Patagonia Expedition Race

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Russian Rescue - Stick to the Rules!

Jacqueline Windh / 15.02.2005

The Russians gave us all a scare on the first day of the race. As winds picked up to 50 knots (100 km/h), the race organizers moved into rescue mode. Ultima Esperanza Sound is a long and narrow fiord laced with cliffs. When the Patagonian wind howls, it funnels down the sound.

And howl it did yesterday. By late afternoon, the support zodiac was roaring up and down the sound – 30 km each way to the rivermouth – and telling the paddlers that they must return to shore. A Chilean navy patroller was also serving as support, and picked up the American team Fukawi: Colleen Ihnken and Rob Harsh had capsized, and although they managed to re-enter the kayak, they weren’t able to get the water out of the cockpits and were rapidly becoming hypothermic.

The zodiac collected the Russian kayak that was on shore, with Artem Rostostsev and Andrey Ivanov, and brought them back to PC3. We counted up who was accounted for – who had been picked up and who we knew were safely on shore – and we were one boat short. The other Russian pair was missing.

PER’s kayak co-ordinator Rodrigo Gómez had already combed the whole shoreline around where Artem and Andrey had been picked up by zodiac. Even in those conditions, a yellow plastic double kayak on shore would have been easy to see. They were not there.

I am not a racer, but I am a sea-kayaker, and I worked with the PER organizers before the race to help set up the kayak safety standards. I met with Artem, and got from him all of the information that I could: where had he last seen them, at what time, how had they got separated, and what was the wind like at that moment ... trying to work out where the wind would have taken them.

Artem and Andrey had been paddling ahead, in the centre of the fiord. When they turned around, Mischa and Sascha were no longer behind them. I asked how long it had been since they had seen them, and they said between 5 and 10 minutes. See All Event Posts