Winner sails into Ketchikan and un-nails $10,000 prize

By Scott Bowlen

Ketchikan Daily News

Pure & Wild, a 44-foot monohull sailboat, won the 2022 Race to Alaska on June 20, sailing into Ketchikan four days, four hours and 32 minutes after departing Victoria, British Columbia.

Team members Jonathan McKee, Matt Pistay and Alyosha Strum-Palerm gathered at the Alaska Fish House, where their first-prize winnings of $10,000 cash had been nailed to a high beam on the back wall.

Pistay climbed up to the beam and used a small crowbar to pry the prize money free of the beam.

The 750-mile wind- and human-powered race has two legs: The first, from Port Townsend, Washington, to Victoria, and then the second, much longer leg at 710 miles to Ketchikan.

"Our hat's off to the (competitors) who are out on the water still," McKee said at the awards event June 21, as most other contestants were still racing to Ketchikan. "We have so much respect. For us, it's pretty easy to get in our cool sailboat and race up here and it's all OK. But those guys out there, in rowing boats ... and kayaks and smaller sailboats are frankly a lot more challenging than what we've done."

Team Elsewhere arrived at Thomas Basin in Ketchikan two days and two hours after Pure & Wild. The four-man crew piloted a 33-foot Soverell monohull sailboat.

Team Elsewhere was one of three teams among the 30-plus starters that had selected the outside route along the west coast of Vancouver Island rather than the inside route off the east coast of the island. One reason for choosing the outside route (about 30 miles longer) was that they didn't want to hit anything.

That proved to be a wise decision, as a trio of the fastest boats quit the race early after striking floating driftwood on the inside route.

"We decided to call the logs 'dragonslayers,'" said Rhys Balmer, skipper of Team Elsewhere.

As the second-place finisher, Team Elsewhere won a set of steak knives.