VICTORIA — The three-member crew of the Alula may not have use of their legs, but they are accomplished seamen who say their dogged determination is all that is required to see them through the end of this year’s Race to Alaska.
“We are not a novelty act at all,” said Capt. Spike Kane, 53, of Seattle. “We are accomplished sailors. I have a long history of sailing before I was in a wheelchair.
“I figured out a boat that works well for me, that is a contender, and we came to the table just as everybody else.”
The crew of paraplegics is one of 55 teams that successfully made Thursday’s 40-mile trip from Port Townsend to Victoria, the qualifying leg of the competition.
Fifty-eight started the race, said Jared Scott, communications manager for the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend, which organized the race.
Three teams were unable to reach Victoria by 5 p.m. Friday in time to qualify, he said.
Noon today
The remaining teams will set out at noon today from Victoria with the goal of being the first to reach Ketchikan, Alaska — a 710-mile journey — and winning the $10,000 grand prize.
Last year, Team Elsie Piddock, which did not compete this year, won the race by completing the full 750-mile race in five days.
This is the second year of the race, which was open to nonmotorized craft racing from Port Townsend to Ketchikan under their own power.
In it to win it
Kane said he hopes the other participants see his team as “kind of a threat” to win the race.
Kane’s crew consists of Zachary Tapec, 38, of Hawaii and Bruno Hansen, 41, of South Africa. The three met while competing in various adaptive surfing events, Kane said.
Adaptive surfing allows anyone with a disability to surf, according to www.disabledsportsusa.org.
All three competed during the inaugural International Surfing Association’s World Adaptive Surfing Championship last September in La Jolla, Calif.
Kane — who moved to the United States from Liverpool, England — was injured about 11 years ago in Seattle in a motorbike wreck, he said.
He and Tapec suffer high-level injuries, he said. They do not have much use of their upper limbs and absolutely no use of their lower limbs.
“We have enough dexterity and arm strength, but we have absolutely no core at all,” Kane said.
“We always have to support ourselves.”
Bruno has more ability with his upper body, Kane said, but “it is impossible for us to stand up.”
Despite their disabilities, Kane’s 27-foot corsair trimaran — named the Alula — is not modified in any way, he said.
“It is a completely stock, unmodified boat,” he said.
Source of inspiration
Kane said it was not his team’s intention to participate in the race to inspire others with disabilities but that he would be pleased if that ends up being the case.
“I wanted to come to the table on the same level as every other sailor that is competing,” he said.
“We feel pretty good about it, and if there are people out there just struggling with life, it is about making the opportunities for yourself or seizing them as they come along.
“There is a lot of life to be lived in a very short time.”
Kane said he does hope to see “attitudes towards disabled people change in the able-bodied world.”
Rough start
The water was choppy Thursday when the race began, with a wind speed of 8 mph to 10 mph from the south.
“The start line was a nightmare,” Kane said.
“It was pretty busy. The wind was blowing right outside of the marina itself. Coming out of the marina was really tricky. There was a lot of traffic, helicopters were in the mix. It was just chaos.”
The Port Townsend Police Department is considering filing reckless endangerment charges against the helicopter pilot for flying low over boats in Port Townsend Bay at the beginning of the race.
In the midst of the mayhem, Team Alula “went very conservatively with our sails and just got away from the pack before the start,” Kane said.
His team “let the hot rods all jockey for position at the front and then we sailed over a couple of minutes after those and just kept on going from the start line past Point Wilson,” he continued, and did not open their mainsail until they were in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
“I think we did OK, considering.”
That was not the case for Teams Take Me to the Volcano, TBD and Navocean, Scott said.
Take Me to the Volcano, sailing the Rouleur — a 20-foot custom trimaran — was forced to drop out because its ama, which is an outrigger hull, broke, Scott said.
It was “just outside of Port Townsend just after the start” of the race due to “the rougher water in the Strait,” he said.
The crew members were able to self-rescue, he said.
TBD nearly finished the first leg, Scott said, but “got pulled by the flood tide and actually had to call Vessel Assist and were towed in.”
That happened at about sunset Thursday near the southeastern side of Vancouver Island just east of Victoria, Scott said.
“They almost made it,” he said.
Minimalist
Navocean took a minimalist tack with a 6-foot unmanned craft controlled by a robot.
Navocean, a Seattle-based company, builds robotic craft that is used for ocean monitoring.
The boat was accompanied by a control ship, which left data points for the robot to follow in its voyage to Victoria.
Navocean “was our robot boat,” Scott said, adding that it experienced an unspecified technical failure.
It made it just past the Point Wilson Lighthouse, Scott said.
“We were all rooting for it,” he said.
“It is an awesome idea, and we loved it. It was a solid try. It didn’t take on water. It didn’t have any standard boat issues. It was kind of having problems finding its way and tacking in such rough water.”
For more information, go to www.R2AK.com.
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Reporter Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant contributed to this report.
