Putting a 6,000 mast-less sailboat on the starting line with scores of lightweight kayaks and rowing craft for a 70-mile human-powered adventure race… Now that’s a magnificently horrible idea.

“We do these things, not because they are easy but because they are hard.”- JFK

Sure, JFK might have been talking about putting a man on the moon, but we put an Olsen 30 on the dock in Port Townsend after 70 human powered miles from Tacoma. In the midnight haze of deeply fatigued divination, we can’t be sure that JFK’s ghost wasn’t there as we crossed the finish line to declare, “Them too.”

Which gets us to the “What the hell is he even talking about?” part of the article. Here are the facts: 

1. 

   SEVENTY48 is a human powered race that on June 6 launched over 100 teams out of Tacoma’s Foss Waterway. Destination: Port Townsend, some 70 miles north. 

2. Of the teams that started, only 72 finished before the race’s 48 hour time limit. 
3. One of those finishing teams consisted of 11 souls on a jerry rigged Olsen 30; pedaling, rowing, and towing it with a kayak. 

This is the story of that team, Team Steak Knives to a Gunfight, and their improbable bid for glory through aspirational mediocrity. 

I first heard about the team when it was just an idea at last year’s Race to Alaska’s Blazer Party. A group of R2AK ir/regulars had come up with a seductively horrible idea: take a boat that should in no way do a human powered race, pack it to the gills with 11 people and a questionably large sock monkey, don’t prepare, don’t practice, then try to make said Olsen 30 go an average of 1.5 knots for 48 hours. Why? Because… dumb. 

My exact words were: “That’s the worst idea I have ever heard. There’s no way you’re doing this without me.” In that moment, I barged my way into the best bad idea since the Race to Alaska. Others soon joined, and over the next nine months, Team Steak Knives to a Gunfight slowly grew from a three-beer-enthusiasm to an actual thing. That evolution only got real for me as I pedaled off the dock just before the start in Tacoma. “Jesus, we’re actually doing this.” 3, 2, 1… go. 

The Boat

“If we had eggs, we could have bacon and eggs, if we had bacon.” – Anon

The S/V Wildfire is an Olsen 30, two times R2AK finisher as Teams Monkeyfist (‘23) and Natural Disaster (‘24). It already had a twin prop pedal drive, not to mention solar power, and a complete sail inventory—perfect for the WA360’s engineless but mixed propulsion challenge and technically compliant though outlandishly impractical for a race that prohibits sailing. Augmenting the proven pedal drives were two rowing stations thrown together out of dimensional lumber and deconstructed rowing machines. Cherry on top of this dog turd of an idea: a pedal kayak to tow from out front. 

Wildfire’s mast was left on the dock to reduce windage, a SeaBQ was mounted to the bow pulpit to increase it. Why? Because steaks. Predicted boat speed: 1.5 knots. 

The Crew

“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.” – E. Shackelton

There were 11 onboard; 12 for those who count the sock monkey (I don’t). The crew were R2AK elite (four first place finishes, 6+ additional finishes) a 26-year-old rower-adventure racer we imported from the UK, and me; a guy who has only ever written about this stuff. Some of us had met each other, all of us had never met at once until the starting line. No training, no practice, no test runs. What could go wrong? Surprisingly, not much. 

The Race

Q: What did the snail say while riding on the turtle?

A: “Whee!!”

If you love rooting for which paint will dry faster, you would’ve been on the edge of your seat for our crawl up the west side of Puget Sound. 

We had anticipated 1.5 knots. Out of the blocks, with fresh horses, zero wind, and calm water we high fived ourselves until our palms hurt at our actual boat speed: a blistering 2.4. Blistering, both for our expectations of speed and for the actual blisters that formed on our no training hands after hours on the oars; and on our butts after hours sitting at our makeshift pedal stations. 

We looked, frankly, ridiculous. Tiny yellow kayak puddle ducking away 50 feet off the bow, sawed off sailboat with four people churning water from the ass end, a prominent yet dormant BBQ on the bow. Despite the ridiculousness, 11 people rotating through 5 propulsion stations turned out to be pretty effective. We kept going, we got some sleep, someone could always make food. 

The weather was hot, but benevolent. The headwinds were light and short lived, and there were only two times when being anchored was the fastest we could go—once waiting out wind off of Kingston, once waiting out current in the Port Townsend Canal. Our program was designed around continuous movement. Even with cramped/friendly/consensual sleeping arrangements, only six could sleep below decks. Pit stops left roughly half the crew (including the sock monkey) fighting over the big spoon on whatever flat spot they could find on deck. 

Remarkably, impossibly, we finished at 0348 Sunday; 13 hours to spare and setting the unconfirmed but undisputed record for rowing an Olsen 30 from Tacoma to Port Townsend. 3-5 people clapped, 11 more were justifiably self-impressed. I lost the $20 I bet against us even finishing. Hilariously, 21 teams finished after us. That’s gonna need therapy for sure. 

The Lesson

 “You can drive a car with your feet if you want to, but that don’t make it a good idea.”- Chris Rock

I’m writing this 48 hours after our 4 a.m. finish. The blisters on my hands are subsiding, the blisters on my ass remain; and the swollen, deep red sunburn on the topsides of my feet continue to remind onlookers of the leftover hotdogs still rolling at midnight at your local 7-11. Since we hit the beach I’ve been pounding Gatorade like it was water, water like it was cocaine, and just now starting to feel my dehydrated kidneys going from a raisin-like state to something closer to prune hands. I’ve slept more in the past 6 hours than I did the whole weekend. 

Did I enjoy it? Absolutely. 

The race was a rare respite from life’s noise, where I was immersed in a singular purpose: get there. For 35 hours I poured every ounce of muscle and physical endurance into getting the team’s 6,000-odd pounds to Port Townsend, then collapsed for 36 hours, then staggered for another 12. 

In adult lives it’s a rare opportunity when you get to drop everything and test your limits; leave it all on the field. For most of us, at some point the wild infinity of life funnels into a fog of routine punctuated by birthday sex and parent teacher conferences. For me, the race was a chance to break free of life’s metronome and immerse in something simultaneously incredible and ridiculous, all while connecting with another 10 people (no, not the sock monkey) who were doing the same; forming a once in a lifetime community we’ll remember for the rest of our days. It was like summer camp for adults, if summer camp replaced archery with punishment. 

I have never worked so hard to go so slowly. It was the worst kind of impressive.  Am I glad I did it? Yes. Would I do it again? Hard maybe, but maybe you should try. Registration opens November 15th.

A fuller race recap and many more details can be found at: seventy48.com

Header background photo by Mark Cole.