the Victoria harbor.
Once the race started, they ran into more difficulties. A pleasure boat knocked into them, bending their boat’s rowing frame.
“They scrambled to find anyone with wrenches and got back on the water,” he said.
There was no structural damage to the boat, but they had to run ashore to bend the rowing frame back into place.
He said it’s likely a first in the race’s three-year history to have a competitor hit by another boat.
“It’s crazy,” Evans said.
Racers have two points they have to go through before continuing on to Ketchikan.
They must first go through Seymour Narrows then Bella Bella before heading to Ketchikan. However racers get to any of those points is up to them, he said.
To follow the race, visit r2ak.com.
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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.
A Port Townsend team, North to Alaska, pulls away from the dock in Victoria to start the second leg of the Race to Alaska on Sunday. (Steve Mullensky/for Peninsula Daily News)
