Something completely different – or where the Woozle might be going…
A couple of years or so ago, a Berrimilla Blog fan from Podunk, (the Colorado one) suggested that the Race to Alaska (r2ak.com) might be a cool way to grow older and greyer. Seemed like a good idea. Megan Hahn was building a wooden sailing boat in her Dad’s workshop in Nome. which also seemed like the right sort of boat for the job. It’s name became Bob, almost by accident. but, for a bunch of reasons mostly to do with serious winter cold in Nome, Bob didn’t quite get finished in time to do this year’s race and he’s now awaiting further TLC in a very cold shed at Cape Nome. Somewhere, there are photos of all this and I’ll try to post them.
Meantime, Megan came out to Australia for a year on a work visa.
The R2AK idea bobbled along out in the dimmer reaches of the back burner until I was again prodded by the Podunker that there’s another race starting on June 14th next year. In the fullness of serendipity, I looked at the boats for sale in North West USA that day and found an ad for what seemed to be exactly what we needed and at a crazily affordable price. We bought it from the photo below and Megan’s sister collected it and it’s now in her back yard in Portland, Oregon about 300k from the r2ak start line in Port Townsend.
At about the same time, I applied for entry to the 2018 r2ak and we were accepted. Here’s the link https://r2ak.com/2018-teams-full-race/team-b4b2/ A bit over the top but hey – we’re in!
There are some stories amongst that lot but maybe later. The boat has become B4B2 for the duration and there is a plan to modify her by adding a sliding seat, sculling oars and some extra rigging. We’re going up to work on all that in a few days. More as it happens. There’s a facebook page here for the 2018 race https://www.facebook.com/racetoalaska/
Scroll down a bit and we’re there somewhere.
These are the specs for B4B2. http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=4858 Click on the Buccaneer link at the bottom for a deck plan.
I’ll try to keep this going as we get things organised and during the race – some of Berri’s old Iridium gear might be useful in the remoter bits of the Inside Passage. We’ll see. If we make it as far as Ketchikan, the idea is to keep going north west around the top of the Gulf of Alaska, through the Aleutians and into Homer where Megan lives. If we make it that far, B4B2 has a new home. Meantime, we’re patching our towels…