High-Stakes America's Cup Defense Set to Commence

As the white blades of his ­sculling oars dipped and swept the pristine waters of the Strait of Georgia, Adam Cove was having fleeting second thoughts. He was barely a day into the adventure—no-­engine-and-no-support 750-mile Race to Alaska. His plan to row his 2,800-pound 18-foot Marshall Sanderling cat boat Wildcat through a set of islands and ­farther offshore in search of wind had backfired.

“The wind was forecast to be there,” he says. “I got out there after rowing for six hours because the wind had died inside, but there was no wind out there either. And then the current turned and I was 3 miles out, so I just started ­rowing harder to get close to the coast. That was a brutal 8 hours straight of rowing, and by the time I reached anchorage, I said, ‘I still have another 660 miles to go—this is going to be a long race.’”

This was an R2AK baptism by agony for Cove on his first attempt at the biennial race, but he was prepared for it. There would be no quitting.

The Race to Alaska’s course winds mostly along the rugged Canadian coastline, with a start in Port Townsend, Washington, and a finish in Ketchikan, Alaska. There is a 40-mile qualifying leg from Port Townsend to Victoria, British Columbia, which essentially thins the herd, and Cove aced that section. What ­follows, however, is the far more testing 710-mile stretch to Ketchikan, which takes the fleet first through Seymour Narrows, revered for its swift currents and capricious winds. Then there’s a long open stretch across Queen Charlotte Sound with a mandatory checkpoint in a town called Bella Bella in British Columbia. From Bella, it’s into the open waters of the Hecate Strait, dodging logs, debris and wildlife. How, where, and when competitors stop to rest, replenish, or escape adversity is entirely up to them.