If you can see Mt. Baker, you are part of The Experience
For the first time since its premiere in 2021, WA360 is returning this summer, offering a salty adventure for some of the toughest watercraft competitors on the globe to attempt a 360-mile, engineless, unsupported lap around Puget Sound in two weeks.
Starting from Port Townsend on June 28, contestants will travel south through Puget Sound to Budd Inlet in Olympia, turn around, head past Tacoma and Seattle before a fork in the road at Goat Island offers a choice between Swinomish Pass (“easy”) and Deception Pass (terrifying), find a marked buoy in Bellingham Bay, turn around at Point Roberts, and finish back in Port Townsend.
Easy, right?
Competitors can be sorted into two classifications: the “Wind Group,” which means any watercraft using sails and the power of wind to move, and the “Muscle Group” which means kayakers, paddlers, and anyone crazy enough to push water for two weeks through the Salish Sea.
“This year, WA360 is not so much a sequel as it is a reboot of the 2021 event,” WA360 race master Jesse Wiegel said. Wiegel has been working with race organizer Northwest Maritime for years in preparation for the second version of WA360. Northwest Maritime also organizes other legendary motorless water races such as the R2AK, a 750-mile journey up the coast of B.C. to Ketchikan that takes place in 2026, and Seventy48, a 48-hour sprint from Port Townsend to Tacoma.
Wiegel sees WA360 as a love letter to Washington and Puget Sound itself, unique from any other race put on by Northwest Maritime.
“As a standalone event, WA360 is here to knit Washington state together with the communities of the Puget Sound,” Wiegel said. “But also, within all the things that NW Maritime does, it’s another steppingstone. It fills a void where people can see what we do through our programs, through our less demanding events on the water.”
Unlike R2AK, WA360 won’t send sailors several hundred miles away from civilization, “but it ain’t nothing,” Wiegel said. “It is some real deal waters, and you are contending with a lot of the same things that you’re contending with in R2AK, albeit in closer proximity to rescue.”
Tiny boats without engines, powered by the wind or whatever the paddler ate for breakfast that morning means there are unique challenges throughout the two-week odyssey.
One unique difficulty with the race is the close proximity to shipping lines and the massive container ships that crisscross the Puget Sound on a nearly by-the-minute basis, Wiegel said.
Competitors can count on drastic shifts in tides, tough currents (one route offers passage through Deception Pass, a strait famous for its ferocious currents) and inclement weather even in the summer.
“This is not an entry-level event,” Wiegel said.
Even with the dangerous challenges -- or perhaps because of them -- the event attracts mariners from not only across the Pacific Northwest, but from across the country and the world. Every sailor, paddler, kayaker or homemade watercraft captain competes for a reason, Wiegel said.
“We’re getting people who are coming to promote a cause, we are getting people who are coming to form tighter bonds with their families and friends, we’re getting people who are old friends of the adventure races at Northwest Maritime, people who have done Race to Alaska and Seventy48 and are gunning to complete the triple crown,” Wiegel said. “We’re getting all sorts, even people with wild schemes and ideas who are building boats in their backyards out of whatever found material they can get.”
All watercrafts, and the crews who man them, must undergo rigorous testing to be approved for racing – even homemade boats. Northwest Maritime has put on countless maritime races throughout the years and hopes to provide another memorable experience when WA360 sets sail this summer.
“Our whole aim is to create transformational maritime experiences,” Wiegel said. “We do that through getting young people in the water early. We have programs for kids as young as six and we go all the way up to adult programs, engaging those in their 70s. We offer a lifetime of program opportunities and experiences.”
Wiegel said WA360 can get competitive, but the camaraderie shared by boaters overcoming two weeks of challenges brings people together and creates shared joy like nothing else.
“It’s hard times out there, to put it lightly,” Wiegel said. “The way to move through hard times is through defiance, and the act of defiance right now is to bring joy into the world. That’s what the race is ultimately doing. Coming together, being joyful together, doing something real and feeling a sense of accomplishment together, whether you’re on the boat or not, you get to take part in that.”
Applications close on May 1, and so far roughly 45 teams have sent in their applications. There is no hard cap on the number of teams that can join, Wiegel said. To apply, visit WA360.org.
To learn more about Northwest Maritime, sign up for a class or to donate and support its efforts to get folks out on the beautiful waters of the Salish Sea, visit nwmaritime.org. X
