2004 Adventure Racing World Championship, hosted by Raid the North Extreme
The Middle of the Pack
Susan McKenzie / 05.08.2004
The French team EADS arrived at CP13, the put-in for the dory section just ahead of the American team ATP. They arrived tired and slightly beat up from the rough overnight biking section.
“It was an awful biking section, very tough, full of hills and holes and brush. I fell many times, and smashed my elbow. But, you know, this is what you get with this kind of work.�
“Work?� scoffed Laurence Maurin. “This is not a job: this is recreation.�
EADS, the team that won last year’s Raid the North Extreme, is not in contention this year. “This has been a very fast race,� says Bruno Rey. “We are better at expedition races that are slower.
EADS was the last team able to leave for the dory row when it was ready. Logistical problems resulted in a dory shortage, and ATP was told it would have to wait until the dories were brought back to CP13, perhaps three or four hours hence. The clock would be stopped the moment they were ready to leave the CP, and that time would be deducted from the final finish time.
But EADS came close to staying at the CP and keeping ATP company: when Cyril Margaritis went to check out the dory, he found an oar rope missing, and one oar split in two and held together with duct tape.
“We are not going to go out to sea in a boat like that,� Margaritis said.
Eventually a new oar was found, everything was fixed and the team hit the water, ready to row across to Stephenville.
The dory problem was not easily solved, as ATP and Brazil’s Salomon Mitsubishi Quasar Lontra can attest. They had to sit at the CP for hours waiting for the boats to show up, always hoping that both the tides and the weather would stay favourable.
It did not. In fact, the weather worsened and many teams were forced to get back on their bikes and cycle the section. When the weather clears, the dory section (as well as the ascent) should re-open.
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