Team Malolo won the eighth running of the Race to Alaska at 2:36 p.m. (Alaska Time) on Monday, June 17, with captain Duncan Gladman and crewmembers Paul Gibson, Becky Kelly and Matthew …
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Team Malolo won the eighth running of the Race to Alaska at 2:36 p.m. (Alaska Time) on Monday, June 17, with captain Duncan Gladman and crewmembers Paul Gibson, Becky Kelly and Matthew Macatee traversing the 750 miles from Port Townsend to Ketchikan, Alaska, in cold waters without an engine.
Team Malolo became the first all-Canadian crew to bring home the first prize of $10,000, in its vessel’s third attempt to win R2AK, on the custom-built Cochrane trimaran, Dragon. Gladman admitted that returning to the race represented “unfinished business for me and for Paul.”
Gladman took the second-place prize of steak knives on the same vessel as part of Team Pear Shaped Racing in 2019, after which he and Gibson dropped out of the 2022 race as a DNF (Did Not Finish) due to serious damage from a log-strike at high speed.
“We've said a lot about Team Malolo and their vessel Dragon hitting logs in years past,” Race Boss Jesse Wiegel said. “And it's true that logs were the story of their previous two attempts. But Duncan and crew have broken the curse!”
As for Kelly and Macatee, Gladman opined that “they love adventures and are super competitive.” They had listened to his and Gibson’s numerous R2AK stories, “so it’s natural that they both said we have to go, even though I said ‘never again’ after 2022.”
The four-person crew celebrated their win at the Alaska Fish House in Ketchikan with an impromptu awards ceremony, during which they received their first prize in cash, as tradition dictates, nailed to a piece of firewood.
The second-prize steak knives were claimed by Team Brio, who finished at 5:19 a.m. (Alaska Time) on Tuesday, June 18. All teams embarked on Stage 1, “The Proving Ground,” from Port Townsend on June 8 at 5 a.m.
From that start, the teams had 36 hours to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca and make it to Victoria, B.C. Noon on June 12 marking the start of Stage 2, “To the Bitter End,” the 710-mile odyssey from Victoria to Ketchikan.
At the time of Team Malolo’s finish, its nearest competitors were more than 90 miles from Ketchikan, with 29 of the 32 teams that set out from Victoria still navigating the Inside Passage at that time.
For more information, visit r2ak.com.
