KETCHIKAN, Alaska — Team Elsie Piddock has won the Race to Alaska — but who’ll get the steak knives remains to be seen.
The trimaran sailed into Ketchikan harbor at 12:55 p.m. Friday, four days, 23 hours and 55 minutes after leaving Victoria, B.C., on June 6.
The team left Port Townsend on June 4.
Team Elsie Piddock won the $10,000 first prize, but two boats in the “no motors” race were dueling for the second prize of a set of steak knives.
MOB Mentality, a 28-foot trimaran, and Por Favor, a 33-foot Hobie Cat, were in “a pretty good battle” expected to end on Saturday when one of them reaches Ketchikan.
Eighteen other craft trail them, with a Port Townsend monohull boat, Hexagram 59, having turned back under sail.
The exact order of boats remaining in the pack remained a mystery because the satellite vessel tracker went offline because “we had so many simultaneous log-ins,” said Carrie
Andrews, spokeswoman for the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend, which organized the race.
Jake Beattie, the center’s executive director, was in Ketchikan to greet the winner.
Only rower, sailers and paddlers were allowed to compete in the race. None of the entries have motors.
The craft followed no set route on the Inside Passage to Alaska. Of the 75 boats that registered, 53 started the race but only 40 reached the first leg to Victoria, B.C., with another 29 setting out for Ketchikan
