So its official, my friend Joanna and I have entered the Race to Alaska on our newly purchased Nacra 570! I'm not sure what we have gotten ourselves into, but its bound to be an epic and challenging adventure! We are going to try and do the whole 750nm non-stop, so wish us luck and follow our preparation and practice on our website; http://www.mausails.com and check out the race website at http://www.r2ak.com

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Phil W
Nacra 570
Victoria BC
www.mausails.com
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Fantastic. Have you planned for the trip... 11 to 14 days per this poll.

http://smallcraftadvisor.…iewtopic.php?f=10&t=1041

Looks like a lot of fun. I'd do it, if I lived there. Trying to get a 200 miler here started but at FREE, I"m having problems. Maybe I should suggest charging money and offering cash price.

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Goodsailing

Laser-Standard Rig (Sold 6/15)
H18 (Sold 7/15)
Building 19' Tacking Outrigger
Balt-Wash Area
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good luck phil
keep us posted

This is awesome! I've crewed on a 55 ft yacht via the inside passage once, and have worked on commercial fishing boats in Alaska. So excited to hear about this, and might have to go on my bucket list. Best of luck! And watch out for deadheads (logs floating vertically just beneath/at the surface), yikes. Lots of them up there.

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Tom
Nacra 5.5 Uni
(actually a chopped down 18sq)
(soon to be 5.5 sloop)
Northern California
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Hey Everyone, I just wanted to thank everyone on this forum for great posts and lots of awesome useful knowledge. Not 4 months ago I bought used Nacra 570 and entered the race to Alaska. Before that I had sailed H16s a handfull of times. Yes, a big learning curve for me and my crew but after 300+ training miles, lots of generous people and all the valuable knowledge I learned here we are ready to go! We head down to Port Townsend tomorrow before the race starts on thursday. Here is a pic of the boat ready to go!


Mods I made to make the trip quicker and less miserable include:
-Custom made screecher
-Solar and electrical system
-Reef in main and roller furling jib
-Pedal drive capable of about 4 kts
-folding dodger (makes for a little shelter when sleeping, its up in the pic)
- small forward tramp on stbd for gear storage

Thanks again and keep up the good work! And a word of advise to someone getting into beach cats for the first time: buy a boat and go sailing! I have never had more fun on a sailboat than on this machine.

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Phil W
Nacra 570
Victoria BC
www.mausails.com
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Good luck on your journey!! Update us as you can.

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Tim
81 Hobie 16
87 Nacra 5.7
Austin, TX
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tumbolo

Hey Everyone, I just wanted to thank everyone on this forum for great posts and lots of awesome useful knowledge. Not 4 months ago I bought used Nacra 570 and entered the race to Alaska. Before that I had sailed H16s a handfull of times. Yes, a big learning curve for me and my crew but after 300+ training miles, lots of generous people and all the valuable knowledge I learned here we are ready to go! We head down to Port Townsend tomorrow before the race starts on thursday. Here is a pic of the boat ready to go!

What an adventure! Best of luck on your journey. Update here if you can, or on TheBeachcats.com Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/thebeachcats

Do you have a Facebook or team website? Picture of you and crew with boat? Since as far as I know you are the only members of TheBeachcats.com entered in the R2AK (others please raise hands) you are adopted for rooting interest, and you don't have to split the $10,000 when you win!

Besides the items you mention I hope you two have some really state of the art dry suits and tech clothing. I'm getting cold just thinking about that trip. The Pacific Ocean is cold at San Diego for cryin out loud.

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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN

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Do you have a Facebook or team website? Picture of you and crew with boat?

Thanks Damon, we do have a website http://www.mausails.com and this is the only picture I can find of all three of us. The day we bought the boat.

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Besides the items you mention I hope you two have some really state of the art dry suits and tech clothing. I'm getting cold just thinking about that trip. The Pacific Ocean is cold at San Diego for cryin out loud.

We have some really awesome drysuits and layers and layers and layers of Merino wool!

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Phil W
Nacra 570
Victoria BC
www.mausails.com
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We have some really awesome drysuits and layers and layers and layers of Merino wool!

And most important: Sponsers!
Good luck guys. Godspeed. I'll going to watch your progress.

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Goodsailing

Laser-Standard Rig (Sold 6/15)
H18 (Sold 7/15)
Building 19' Tacking Outrigger
Balt-Wash Area
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There's a guy that's going to do that thing on a SUP! Talk about crazy!

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Josh Pepper
Hobie 16
Madison, MS
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What dry bags are you using?

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Goodsailing

Laser-Standard Rig (Sold 6/15)
H18 (Sold 7/15)
Building 19' Tacking Outrigger
Balt-Wash Area
--

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There's a guy that's going to do that thing on a SUP! Talk about crazy!

He must be buddies with that guy that did the documentary on living with bears in Alaska. Hahaha just kidding lol, dangerous.



Edited by fxloop on Jun 04, 2015 - 07:38 PM.

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Tim Grover
1996 Hobie Miracle 20
Two Hobie 14's
1983 G-Cat Restored
Memphis TN / North Mississippi
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Well, leg one is done and in the books! We did really well given the conditions of 15-25 with 4-6 ft seas. over the 40nm course we averaged just under 10 kts. Of the 50 odd boats, we finished 6th behind Farrier 24, Farrier 25SR, Crowther 38 super shockwave, Arc 22 and a Turnpoint 24. So yea given the condition and our light little boat we are super happy. Beat a number of other farriers, a hobie 20, a supercat 20, a G cat, a multi 23...



Next Stop Ketchikan.

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What dry bags are you using?

SeaLine and MEC brand (canadian REI) everything is double bagged.

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There's a guy that's going to do that thing on a SUP! Talk about crazy!

He dropped out, I guess he got hit by a tree... turns out he is an arborist...

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Phil W
Nacra 570
Victoria BC
www.mausails.com
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A fabulous start Phil! That's some serious competition you bested today. Will you have the ability to post here once underway? We'd love to hear of your experiences. Good luck!

Dave

Can the trimarans point better?
Is this the shockwave. If so, looks built for racing.
http://www.sailboatlistings.com/view/49696

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Goodsailing

Laser-Standard Rig (Sold 6/15)
H18 (Sold 7/15)
Building 19' Tacking Outrigger
Balt-Wash Area
--

That is the Shockwave that finished first in the 40 mile initial leg. Don't know if one can make a blanket statement that tris point better than cats. I think this victory can be attributed waterline length amongst a bunch of nicely powered up multihulls. Tripp Burd's second aboard an ARC22, ahead of a couple of F25Cs is impresssive

We were talking about paddling... vid on Mausails show all entrants paddling or rowing... got to love those row/sailboats.

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Goodsailing

Laser-Standard Rig (Sold 6/15)
H18 (Sold 7/15)
Building 19' Tacking Outrigger
Balt-Wash Area
--

Thanks Dave, Im not going to be putting any updates on here until I get to AK, but we will be send stuff to 48 degrees North occasionally.

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Phil W
Nacra 570
Victoria BC
www.mausails.com
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Hey all, This is far overdue, but life it busy eh! So I made it to Alaska, and let me be the first to tell you it was miserable! For the first 4 days it blew gale force from the north and we had to hunker down wait out the weather, about the 150nm north of the start. We had no camping gear so we made shelters out of pine bows, the big boats kept passing us so we ventured out one morning to try and make some progress, but were soon turtled after a 40kt gust hit us on our beam. the boat righted itself when the wind pushed us onto an island. After we finally got going again we made great time doing the last 400nm with only a 1 hr stop. The winds were sometimes light and we ended up peddling about 150nm, including the last 14 hours into ketichican. We finished in 8th place out of 16 boats that finished. There was definitely a lot of carniage, with two 22ft+ trimarans and turnpoint designs cat getting dismasted, a hobie 20 putting a hole into a hull, a rave tri having to be abandoned and the crew rescued by the coastgaurd... Crazy Race, Miserable and Rewarding. They are doing it again next year, Everybody should do it!






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Phil W
Nacra 570
Victoria BC
www.mausails.com
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Wow 150 miles of pedaling, that's impressive.
I used to camp like that when I was a kid, if you're setup & ready to do it it can be semi-comfortable.
How did the boat hold up?
Did your solar panel work well?
Who collected the 10G?
Impressive feat of endurance, that kind of stuff really grinds you down.

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Hobie 18 Magnum
Dart 15
Mystere 6.0XL Sold Was a handful solo
Nacra 5.7
Nacra 5.0
Bombardier Invitation (Now officially DEAD)
Various other Dock cluttering WaterCrap
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Awesome accomplishment! Thanks for the report and the pictures.

The engineering job you dd getting the boat ready is very impressive, I was concerned whether the peddle system would be effective enough and hold up, but obviously it worked great.

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Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN

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