It wouldn't be just a good race, or even a grand race. It would be, said Pacific Motor Boat magazine, "easily the greatest motor-boat racing event in all boatdom."

And why not? When 10 pleasure-boat skippers motored 1,000 miles from Olympia to Juneau, Alaska, in 1928, they braved currents, tides, winds and a largely unsettled frontier to inaugurate the "Capital to Capital" derby, the longest motor-boat contest ever run on the American continent.

Tomorrow morning, six skippers will continue the tradition, pointing their bows toward Juneau in the first running of the contest since 1999.

"It's a phenomenal event that everyone should be aware of," said skipper Brian Carlson, 36, a social worker on Whidbey Island. "We are a maritime community and everything in our region is based on our relationship with the water."

Decades before ferries plied the waters between Washington and Alaska, before the Northwest coast spawned a thriving cruise industry, and 31 years before Alaska was even a state, that original "band of hardy yachtsmen" navigated a labyrinth of channels, sounds and fjords — including a spot Captain George Vancouver called "one of the vilest stretches of water in the world."

In doing so, they strengthened ties between Washington and Alaska, created a tradition that has lived on as the "Alaska 1000," and helped call attention to the rugged beauty of the Inside Passage, where mountains rise straight out of the water and salmon practically leap onto decks.

Carlson's enthusiasm stems partly from the fact that although he's the youngest skipper in the event, he's piloting the oldest boat. The Bolinder, built in Ballard in 1928, competed in the original race and took top honors in 1929.

Despite the event's historic significance, this year's small fleet may not just be reviving a piece of history but laying it to rest. Organizers are calling this "The Last Alaska 1000."

"It's a big time commitment. Four weeks just to get up there," said race coordinator Don Larson, 61, of Gig Harbor, Pierce County. He's leaving his six Novus windshield-repair franchises with his two sons and daughter while he and his wife-and-navigator, Carolie, make the trip on their 47-foot fiberglass trawler, Tewasi.

Through much of the last century, the contest was held every other year, although there were gaps during the Great Depression and World War II.

After unsuccessful attempts to recruit enough boats in 2001 and 2003, the sponsoring International Power Boat Association, of which Larson is vice-commodore, decided to hold the event this year no matter how few boats entered, and then pull the plug.

Three Washington skippers — Carlson, Larson and Jack Hensley, a retired weapons-system tester from Bremerton — will join two British Columbia boaters and one from California, motoring more than 1,280 miles from Nanaimo, B.C., to Sitka and Juneau in 22 competitive legs.

A far different beast

Given the logistics involved, the more remarkable fact is not that the race may be dying out, but that it was ever held in the first place.

"Back in the 1920s, the Inside Passage was a far different beast than it is today," Carlson said.

Channels weren't as well-marked, information on tides and currents wasn't as available, boats weren't equipped with radar and there were a precious few places a mariner could get help.

Hazards included whirlpool-generating Ripple Rock in British Columbia's Seymour Narrows, blamed for taking more than 100 lives and sinking or damaging 120 vessels before the Canadian government blasted it to bits in 1958 in the world's largest non-nuclear peacetime explosion.

Hensley, 68, tips his cap to the early-day adventurers.

"They were going around the clock," said Hensley, skipper of the 42-foot Jubilee. "We only race in the daylight hours, and just a small portion of each day."

But is the Alaska 1000 really a "race"? Although organizers and entrants use the term, this never has been a contest of speed. If it were, trophies could be handed out ahead of time to the owners who could afford the fastest boats. Instead, this is a "predicted-log contest," in which skippers try to calculate how long it will take them to cover a predetermined course at a given engine speed, taking into account their boats' performance and the tides, currents and weather they'll encounter.

All timepieces aboard, including wristwatches, are covered or hidden, along with any instruments that measure speed or distance.

These seagoing boats are steady, not speedy. Most cruise between 7 and 10 knots, about half the speed of a Washington State ferry.

"The race was on"

It took a couple of gutsy Olympia entrepreneurs, Adolph Schmidt and John Pierce, and an ambitious Olympia Yacht Club to help generate the celebration of June 26, 1928, as the original field lined up for the start.

"Olympia's thousands, lining the shores and crowding the docks ... broke into a parting cry ... quickly drowned in the sound of sirens and the whistles of the town," reported Pacific Motor Boat magazine. "The race was on."

In a sense, the event was a coming-out party for Olympia itself, and The Seattle Daily Times praised the capital city of 14,500 for its airport, parks and 24 miles of paved roads.

Barely four days after the start, the first boats arrived in Juneau. The 37-foot Dell, skippered by Pierce, took the overall prize, with an adjusted time just 1 minute and 48 seconds off its captain's prediction. Delighted by the event's success, Dr. E.A. Rich, president of the International Alaskan Cruising Club, called for heightened festivities in subsequent years.

"We, upon the yachts, must make more of a show and spectacle for the communities we visit," Rich wrote. "We must decorate, we must liberate day-light fireworks, we must let loose some bombs."

Over the years, the starting point was moved north to make it easier for Canadian boats to enter. And the race has gradually taken on a more relaxed pace.

Instead of making a prediction for the overall length of the run, entrants now submit estimates for individual daily segments. After each day's course is completed, evenings are free for fishing, socializing and maintenance.

Enjoying the challenge

If you can believe Hensley, who won two plaques in his first predicted-log race in 1989, poring over nautical charts and tide tables and cranking information into a computer spreadsheet can be as much fun as actually being out on the water.

"I just enjoy the challenge, trying to figure it out. When you do well, you feel pretty good, and you get a better sense of how to read the water when you're out."

His wooden 1959-vintage cabin cruiser, which has earned him more than 50 plaques, is so steady in the water it often varies less than one second per mile over a marked test course. In 1999, he won three trophies in the Alaska 1000, including second place overall.

While some skippers enjoy plush accommodations, Hensley's "pride and joy" are the two diesel Isuzu truck engines he installed himself in 1990. They more than double the mileage he got from the previous gasoline engines, making the Alaska trip possible. Even so, he'll spend about $2,500 for fuel on this trip.

The trip's social aspect includes awarding an "Iceberg Trophy" to the boater who makes the most noteworthy slip-up. Larson snagged the honor in 1999 for pulling away a moment too early from a fuel dock at Ketchikan, dropping Carolie, who was stepping onboard, into the drink.

To Carolie Larson, 61, traveling to Alaska "is like stepping back in time ... at Anan Creek you look up in the sky and count so many eagles that when you get to 1,000 you quit counting."

The Larsons purchased the Tewasi in 1994. Its comfy salon, with cushioned rocking chairs, is 15 feet across, giving the feeling of a floating living room.

It's a far cry from the 14-foot plywood runabout that Don Larson's parents let him take out when he was an 13-year-old on Vashon Island.

Boating has also been a lifestyle for Brian and Angela Carlson, who married in 1998 and lived on a sailboat in Bellingham before purchasing the Bolinder in 2000.

"This is what we do for fun," said Angela Carlson, 30. "We don't really go out to eat much or go to movies."

They knew little of the Bolinder's history until after they purchased the boat.

"We started to find these magazine and newspaper clippings just kind of stuffed in little odd corners and down in the bilge underneath the water tank. It was amazing," Brian Carlson said.

When he learned the Capital-to-Capital race was to be held again, Carlson felt the Bolinder ought to be a part of it, even though this will be his first predicted-log event. "Our goal is to let the boat do what it was born to do and just enjoy ourselves along the way."

Taking a leave from his job working with juvenile offenders in Island County, Carlson is using attention generated by the event to raise money for the county's Juvenile and Family Court Services (see www.thebolinder.com).

He's not willing to accept the idea that this is the Alaska 1000's last running, even if the organization now hosting it backs out.

"It is just a huge part of this region's development," he said. "You can't just let those things slip into obscurity."

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com