PORT TOWNSEND — The deadline to sign up for the Seventy48 boat race — a rowing/pedaling/paddling competition to start June 4 in Tacoma and finish June 6 in Port Townsend — is Thursday.
The event, a companion to Port Townsend’s Race to Alaska (R2AK), is back on after its cancellation last year.
But the R2AK, whose course included the waters around Vancouver Island, B.C., will not be run this year due to the closure of the U.S.-Canada border.
The Seventy48’s rules are no motors, no sails and no support from other people or boats.
The name denotes the distance, 70 miles, and the duration, 48 hours maximum. More information can be found at www.seventy48.com.
The winners of the 2019 race, Greg Spooner of Bainbridge Island and Thiago Silva of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, finished in 10 hours, 49 minutes to take home $5,450 in prize money, which came from race registration fees.
The application fee is a nonrefundable $50; if accepted, the entrant must pay the rest of the race costs by April 30. Those include $100 to register, $50 to rent the race tracker and $100 into the pot for the first finishers.
If the racer has additional crew, it’s another $50.
The Seventy48 is “a celebration,” Race Boss Daniel Evans has said, of three intangibles: “courage, tenacity and the belief we are stronger than we ever thought.”
