By Jesse Wiegel, Race Boss

The water at 4:30 AM strips away whatever philosophy you had under the work lights in your two-car garage. A solo stand-up paddleboarder, parked on the wet rocks of Restoration Point after an hour and a half trying to win an argument with a whirlpool, is rarely thinking about the indomitable human spirit. She is thinking about coffee, dry socks, and future mitigation of the specific set of bad choices that led her to this exact barnacle. Then, if the shivering drops to a manageable rattle, she gets back on the foam and keeps paddling.

Every spring, hundreds of people pack up their various combinations of fitness, stubbornness, and construction-grade delusion and launch into the adventure races of Northwest Maritime. There will be midnight conversations with entities that aren’t there, expensive gear failures, terrible dinners eaten with cold fingers, and a couple encounters with whales that almost make up for it.

In 2026, SEVENTY48 gets the first crack.

On May 29, one hour and fifty-seven minutes before sunset, more than 140 human-powered vessels carrying 300-plus humans will attempt to depart the Foss Waterway in Tacoma while retaining most of their paint. Then they will immediately begin executing decisions across a broad, colorful spectrum of quality. By midnight, a long line of blinking lights will be smeared across Puget Sound, everyone making deals with the tide and fighting the urge to just pull over and lie down in the beach grass.

So many teams. Beasts From The East, having lost their grip on the top podium spot after two years in the sunshine, added a third set of shoulders to the boat to get their annual race paycheck back. The USDB Makapo Wave Warriors return, a team of youth competitors from the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind who have made SEVENTY48 a biennial feature of their curriculum. Team Lost But Don’t Care is once again bringing a Corsair trimaran to a race that banned sails, meaning they get to pedal a very wide, very heavy apartment complex up the coast. About half the fleet are repeat offenders, people who either missed the podium or simply forgot how much their wrists hurt last time.

The finish line beach in Port Townsend is an exhibit of physical degradation. Some teams sprint across looking ready to do it again; others struggle to move their craft the last few feet before tumbling into ankle-deep water, having forgotten that the relationship between their brains and legs has become distant.

When all is said and done, the SEVENTY48 Necktie Affair—the end-of-the-line party at Northwest Maritime where the cash and honor are bestowed—takes place at 5 PM Sunday, and everyone is invited.

Two weeks later, Race to Alaska returns from sabbatical.

Nine years into this experiment, the results remain inconclusive except that whatever infection Northwest Maritime built in its lab is spreading. More than 80 teams applied this year, forcing the first-ever waitlist for the privilege of rowing and sailing 750 miles into a headwind without a motor.

Seventeen soloists are heading north alone, which is its own specific brand of psychological risk. Eight all-female teams are in the mix, four of them solo, all chasing the once-only Sidebet: the HECATE SOLO STAR AWARD for the first solo woman to clear the finish line in Ketchikan. The field includes everything ever conceived in R2AK history—from another attempt to complete the course on a SUP by Team Apple Bottom Boy to Team Dreams and Kitemares attempting the race on a foiling kitesurfing board. Repeat: Foiling Kitesurfing Board.

The human-powered field is also eating its Wheaties. A dozen teams claim no sails whatsoever and aim to achieve the coveted Oaracle Blister Award—an eighteen-pound bag of 1000 Canadian loonies presented to the first all-muscle team at the dock in Ketchikan.

So how do you R2AK if not by going out there and ignoring your fear?

It starts with the Ruckus in Port Townsend on June 13, where you meet the teams, see the boats, get the tattoo, and dance to live music invoking either the benevolence or wrath of the R2AK gods. The following morning comes the 5 AM start of the Proving Ground, where two years of spreadsheets and expensive foul-weather gear meet the actual Ocean. Historically, the ocean does not care about the spreadsheets.

From there, you track the race, read the emails, watch the videos—or maybe find a way to bring a team a pizza on a beach somewhere north of here.

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