The Seventy48is a race from Tacoma to Port Townsend, through the intricate waterways of Puget Sound. It’s the precursor to the legendary Race to Alaska (R2AK), from Port Townsend to Ketchikan, that begins just hours after the first race ends. Unlike the R2AK, however, sails are not permitted in the Seventy48. It’s open to human-powered craft only: canoes, kayaks, rowboats, and SUPs dominate, although there are always a few outliers, watercraft that defy easy description, sporting pedals, handlebars, antennas and other eccentricities. While some of these boats and boards are undeniably better than others, none of them are actual garbage. Well, almost none.
Meet Ken Campbell, Builder of the Garbage Stick SUP
I am the director of the Ikkatsu Project, a small nonprofit based around issues involving plastics in the ocean. Most of what I do is relatively straightforward, lots of school programs, beach cleanups, things like that. This particular effort is something different.
I’ve been told that it is a gimmick, to enter a paddleboard in the race that I have made out of marine debris found on the beaches of south Puget Sound. I suppose it’s true, that it is a gimmick. The idea is to motivate us all to think about plastic, particularly single-use plastic items, and what we can do to reverse the problems associated with plastic pollution.
The deck is plywood, 16 feet long and 34 inches wide at the beam. There is a 16-foot stringer of 2×4 that runs down the center and two 12-foot floating stringers of 1×2 pine, one on either side of the center line. The fin is a piece of plywood, part of my son’s old bunk bed.
The body of the board is made of large foam chunks that used to be part of floating docks somewhere. I collected them about five years ago and they have been stored in the garage ever since, so they’re as dry as they can be. I cut and shaped them, using a sawzall, a handsaw and an electric foam cutter, before wrapping the hull and sides with a cotton sheet from Goodwill and using wood glue to seal it all in place.
Once the glue had permeated and hardened the fabric, a few coats of latex paint and a couple old yoga mats completed the package. It’s got plenty of flotation; I’m not sure how quick it will be but it won’t sink.
The starting line for the Seventy48 is in downtown Tacoma at the Museum of Glass, on the Thea Foss Waterway. From there, the route goes along the Tacoma waterfront to Point Defiance, then north up Colvos Passage and on to Blake Island. The next move is a crossing over to Bainbridge Island and up the east side to Port Madison, then farther up to Point No Point and Hansville. The biggest crossing of the race is the seven-mile stretch between Foulweather Bluff and the Port Townsend Canal, where the current can either be a friend or foe, depending on the tidal action. Once you make it through the canal, it’s a mere six miles to the finish, but the winds can be wicked there at the end and that six miles can go on for considerably longer than expected.
There will be pain. No matter who you are or what you’re paddling, pedaling or rowing, how fit you are (or not), whether you’ve put in months of training or slept through your alarm, it will take a certain level of inner motivation and an elevated pain threshold if it’s going to happen. I expect to need most of those 48 hours to finish and I don’t plan on doing much the day after it’s over.
It’s true that I’m not in it to win it. This is a race that attracts some serious paddling talent, from Olympic gold medalists to hardcore distance competitors. The winners will be across the finish line in Port Townsend at about the time I get to Blake Island, just a third of the way through. This is one of those moments when the goal is to finish, where just finishing is a victory.
But it’s not just a gimmick, this heavy, oversized piece of upcycled garbage. It’s also a metaphor. It’s not just me that’s floating on plastic, it’s all of us. The extent to which we rely on plastic is almost unthinkable and its effects in the environment and on our bodies is staggering. Plastic is an integral part of our lives, invasive and eternal, unlike anything else. If it takes a gimmick or a metaphor to get us all to think about it, then it might just be worth doing.
The Seventy48 starts at 7 p.m. on Friday, June 2. Follow along with the real-time progress of the Palo de Basura and the other racers on the race tracker at https://seventy48.com/
—Ken Campbell is a writer and paddler living in Tacoma, WA. Books include “A Sea Kayaker’s Guide to the San Juan Islands,” and “Around the Rock; A Newfoundland Sea Kayak Journey.” He is currently working on a Salish Sea paddling guide, and has been for quite a while.