Rite of Passage - A Race to Alaska Documentary

[@slowstartfast2162]

A+ boat build. A+ film making. A+ character. The act of building everything from scratch (aluminum in the home of the Wooden Boat Center) and documenting it all ----- by the end of the race -- your lives were changed == and I think this documentary is so good it may in fact have the same effect on many viewers.

[@henryveitenhans3687]

We’re die hard wood boat guys, but for the purposes of the race, aluminum allowed us to chew up logs and run into rocks without any headaches, which as seen in this year’s race is a big advantage!

[@billhayward1585]

''If you don't have any Hope they can't take it away from you''. Your adventure was the BEST thing I've seen in a long time!

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Thats one of our favorite quotes too 😂

[@robertenglund89]

OMG so glad I found this film! Hilarious and weirdly inspiring!

[@jmkenny]

The burial at sea of the camp stove was hilarious 😂

[@henryveitenhans3687]

We like to think we’re pretty funny

[@brentoneel4094]

Love this video. I’m watching it a second time to get psyched up for r2ak 2024!

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Awesome! Good luck to all the racers this year!

[@harborhobo]

Yours is the best story ever to come out of the R2AK, Henry. With the 2023 R2AK starting this week, it’s time to watch it again. “Hi” to your Dad, my high school classmate.

[@henryveitenhans3687]

We like to tell ourselves it's the best story too, thanks for humoring us! I'll give your best to the old man!

[@ElSantoLuchador]

I tracked down Johnny Horton's "North to Alaska" and it opened up memories from my childhood. It wasn't until I heard it again that it all came back. My dad used to play this song all the time when I was a kid. He always wanted to take the trip up north. Time passed. He got old. Last ditch effort was a ticket on the Alaska Ferry from Seattle but he never made it. I'm now gaining inspiration because I feel it's my job to finish what he started. Thanks for the video.

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Thanks for sharing the similar connection with your dad and Johnny Horton! Very cool, and absolutely you should travel the inside passage. It’s beyond beautiful!

[@MrBcummings8521]

If he was cremated would be awesome for him to go with you. My daughter has my moms ashes aswell as a few of us. I plan on going around the world or at least to the med and canals of france. My mom always wanted to go to paris with my daughter. Im going to fly them out when i get there and let her sail from north france to the med she wont do open ocean haha.

[@behonestwithyourself3718]

Having six guys work together in that small of a boat in those conditions is the most impressive thing about this. Good job guys. Inspiring stuff. Thanks for posting this!!

[@thecasualmountainbiker]

I watched Go Fast, Go North and Race to Alaska. Both are very good but your film got me the most stoked! Good story telling and some badass seamanship! Thanks for sharing your story. Fair winds

[@henryveitenhans3687]

North2Alaska brings MAXIMUM STOKE always 🔥

[@ctndiaye1]

Great film.

[@sUASNews]

What a heart warming tale to start my work day, love it. Sat at my desk half watching.

[@stevenwarner7348]

～✨🌟🌸 Thank you all for sharing your journey ! 🌸🌟✨～. Kudos to the producer(s) / editor(s) ~ side interviews etc. Wow. ～ ✨🌟🌸 ‼️ 🌸🌟✨～

[@patrickryan6277]

i wish between commentary that you could have shown that stops on a map so we could follow along the hopelessness journey of your masochistic sailing adventure. Good show and congratz!

[@henryveitenhans3687]

That's why we broke it up by day and annotated what location the day began at, I couldn't really find a graphic that was slick enough to show the route. During the proving ground portion, I used screen recordings of the race tracker but I thought that looked clunky in the edit. Thanks for the support!

[@johnstenglein9097]

What an inspring video. What great filming and accompanying commentary as the adventure unfolded. Very well done.

[@MB-hz7wm]

What a great story ~ I was in the 2018 R2AK “Team Sail Like a Girl.” It was so much less about winning that race as it was about the boat refining, crew bonding, meeting all the other racers and representing girls / women everywhere. Awesome job guys , wish I had a chance to do something like this with my dad. Great memories.

[@ElSantoLuchador]

You guys kicked ass in 2018.

[@milkrecu]

A great tale of true devotion and love. We all should learn form our adversities and choices. perhaps foolhardy choices but none the less our choices.. Power to you going forward. Once you learn these things they never leave you.

[@kayakerjer]

Great adventure brought together with great story telling and bold filmmaking. Thanks so much for sharing!

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Thank you for the kind words and for watching!

[@jrboka]

Great movie, team, history and a lot of things about motivation and superation!!!! Sorry my english, i'm Brazilian from Northest of Brazil. I woud like to have this kind os race here, but the nautical culture in Brazil are not so developed like yours, but some day a hope we will have this here, for we have Traditional races of traditional boats made for fishingmen works and live!!! Thanks for share your experience and adventure!!!!

[@billhagstotz8518]

Awesome journey!

[@ivandragomiloff2356]

Beautifully made, enjoyed it so much. From all of us here in Sacramento 😊

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Thank you for watching!

[@ivandragomiloff2356]

@@henryveitenhans3687 Will show it to your Aunt this week :)

[@WesleyBlom]

Super cool!! Epically inspiring! Thanks for sharing mates!

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Thank you for watching!

[@hoffyboy]

Amazing! You guys are so huge in a great way! Super inspirational and Way to go Dad for pushing those boys. A memory for a lifetime!

[@redeyedmongoose2963]

There is no bilge pump as effective as a frightened individual with a 20 L bucket

[@ianlandstine2481]

F*CK YEEEEAAAAAAHHHH BOIIISSS!!! That shirtless finish is the SHEEEEEEEEEETTTTTT LEDGE ENDS

[@gkwindrifter]

Followed the whole adventure. Wow!! What a adventure

[@johngriffiths118]

Brilliant , U Tube at its best . Great trip guys

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@brentoneel4094]

Wonderful, inspiring! I loved all of the Doors references.

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Channeling our own Apocalypse Now/Hearts of Darkness adventure 😉

[@blueocean2510]

Great race, great crew and sail boat. # HeroesAtSea.

[@squarerigapprentice]

This is nothing short of badass. You guys are an inspiring team. Love your boat, as I love traditional small craft, she rows and sails beautifully! You guys are an inspiring team. Lots of guts, lots of glory! The race to Alaska has really started creeping into my mind this year. My partner and I are getting our cruiser ready for an offshore voyage in 5-6 years, but I am seriously tempted to yank my diesel out and have a crack at this race. It would be a good proving ground.

[@chrisstockman904]

Great film and story telling, wonderful adventure.

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Thanks for watching and the high praise! 🙏🏼

[@OutnBacker]

Makes me think about Capt. Bligh's un-matched voyage of 3500 miles with 18 men aboard HMS Bounty's open launch. When the boys tell us that the beginning and the end were the same, I wonder how bad it got for those British crewmen in the middle of the Timor Sea. These guys have done something they will always remember, and will likely benefit from all their lives.

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Capt. Bligh was a great inspiration to me!

[@OutnBacker]

@@henryveitenhans3687 me, too.

[@kdhwjudson]

One of the most awesome sailing and adventure films I’ve seen. Well done!!

[@thekenpearce]

Loved the film! Thanks for making it and sharing it. Great footage, great sound and music, tells a fine story of perseverance!

[@modernmind]

Just a great, great, thoroughly well put together documentary. Excellent!

[@tedfinkenauer42]

Damn, I’ve done some crazy sailing, but nothing like that. Follow along Google maps the locations they post. Really gives you a better idea of what they needed to cross. Especially open water. You have a third trip in ya?

[@henryveitenhans3687]

I know we’ll all meet again! Don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again Some sunny day! Personally I’d love to do the R2AK again, just don’t know when I’ll have a free 3 weeks in June to do it. Until then the Johnny Horton waits on the beach, like a siren call!

[@diannehammons1861]

Fascinating, beautifully made film, enjoy the journey!

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Thank you for the kind words and for watching! Glad we get to share the experience!

[@flamingmoe1805]

Absolutely outstanding. Good job lads

[@noahrichards3152]

Well done fellas

[@vipermadman]

Awesome film! Thanks for sharing!

[@deanpopil6685]

love the groundline sheets and halyards.

[@gordonthomasclayton]

No fun in wind over tide off Cape Mudge. Lots of folks have met their end there. You guys look and speak like you’ve seen some shit. In the best possible way. Absolutely ratchet. The film itself is a monumental effort. Loved every minute.

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Yeah wind over tide between Lazzo and Mudge was the first big punch in the face haha! Thanks for watching!

[@petermcminn9508]

Super work!

[@palmermonsen9098]

Gorgeous boat

[@crazycool340]

Super baddass my guy. Well done. Inspiring

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Thanks for watching brother!

[@simontrevaskis3699]

The vikings would be proud of you looking down from Valhalla!

[@gordonipock9385]

Thank-you for sharing your remarkable experience. I enjoyed watching it. BTW. I have "Johnny Horton's Greatest Hits," and "North to Alaska" is the best song on it. You have good tastes in music.

[@henryveitenhans3687]

Thanks for watching! We also love Johnny Horton, did you know he did some commercial fishing in his life as well?

[@gordonipock9385]

I recall reading he did a number of kinds of labor jobs as a young man before he got his career going in the music business. I didn't remember the details, though. Question: Does your boat have a fixed keel, a swing keel, or something else.

[@henryveitenhans3687]

@@gordonipock9385 Sharpies are flat bottom, and typically have a drop in dagger board. Our original dagger was 4 feet the first year but we extended it to 5.5 feet in 2019 to get it to point and track better.

[@gordonipock9385]

Thanks for explaining that. I sail high performance dinghies, so I am familiar with dagger boards.

[@bobcornwell403]

I'm interested in the boat. How long is it? 30 ft? 35 ft?. Is it about 7 ft wide?

[@henryveitenhans3687]

She’s 25’ long, 6’ wide at her beamiest.

[@bobcornwell403]

Thank you.

[@protyusgames4741]

Some races can be won, by being the first to set an anchor.

[@babybluesbyphilbolger]

Did you really just dump your old stove into the ocean?

[@kennethfrazee2540]

Lol staggering around Victoria completely land sick, we used to leave Astoria and skip Washington altogether

[@asthmarap3925]

That Tommy guy is good looking af

[@lordraven1991]

I hope nobody takes this as a bashing, or as me being some form of keyboard warrior talking out of my @$$. When you decide to do something like this, you have to set it in your mind that you want to do this more than anything else in your life. I have watched too many video documentaries by people who chose this sort of lifestyle, only for them to break down completely when things stop being perfect. I have been set on fire from molten metal raining down on me and I can't move because it could hurt or kill the guys I'm working with, I have been nearly buried alive and was thrown a shovel and left to my own devises, hypothermic to the point that 13-degree F didn't feel cold anymore (I actually said I felt like I was warming up, and it took five hours in front of a heater on high to feel my fingers again), been so dehydrated and heat exhausted I couldn't even hold the bottle of water I needed to drink to save my life, been crushed, ran over, electrocuted, burned, and scalded. All from a 5-6 (that's A.M.-P.M.) paying job that I had to work 7 days a week, because other people were depending on me to go out and make that money. I watch other people that get to do the things I can only dream about, would give anything to go do myself, and when things aren't going how they planned they want to give up. There is no point planning for the future because it changes by the second, something I tell myself and everyone around me every day. You meet life head on and do what needs to be done in that moment. If you want to go sailing 700+ mile into freezing cold, then that is you only focus in life is to do it. You want to start working at a new job then that job becomes your life when you clock in, nothing else matters but what you are expected to do at that job. I have watched a family that has chosen to live aboard their huge catamaran full time and sail around the world, but if they are at dock for more than a day, they start to get depressed and whine about it. But when they get out into the ocean to cross it, they start crying about not being on land only one day out of harbor. One week in and they are all thinking about going back to living on land again because they just don't want to be on the boat anymore. They hate being stuck at port, but then they hate being away from port even more. If this video is any indication, it is that anything can be done so long as you are committed to doing it.

[@henryveitenhans3687]

As long as you don't consider breaking an option, you CAN and WILL persevere. People drop out of the R2AK for all kinds of reasons, and they justify their decisions to do so with various rational considerations. Logs busting their boat, busting their daggerboards, hypothermia and exposure getting to be too much, etc. Part of preventing such situations is preparation, but we, a team that was in many ways woefully underprepared the first time- finished. Partially this is luck, but a big part of it is sheer will-power. The will to finish. The will to accomplish what you set out to do. Quitting was never an option for us. Why rationalize accepting a DNC when choosing to do this adventure race in itself is a highly irrational decision? Just get it done. Any means necessary!