- #SCUTTLEBUTT IN A SENTENCE FULL#
- #SCUTTLEBUTT IN A SENTENCE PRO#
- #SCUTTLEBUTT IN A SENTENCE PROFESSIONAL#
Enough force, and who knows what kind of damage has gone through the frame. That’s like t-boning a car and having your back window smash out. Team Pestou was next, bashing into at least five big ones on Stage Two’s first night, and with enough combined force that it delaminated an internal bulkhead (“boat wall” if you’re not into the whole nautical thing).Team Pturbodactyl was first, hitting a family of would-be 2x4s with enough force that it damaged their amas and endangered its connection to their main hull.
While the internet debated what one would call a flock of floating logs (An obstruction of driftwood? An armada? A brutality?), for at least the teams who violently Marco Polo’d themselves into enough of a log to remove themselves from the race, the herd of wood can only be described as an inevitability:
#SCUTTLEBUTT IN A SENTENCE PROFESSIONAL#
Professional mariners reporting from as far north as Malcolm Island have been slowing their boats to a dead stop so they could go bow and push apart the driftwood scrum and allow themselves to pass through. Trincomali Channel and the Southern Straits of Georgia were mine fields, but when one of the race’s media boats transited Dodd Narrows, the flow was a sluice gate of the chunky stuff. While that arrogant bit of self-denial might have been true for the cocky/lucky in years past, what’s proving thematically true in 2022 is that like humans, Gremlins, and cockroaches, driftwood now seems to multiply after the sun goes down and seems to get multiply-er the further north teams go. Q: Isn’t there a lot of driftwood out there? How do you avoid it at night?Ī: The logs just seem to go away at night. In past years, there has been a cavalier and chagrined punchline of pride between racers the set up is some version of this:
#SCUTTLEBUTT IN A SENTENCE FULL#
Not just teams full of randos, but some of our fastest and favorites: Teams Pestou, Pturbodactyl, and Malolo. This spring’s record high tides coupled with the highest rainfall in a metric decade flooding coastal rivers mean most of us haven’t seen this many logs in the water since the beginning of the Obama administration-it’s been that long.įor all of you wondering why in the ever-loving Race to Alaska we’re talking about floating wood when there are teams racing to Alaska, you clearly haven’t been paying attention to the last 36-ish hours when at least three teams met enough driftwood, at enough speed, that it ended their race. Unless you can see it, it’s hard to imagine, and even if you’ve been up the inside before, it’s hard to wrap your head around just how much driftwood is in the water right effing now.
#SCUTTLEBUTT IN A SENTENCE PRO#
If racers, media boats, and the coastal BC community of pro mariners are to be believed, roughly 40% of that annual production is floating mid-race. If BC’s timber industry cheerleaders are to be believed, British Columbia accounts for roughly 40% of Canada’s softwood lumber production. For those that survived, they started the remaining 710 miles on June 16 to Ketchikan, AK. After the race was cancelled in 20, the 6th edition of the 750 mile Race to Alaska (R2AK) began June 13 with a 40-mile “proving stage” from Port Townsend, WA to Victoria, BC.