KETCHIKAN, Alaska — MOB Mentality has proven it can cut it in the continuing Race to Alaska.
The 28-foot trimaran won the “knife fight” for second prize, in the words of the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend, at 4:45 a.m. Monday.
The center organized the race of motley craft that began June 4 at the center, crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria then made off up the Inside Passage toward Ketchikan.
Team Mob Mentality’s three-sailors’ second prize was a set of steak knives, far from the $10,000 in cash nailed to a log and captured by the Elsie Piddock on Friday.
Third place — and nothing else — went to Por Favor, a 33-foot Hobie monohull. After a course change in which it gained on Mob Mentality, Por Favor’s three-man team finished only four minutes later at 4:49 a.m.
The Race to Alaska’s website, however, described Team Por Favor as the sentimental favorite on behalf of “everyone who owns a ‘regular’ boat . . . and everyone who loves an underdog.”
Dueling for fourth and fifth place, Team Kohara and Team FreeBurd were under sail off the south end of Banks Island at midday Monday, at least another day’s sailing in optimum conditions from Ketchikan. Team UnCruise trailed them.
Meanwhile, Hexagram 59, the Port Townsend home-team favorite, returned to the maritime center Monday afternoon, having withdrawn after running aground.
The Hobie 20 craft crewed by Piper Dunlap and Norton Smith is named after a character in the I Ching, the ancient Chinese book of divination. The six-line character is said to symbolize “wind above water.”
The remainder of the race still excites boaters, said maritime center spokeswoman Carrie Andrews, because winds in the Inside Passage have died.
That gives an edge to the rowers, paddlers and kayakers who were strung out along the route, led by Team Soggy Beavers, six sailors in an outrigger canoe who were off Bella Bella
at mid-Monday.
Thirteen other teams remain in the running.
“This race is not over,” Andrews said of the first non-motorized race from Port Townsend to Ketchikan.
“They are having the adventure of a lifetime. They’re all winning as far as I can tell.”
For details on the race, the finishers, the remaining sailors and their positions, visit www.r2ak.com.
_______
Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
