PORT TOWNSEND — The 750-mile Race to Alaska will move to a biennial schedule after 2024, running only in even years and alternating with a local race around Puget Sound.
“It’s time to downshift, COVID happened, the maritime center at large is a different beast than it was in 2015,” said Jesse Wiegel, race boss for the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend, which hosts the race.
Wiegel said the race had seen a dip in application numbers, and many local racers have already participated in the Race to Alaska. For many, the human-powered race from Port Townsend to Ketchikan, Alaska, was something of a “pinnacle event,” Wiegel said, and not something that is done repeatedly.
This year’s race will leave Port Townsend on June 9, and while the deadline to apply for the race is April 15, Wiegel said Race to Alaska is on track to be bigger than last year.
The Race to Alaska, or R2AK, offers a $10,000 prize to the winning team and a set of engraved steak knives to second place. The only requirements are that vessels have no engine power and no pre-planned assistance along the way.
The race is typically won by some kind of sail-powered boat, but kayakers and other human-powered vessels still enter and complete the 750-mile journey.
This year, the center is producing a podcast — the Race to Alaska Podcast — to introduce the race teams. Seven episodes are currently available with additional episodes to be released weekly, “unless we fail at our production schedule,” Wiegel said.
Starting in 2025, the maritime center will bring back WA360, or Washington 360, and hold the Race to Alaska in even-numbered years and WA360 in odd-numbered years.
Washington 360 is a race around the Puget Sound that replaced the Race to Alaska during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Canadian border was closed.
“WA360 is 360 miles of engineless, unsupported boat racing through the worst and most diverse water puzzles Washington State offers,” the center said in a press release. “The race will start and end in Port Townsend, traveling counterclockwise through the waterways of Washington within spitting distance of dozens of Pacific Northwest communities.”
The exact route of WA360 will be announced during the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in September.
“We won’t be tweaking with the recipe too, too much,” Wiegel said of the 2025 route.
Like the Race to Alaska, WA360 allows any number of watercraft so long as they’re not engine-powered. In the 2021 race, 56 teams entered and used catamarans, trimarans, monohulls, beach cats, kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, surfskis and “some weird pedal thing” and competed in three categories; Go Fast, Go Hard and Human Power.
There are no official criteria for each category, Wiegel said. Racers sort themselves into their preferred race. Winners of each category are awarded a championship belt that will be passed on to the next race’s winner.
In 2025, a youth category will be added to WA360. That idea was inspired by youth participation in the Race to Alaska, Wiegel said, noting one past team had an average age of 16.
“What they really showed us is that while age is certainly something to consider (for applicants), age is not a limiting factor on if people can do something incredible,” Wiegel said. “By no means is the youth class just a kiddie table, it’s very much in its own right something to strive for.”
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Reporter Peter Segall can be reached at peter.segall@peninsuladailynews.com.
