KETCHIKAN, Alaska — It was a close finish at the dock in Ketchikan, Alaska.
Team Pure &Wild arrived at 3:05 p.m. Thursday, only six minutes before Team Big Broderna. Pure & Wild claimed the win for the third annual Race to Alaska hosted by the Northwest Maritime Center of Port Townsend and sponsored by UnCruise Adventures.
The annual race is done in boats without motors and without support vessels.
Team Pure &Wild, a team of three brothers from Massachusetts, finished the 710-mile leg of the race from Victoria in four days, three hours and five minutes.
Boats left Port Townsend last Thursday for Victoria, the 40-mile “proving ground” leg of the race. Boats left Sunday for the second-stage of the 750-mile race.
“We finished in half the time as year one with twice as much work,” said Tripp Burd, captain of Team Pure &Wild in a R2AK press release.
Tripp and Chris Burd participated in the first R2AK as Team FreeBurd in 2015, finishing with a world record for “open boats.” Tripp Burd returned again in 2016, but had to bow out in Victoria due to a broken boat.
However in 2017 the three brothers Tripp, Trevor and Chris Burd will leave Alaska $10,000 dollars richer.
Second place finishers Sean Huston, Nels Strandberg, Marshall Lebron and Lars Strandberg of Team Big Broderna finished after four days, three hours and 11 minutes.
The team will head home with the second-place prize, a “pretty good” set of steak knives, according to a R2AK press release.
Team MAD Dog, won the 2016 race in a record three days and 20 hours.
Asof Thursday evening, 28 teams were still making their way up the West Coast.
Team Bad Kitty, who was neck-and-neck with the two finishing teams on Wednesday was still just north of Bella Bella, Canada just after 5 p.m. Thursday. According to the R2AK tracker, the team was sailing at about 11 knots then. Anika Colvin, public information officer for the maritime center, said she didn’t know what had held up the team.
Team Bad Kitty still had a commanding lead over Teams West Coast Wild Ones and Ketch Me If You Can as of Thursday evening.
The vast majority of teams were still making their way along the eastern coast of Vancouver Island on Thursday.
Out of the teams traveling solely under man power, paddle boarder Karl Kruger of Deer Harbor, had a wide lead.
He slipped through Seymour Narrows on Thursday morning, a notoriously difficult portion of the race due to strong currents, and was camped out on Helmcken Island, B.C. on Thursday night.
Kruger attempted the race last year but his board broke just north of Victoria and he had to quit. According to the Race to Alaska website at https://r2ak.com/, Kruger is on a mission to be the fastest to paddle to Alaska and, as of Thursday, seemed to be on track for that goal.
The R2AK offers prizes only for first and second place so as of Thursday, 28 teams are racing for bragging rights.
Organizers are waiting for someone to take them up on this year’s special buy back offer.
This year organizers give every team that crosses the finish line five minutes to decide if they want to sell their boat for $10,000.
According to the R2AK press release the goal was an incentive for racers who knew they couldn’t race for first to still race competitively.
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Jefferson County Editor/Reporter Cydney McFarland can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 55052, or at cmcfarland@peninsuladailynews.com.
Second-place finishers, from left, Sean Huston, Nels Strandberg, Marshall Lebron and Lars Strandberg of Team Big Broderna and R2AK winners Tripp Burd, Trevor Burd, Chris Burd of Team Pure & Wild celebrate in Ketchikan on Thursday. (R2AK)
Brothers Tripp, Chris and Trevor Burd of Team Pure & Wild/Freeburd were the first to cross the finish line in Ketchikan after 750 miles of sailing and peddling. (Liv von Oelreich/R2AK)
