Sailboat racing is not a spectator sport for the most part. It is usually something that only the competitors care about or understand and the accolades seldom go far beyond the yacht club. But this event has proved that sailing(and paddling) can be a highly entertaining thing for many people both in the know with regard to water sports and not. R2aK proved to be a very well-oiled promotion machine and they did a great job serving up some sort of wacky vicarious experience through social media and made “tracker addicts” of many a grandfather and even the occasional ex. In stark contrast to this media storm they brewed; the race course we just covered was some of the most remote and inhospitable territory I’ve ever sailed through and once we re-entered the stratosphere and the cell signal the cruise ships emulate all our phones to litt up with excited encouragement from those following our wobbly way North…. This paired with the reception we got as we arrived at the finishing dock in Ketchikan barefooted, highly sleep-deprived from dropping our watch regiment in the final push..and in our pajamas was surprising, to say the least. Moments before we were in our skivvies and in our own little world virtually unaware of our standing in the race pounding coffee and expending copious calories to achieve 2 to 3 knots of boat speed. I can confidently speak for the crew saying we are highly grateful for the outflowing of support both before, during, and after the race. We will be picking up the best trophy the first to lose any race could ever dream of receiving this evening…if, that is, we can wake up from the naps that are inevitably happening very soon.

From the bottom of our salty hearts

Thank you, everyone.

https://r2ak.com/2022-race-feed/day-7-steak-knives-miller-lite-engineering-r2ak-media-loses-our-gd-minds/