9 – Team Team Sylvia: Kilian Barker (15′ Paul Gartside)

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Big calm after a storm…

I live on Denman, I spend my days working, puttering and playing. Sailing fits into that playing category. Pretty excited to go sailing with a bunch of folks this summer!

Sylvia spawned out of the Gabriola boat school in 2011. She’s a Paul Gartside design, with some additions. A 15′ lapstrake gunther rigged fun machine. These days she lives on Denman with me.

Cap’n Barker out on a voyage (2014?).

7 – Team Red Urchin: Rick Corless (John Welsford pathfinder)

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Red Urchin besieged by pirates.

Not a great sailor but really good looking.

A home built John Welsford pathfinder.

5 – Dutch Rudder Too: Neil & Thomas De Soucy and (Hobie 16)

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Pre-hot rodding. 

I’m hot-rodding the shit out of an ’81 Hobiecat 16. New hardware. New sails. New life in the best little boat race ever!

Neil bio: Son of a sailor. Slave to the mountains. Surfer by experience. Surveyor of all low tide line in Alaska from the Portland Canal to Bristol Bay under the tutelage of Dr. John Harper. Met up with Thomas and Robin who have welcomed me into exciting world of multihulls. Thomas taught me to fly the hull… which we will on the road to victory… probably.


4 – Lead on MacDuff: Suze Cumming et al. (Albacore)

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Placeholder pic…

Bringing an old 1979 wooden Albacore back to life for the Raid. Honoured to be included in such an event. I’ve been privileged to follow the raid for the past two events and can’t wait to be a more integral part of it.

My family had this boat built in 1979 in the Isle of Wight and I raced it internationally for many years as a youth. I recently went on an adventure to rediscover it and unexpectedly found it in the rafters of some curmudgeon in Parry Sound, Ontario. It had been stripped bare and some rot allowed to fester but she is well on her way to recovery.


3 – Team Cheese Whiz: Robin Slieker aboard “Cheese” (Tornado 20′)

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Cheese the Tornado.

My boat is a Tornado, the 20 foot, twin trapeze Olympic sailing catamaran. I’ve modified mine slightly by adding wing seats. This is the second Tornado I’ve owned because they’re such great crafts.

2022 edit: “My boat is wicked fast and you’ll see it has a very nice transom.”

Robin: I’m not a rower, I’m a sailor, as in actually sailing. I was fortunate to experience sailing at a young age thanks to my mother. My first sailboat was a tornado which I sailed from Sydney, Victoria to Port Hardy via Johnny Strait and everywhere in between for many summers. I love sailing, small boats, and adventure. I like to sail fast and then get real slow on the beach👻💛👣👀👽

2022 edit: “I sail, therefore I am.”

Tim: i love boating about aswell as kicking back at the seashore

  • 2019 results: 4th place Cheese Balls (Robin Slieker and Tim Santon) – 35

2 — Coastal Express: Heather & Dan Drugge aboard Mirror Mirror

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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.

1 – Team Meow: Tim Stanton et al. (Prindle 18)

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Tim’s boat for the 2022 raid

Actually, he describes it as a “near brand new 50 year old 18′ Prindle pulled out of the bushes” and himself thus:

“i love boating about as well as kicking back at the seashore” and “Splish splash!”


  • 2018 results: 2nd place aboard Ballpoint Buccaneers  with Quill and Chris — 33 points
  • 2019 results: as crew took 4th place aboard Cheese Balls with Robin Slieker — 35 points

20. Team Mellonhead: Eric Tirion aboard Squirt (13’8″ Melonseed skiff)

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Photo by Nate Rooks

I grew up in a sailing family and learned mostly by crewing on a dragon. When I got my own laser I found out I was more of an explorer than a racer and I spent a lot of time just gunkholing about in Cottage country lakes in Ontario. Since coming to the west coast ten years ago I’ve been itching to do some longer trips aboard a small boat. Here we go!

I have a Crawford built Melonseed skiff, Hull #521. The skiff is a copy of an 1890 Chapelle boat in the Smithsonian. I commissioned the build in 2016, and had “Squirt” shipped from Massachusetts in the spring of 2017. About the size of a Laser, but with a little storage under deck, and just enough room to sleep aboard. She’s just a simple Sprit rigged cat boat, but great in light air and steady in a blow.