When I wake up, eyes still closed, I can feel the rocking motion of the boat: up and down, slow, lulling. It takes me a moment to remember that I’m in a bed on dry land. After nine and a half days without setting foot on shore, my body is…

All that stuff I said about us not really being competitive? Tear it up, throw it out; clearly I was kidding myself. We’re in the home stretch, just over seven miles to the finish line, and Louistic SuperSonic has been visible at a near exact five miles behind us for…

The first time you could really feel the growing cold was the exit of Johnstone Strait into Queen Charlotte. The sun was out, and warm, but there was a noticeable bite in the wind. The further north we go, the more we feel it. On the night watch at solstice…

“Are you in the race to Alaska?” Someone yells from the window of a house. It’s dusk, Campbell River. Graham and I are out pedaling as we make our slow way north, close to the shoreline. “Yeah!” He shouts back. “Good luck!” We’ve had others: a boat we took for…

I’ve pulled a plum shift: cooking at seven, on watch from eight to midnight, then six hours of rest lined up with the actual night. It’s raining, but not too bad, and I’m dressed for it: full Odlo thermals, full Mustang outer gear, Xtratuf boots. Good gear costs a mint…

We spent a couple of minutes yesterday trying to figure out how long we’ve been going. The rotating sleep schedule really messes with your sense of time. We haven’t stopped except when required by race organizers or the current through Seymour Narrows: a little more than eight days of near-constant…

I’m laying on my stomach in the quarter berth, which is about fifteen degrees off level, slurping Backpacker’s Pantry chili mac out of the bag in absolute darkness. Outside, I can hear the howling of wind and water streaming against the hull. I have no idea what time it is…

We made a few agreements as a team before race start: anybody has veto power; when given the option, we choose the safe course (or: course completion over speed); and, eating well is important to our success. These agreements have served us very well. Marking food in particular as important…

There are major perks to being part of a nearly all-engineer crew. In addition to the very real upsides of shared vocabulary and dumb engineer jokes (see: our team name of Rho Your Boat), there’s a lot to fix out here. By Liam’s estimate, we have more spare parts on…