Advice prepping an SC27 for Race to Alaska

[Michael Dougherty]

Hi everyone - I'm new to this forum. I recently helped my 2 kids and 2 other high school kids here in Seattle buy an SC27 in which they'll do the Race to Alaska. They are team "Rite of Passage", the youngest team ever to enter R2AK, which as their dad I find equal parts awesome and scary :)

The boat is a 1988 Alar-built SC27, formerly Shazam, that's raced a lot in the PacNW and has done R2AK once already. The hull & deck are sound, and we just had the rig inspected and it's solid.

My question for this group: what should we be worried about / improve for this race? I understand older SC27 rudders can fail, so the team will likely bring a spare or some form of e-rudder.

What about keel bolts? I searched but haven't read about issues there, is that something we should worry about?

Other common SC27 failure modes we should know about? 

Or 'Before you take an SC27 on a long crazy race, fix/replace XYZ' items that should be on our list? 

I'm new to the SC27 so wondering what gotchas this boat may have in store. 

Thank you!

Michael

[Melanie Lyons]

Hey Michael - 

I'm bringing back this old convo on emergency rudders and keel bolts. Did you ever implement an emergency rudder system, I'm curious to learn more about your findings. We're doing R2AK this year on Wild Card, hull #55, formely Team Wild Card 2018 and Team Sail Like A Mother 2024.

Any other boat prep tips you care to share? Do you remember what their ground tackle set up was?

cheers,

Melanie

Team Salish Seasters, R2AK 2026

[jasmine kostraba]

Hi Melanie,  

I haven’t done R2AK but I am in the process of designing/building an E-Rudder for offshore applications so if you would like me to send you any of my current research and/or information please reach out to me and I’ll email  you what i have

Best

Jasmine

Babushka  #138

Theprettiestg...@gmail.com

On Feb 27, 2026, at 6:01 PM, Melanie Lyons <melconn...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey Michael - 

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[Melanie Lyons]

Hi Jasmine - 

Thank you so much for the offer -- I would love to learn more about what design and set up. melconn...@gmail.com

-Melanie, #55