ITERA Expedition Race

SWECO Lead in a Close Race

Rob Howard / 15.08.2022

When teams left Castle Duart for the second sea paddle of the race, they were paddling up the Sound of Mull to Lochaline, and their experiences of the paddle varied. The morning paddlers had a high tide to leave on, the better wind and tide conditions, and on arrival they paddled right up to the exit point. Some later departures found the tide was out so they had to wade across the mud to get going, and the same on arrival, and in between they faced the tide against them and a headwind!  

Rootstock Racing perhaps had the worst of it and Brent Freedland said, "That got interesting for the last hour!"  Mark Lattanzi added, "We had to stop for a few minutes as we were not making progress. We had some food and struck out again with more energy."  When they arrived in transition at the village hall in Lochaline the Swedish Fortstatt Adventure Team were already there, and Susanne Korsvoll was wrapped in a space blanket. She was very cold by the end of the paddle and was trying to warm up again.

There was news of a course change at this transition. Teams were told they would have be held at TA 4-5 at Strontian for a sleep stop of 3-6 hours as the fast pace meant the kayaks could not be put into place at TA5-6 at Polloch. (This is a remote transition and the boats are being towed down Loch Shiel to get them into place.)  This affects the short course teams as well, as they can't leave until the first full course team has. It's an unavoidable change of plan, but all of the teams will get a sleep stop in the camping field there. On arrival it was confirmed it would be 6 hour stop.

Between Lochaline and Strontian came the first mtb stage of the race, and once again there were choices to be made as teams could drop checkpoints or short course on a direct route along the road from TA to TA. This was still a big climb and a fantastic ride on an all but empty road. The full course teams got to ride around the coast in some more stunning scenery, finishing with a cross country route over to the shore of Loch Sunart, before the final ride into Strontian. For the most part the weather was good, but by evening there were some big localised downpours, one hitting the camp at Strontian.

The first teams will set off again from Strontian at 23.38 and SWECO should be the first to go. Their lead is only 40 minutes and less than 2 hours separate the top 5 teams!  Moving into the second night of the race all of teams that started are still out racing on the course.