Race To Alaska

08/05/2026

The blazers have been in storage, and the SPAM is still in the can. But on September 11 during the Wooden Boat Festival, they're coming out.

The 2026 Race to Alaska Blazer Party. It's a celebration, a consolation prize, and an opportunity for racers to tell lies about their epic race this year. Rub shoulders with this years heroes and failures, have a drink or two, and treat yourself to a spread of finger foods that at any other party would come with a moist towelette.

Also: RACE HIGH COMMAND will present kudos, awards, and a semi-major change coming to the 2028 race. You might hate it. You might cry. You might go home and start building something in your garage.

Find out at the party.

Friday, September 11 | 6 PM
Northwest Maritime
Tickets: $30 (2026 Racers get half off - code in your inbox)
Includes a free drink, food and bragging rights.

https://r2ak.com/blazer-party/

07/14/2026

One month ago, seventy teams left Point Hudson in Port Townsend, WA. The tracker has since gone quiet, the bell has rung for the last time, and another Race to Alaska is in the books.

Some teams made it to Ketchikan. Some didn't. Every single one of them became part of this year's story.
A huge thank you to every racer, volunteer, sponsor, everyone who spent the last month refreshing the tracker, and our incredible media team, who chased these stories across seven hundred and fifty miles and brought them home.

If you haven't read it yet, our full and final Race to Alaska update is on the blog at the link below. It's a look back at this year's race, and the work Northwest Maritime does year round to create opportunities for people to get out on the water and do wonderfully ridiculous things.

https://bit.ly/4wFDkYw

Photos: Lynette Oostmeyer, Taylor Bayly, Taylor Amble, Jim Meyers, Elleyna Thompson

07/11/2026

There is a particular kind of beauty that only shows up in the margins, and Race to Alaska has always lived out there, past the point where sensible people turn back toward the marina and put the kettle on.

It was every crew watching multiple things break and deciding stubbornly to fix them with whatever was left on board. It was every paddler and rower who chose to move themselves the entire distance under nothing but their own arms and legs, because somewhere along the way human powered stopped being the hard way to do it and started being the reason to do it.

Nobody signs up for seven hundred miles of headwinds and jury rigged rudders because it's efficient. They do it because the margins are where the good stuff lives, and because scared and brave have never canceled each other out, they've just been in the same boat the whole time.

None of this would happen without our wonderfully stubborn racers who "do it because they must", who do it year after year to finally finish, our racers who start, who DNF, who try again, who break their rudders, who help each other out, who lose their masts, who have an insatiable drive to needlessly inconvenience themselves for the sake of building character.

Race to Alaska lasts only a month, but Northwest Maritime, the nonprofit that creates R2AK, works year round to get people onto the water, facing challenges, and doing something interesting with them. That takes many forms: youth programs, maritime skills, boatbuilding, the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. R2AK is just its least housebroken version of all of this.

None of it happens without the sponsors who've housed us, fueled us, given their time, believed in something this absurd, and welcomed this unruly fleet into Victoria and Ketchikan like we belong there: Fisheries Supply our Official Supplier of R2AK, First Fed, Baranof Fishing, Visit Ketchikan, The Landing Hotel, NobelTech TIMEZERO, Chateau Victoria, Social Fabric Brewing, Denali Brewing Company, Maritime Museum of British Columbia, Northwest Maritime, and Marine Exchange of Puget Sound.

Follow the link below to read yesterday’s blog post.

See you all in 2028.

https://r2ak.com/2026-daily-updates/day-done-the-whole-unreasonable-thing/

https://youtu.be/MZ2q491wJpY

🎥: Garret Weintrob

Video by Garret Weintrob.

07/10/2026

Hey Canada, Race to Alaska 2026 is in the books and your excuses for not owning a shirt or hat are running out.

Locally printed apparel is back in stock from our friends at the Maritime Museum of BC. Proceeds split between , and Race to Alaska.

And yes, they ship to Canada, so "you don't ship here" isn't an excuse anymore. Next race isn't until 2028, so you've got plenty of time to break it in.

Grab yours at the link, or better yet go visit in Victoria.

https://store.mmbc.bc.ca/collections/apparel?page=2

07/10/2026

It's been one hell of a year for the human-powered teams.

The final two teams to ring the bell are Lillian Kuehl of Team Lillian Signed Up to Suffer and Nathaniel Greene of Team Notes, finishing at 5:22 p.m. AKDT after 21 days, 6 hours, and 22 minutes on the Race to Alaska course.

This was Lillian's third attempt at completing Race to Alaska solo, and she absolutely crushed it. She also became the second solo woman to ever finish the race.

Congratulations, Lillian and Nathan. You are what make this race so amazing, so ridiculous, so stubborn, so determined, and so completely one of a kind.

07/09/2026

Here's an interview with crew of R2AK's first under-20-feet finishers:

https://smallcraftadvisor.substack.com/p/resetting-perspective

07/09/2026

After 21 days and 750 miles, Eric of Team Apple Bottom Boy has become just the second stand-up paddleboarder to ever finish the Race to Alaska.

We’ve all known, conceptually, that Eric of Team Apple Bottom Boy was traveling on a stand-up paddleboard. What somehow escaped us for the last 21 days is the physical reality of that statement: he has been standing the entire time. Pause for a second and really think about that. Congratulations Eric for finishing the Race to Alaska on a stand up paddle board. That’s absolutely insane.

Meanwhile, Team Lillian Signed Up to Suffer and Team Notes are still making their final push north, with just the last miles separating them from Ketchikan.

Check out today’s Daily Update for the full story behind Eric’s remarkable run, Esther’s historic push toward the Hecate Solo Star Award, and the final miles for Team Lillian Signed Up to Suffer and Team Notes as all four teams close in on Ketchikan. Link below.

https://r2ak.com/latest-news/nothing-left-in-the-tank/

07/09/2026

Today Esther Wheeler made Race to Alaska History.
After 21 days on the water, Esther Wheeler of Belly Full of Tea has become the first woman to ever complete the Race to Alaska solo, earning the Hecate Solo Star Award.

For 750 miles, she paddled alone through currents, weather, exhaustion, and every reason to stop. But today, she made it.

Congratulations, Esther, on an extraordinary achievement and a well-earned place in the R2AK record books.

07/06/2026

Yesterday at 4:21 p.m. AKDT Martin Rother of Team Let's Wing It and Yota Kano of Team Rainy finished the Race to Alaska.

They registered as separate teams but for nearly 750 miles north, they traveled as one. Sharing the same pace, the same camps, and the same weather and tide windows to move or wait. When one team stopped, both teams stopped. Their final day was their biggest yet: 60 miles into Ketchikan, still side by side.

Once the bell was rung, the paddles went down and the celebratory b**rs came out. Thanks to our friends at Denali Brewing Company for making the finish line taste a little better after 18 days, 5 hours, and 21 minutes on the water. Congrats Martin and Yota for completing the Race to Alaska.

Check out the link below to read today's blog post: https://r2ak.com/2026-daily-updates/tracker-dots-are-people-too/

🎥: Garret Weintrob



https://youtu.be/9PwCVfB7JXA?si=-kJU_U8CmS-gknk

Video by Garret Weintrob.