We of Team ‘Miss Moose’ (motto: Servate nobis aliquam cenam [Save Us Dinner]) like to think we bring a whole new appreciation to the concept of ‘finalists’ to this wondrous competition of sleek, well-built, and beautiful little wooden boats, none of which describes our own little beauty. Miss Moose, a 17′ Siren, is a sturdy fibreglass Boler-of-a-boat who has served us well, notably, in 2015, on a 2200 km journey from the ice fields of the Rocky Mountains, the birthplace of the mighty river highway the historic North Saskatchewan, to the upper reaches (through Class 3 rapids), all the way to outfall at the heart of the continent at Lake Winnipeg. Miss Moose has provided us shelter and adventure for five years, allowing us to cruise sea lion colonies (that is until we saw that sea lions actually jump ONTO little boats like MM), explore islands, bob on Bain Sound in summer, and has acted as a fine ambassador for us, so non-threatening is she to this fine cadre of competitive sailors.

‘Skip’, a.k.a. ‘Captain Tinker,’ Jeff Hilberry, has spent his lifetime playing music, running reforestation crews, and now works in the film industry. Otherwise his time has been well-spent ‘messing about on boats,’ to quote Mole, from Wind In The Willows. Until recently, he has owned nothing smaller than a 30ft sailboat, having lived aboard a 36′ Atkin for many years while raising a family. With Miss Moose, however, he reports he can now sleep at night, especially during big storms knowing the boat is snug on her trailer back at his Denman Island ranch.

 ‘What do you mean I can only bring 10 books with me on the raid?’ Dr. Steele is reported to have said when informed by Skip that Miss Moose needed to lighten her load in order to race, and, interestingly, before a full set of Skip’s tools, including a cordless drill set, emerged from the hold after MM’s outboard motor broke during the race. When Suzanne, a doctor of the soul (PhD) and poet, isn’t busy writing operas  (premiere 2020), she dreams of being a contender on the water. Despite having grown up on the North Shore of Vancouver, Steele has never sailed, the BF Raid of 2018 being her first time on the ocean outside of little toodles around Denman Island. Regretting missing the 2019 Raid, Steele is said to be in training for the 2020 Raid, determined to see MM’s team become the ACTUAL FINALIST this year, having been ‘robbed’ of the position by an unnamed team!!!!

As diehard Detroit Tigers fans, Steele and Hilberry demonstrate our lifelong  commitment to the idea of being ‘finalists’!

---

• 2018 results: placed #14 Miss Moose (Jeff and Suzanne) — 106 points

Small boat curious. Dual hull experimenting for an enhanced experience. Okay to get wet and try again. Love making spinnaker sail contraptions on the fly. Shoreline exploring can sometimes take precedence over race rule directions. Especially liked crossing over race tracks to see faster boats on occasion. Hoping to improve.

Amy:
There ain’t no place I’d rather be
Than out on the Salish Sea
With the likes of you scallywag twinkly eyed rascals
You salty big hearted barnacles
Sailing to and rowing fro
Beachin’ n swimmin’ and nesting in trees
Contemplatin’ on stars.. whistlin’ barefoot n free

• 2018 results: placed #09 Alfred Greenling (Heidi and Ingrid, and Tor) — 74 points
• 2019 results: placed #10. Further In Time (Heidi and Tor) – 103 points

Quill Goldman grew up on B.C’s coast and is a graduate of the Silva Bay Shipyard School, class 99/2000. Co-builder and co-skipper of the winning boat of the first Shipyard School Raid, Quill went on to compete in all of these early events. After ringing the bell in Ketchikan as the “final winner” in 2015, Quill determined to return Raiding to the Salish Sea. After cooking up a course and a set of rules designed specifically to favour his own boat, he set out to lure unsuspecting participants into this rigged spectacle. As the prehistoric holder of the Raiding trophy, Quill’s will be the boat to beat if you want to take this prize home.

“The Dick Smiley was the final winner of the first R2AK. Designed by Tad Roberts for Barefoot Wooden Boats. This was also the only purpose built boat to complete that year’s course. With a Kevlar set in Ecopoxy on ply bottom and lapstrake topsides, the Dick Smiley is a modern classic that turns heads, mostly for its lack of a transom. This boat sports Dyneema rigging and Mylar sails on a carbon mast, and has carbon fibre appendages sprouting from its trunnel fastened, lapstrake hull.”

“Red” Elhe and “The Dread” Tobi make up the fearsome crew aboard the Red Urchin, loaned to them by a kindly and well-meaning man who really shouldn’t be loaning his hand-built 17-foot gaff sloop to pirates. But, his loss is the Barefoot RAID’s gain!

Pirate Urchin’s Crew Bio: The Dread Tobi began her career in small boat sailing and piracy as a lowly Anchor Wench on a 25’ sloop through the Bahamas back to Toronto, in which she touched the tiller exactly 8 times in 5 months. Plotting mutiny while stewing an angelfish over the Coleman, she succeed in diverting the captain’s attention long enough to steer them into drug runners, a white shark, into reefs and onwards to Cuba. She hasn’t been welcomed on another man’s boat since. Returning to Gabriola, she badgered the owner of Golden Eye (14’ gaff “tent sailboat” by ) until he gave it to her for a song, and sailed her back to Whaler Bay to meet the boat’s maker, Greg Foster. She then wrested the Red Urchin from the hands of Rick Corless in order to put her competitive skills to the ultimate test in the RAID. She takes no prisoners, leaves only bones. 

When Gabriola was formed by rising sea beds of sedimentary rock 40 million years ago, it needed some… soul… and it needed to toughen up. In due time, as legend goes, a fierce pair of lady ballz appeared in the form of the red-hued glacier named Elhe. She scoured and battered our shores, and in her wake sculpted the sandstone into the unique shapes we admire today. The spirited Elhe went on to further adventures, winning renown in lands as far as Mongolia, where she was dragged by a horse and shrugged it off with some hooch and sea salt in the woodstove glow of a yurt. The honorary aboriginal name bestowed upon her is “Little Stinker”, as her vivacious charm is matched only by her deadly competitive streak.

The Red Urchin is a 17’ John Welsford Pathfinder, built by Rick Corless of Gabriola Island. Begun in 2007, he finished her in time for the 2018 Barefoot Raid. Pirates Red and Dread take her over to see if they can push Red Urchin to her limits and not break Rick’s beautiful boat.

Thomas describes himself as an “enthusiastic bicoastal year-round sailor.” His boat is a 1978 Hobie 16 called Smurfette — a FrankenHobie. For the 2019 race, he rigged a bowsprit using an old windsurfer mast and flew an early 80s Olson 25 symmetrical spinnaker.

He writes:

“I bought her off the original owner a few years ago. He had bought the boat with his first pay check as a logger in 1978. Smurfette was the second of 3 Hobie 16s I bought over the last 5 years and uses the best, or least worn out parts from those 3 boats. She is part of the Denman Hobie Fleet.” 

Long-coming late addition to team Gaspe Cured came in the form of Troy Jungen; our Mountaineering Wandering Bear who loves nothing better than a little gentle foray into the great outdoors. New to the sport of sailing, when you climb mountains for breakfast, pulling a few lines in the afternoon then dinner with beach fire side revelry seems like a summer dream. We shall love it all.

Robin seems to have a double Masters degree in beach culture / small boat flying. Tim likes the beach and is kinda fond of sailing. Their boat is a Tornado named “Cheese.”

Team Loobern’s is based off Gabriola Island. Combing a former raid winner (Mitch) and a one-time raider (Lucas) in a raid winning boat (Barracuda). It’s lookin good.

Last year’s winner Barracuda is an 18-foot Mower Dory built by the Silva Bay Shipyard School in 2005-2006, the year Lucas was there. It was also his adversary in the 2009 Raid.

Heather and Dan have been sailing small wooden boats up and down the coast since 2003 and have been dinghy sailors since 1969. As participants in stages 1 and 2 of the 2015 R2AK, Heather and Dan decided they had better ways to spend the next 2-3 weeks of their summer than bashing into gale-force headwinds, and sensibly turned around and went downwind instead.

Built in 1971, theirs is a 16 foot, wooden Mirror dinghy. She was originally built by Bells in England and shipped to Boston where she was sailed, but then eventually wrecked on a breakwater. She was advertised for free in Wooden Boat and Dan rescued her and restored her. Since then we have re-framed and reskinned Mirror Mirror. She is lightweight, at only 200 lbs with plenty of sail area at 70 sq. ft,  plus a full spinnaker.

Last year I participated in the Barefoot raid, sailing a “Melonseed”. Much to my chagrin, I learned that a fixed rig and tiny interior made for a frustrating raid. I bailed after the row from Lesquiti to Hornby with shame. Two days later I vowed to be ready for 2019! It was such a great experience meeting a really great group of people and sailing in such amazing environs that I had to “TriHardr” this time. So I built a boat over the winter, with a marginally larger interior …. and sails that have halyards! Please accept my humble application to do it right this time, I’ve been dreaming about the 2019 Barefoot raid for 363 days!

If Colin Angus designed a boat for the R2AK it should be good enough for me!

Scott is an oceanographer-father based in Seattle who learned to sail on the reservoirs of Colorado. He’s cruised Puget Sound and the San Juans aboard a Wharram Tiki 21 with occasional forays into the Gulf Islands and Desolation Sound. Cora is his favorite child and is always better than her brother at everything. She has strengths in everything and her weaknesses include nothing. She made this entire site by herself with no help from anyone, including Scott.

Scott built Manuoku (a modified Hitia 17) with Thomas Nielsen for the 2015 Race to Alaska in part to continue exploring the crab claw sailing rig and pedal-powered boats. After getting beaten up by the Qualicum winds of Nanaimo, Manuoku had a great voyage as far north as Telegraph Cove. Of all the R2AK adventures on that trip, though, the most ecstatic moments were the short, competitive sub-races that developed by luck occasionally between a few small boats with like-minded sailing friends. We’re ready for more of that kind of joy. Manuoku competed in the inaugural 2018 “Seventy 48” human-power-only race (32nd out of 101) and Barefoot Raid in 2018 (4th, with 44 points).