Southern Traverse
Lythgoe Finish 3rd after Unlucky Break
Rob / 22.11.2002
During the night a race jury convened to try and make the situation surrounding the dark zone on the final paddle fairer to all concerned. This was largely at the insistence of one of the Seagate.com support crew and the final outcome was an agreement that based on times at CP30 the time differences would be divided by four and teams set off in a stagger. However, one of the teams affected, Sportzhub.com, failed to arrive at the last transition area after getting lost at the end of the previous mountain bike stage. They had been taking very little sleep, and in the end paid the price.
So Lythgoe were the first to leave, now in second place, followed by the only other team to make the TA, ‘Kathmandu’. This at least gave Lythgoe a chance to hold onto their position even if their advantage was severely reduced, but as they picked a way down the many channels of the fast flowing, braided river they ran into a potentially dangerous situation.
Phil Davies explained what happened, “Rounding a bend the current carried Nicky and Jim’s boat into some overhanging willow branches, which caught and pinned them. They started to go under and then we hit them and capsized so we were all caught up against the branches. Somehow we came free when Nick’s paddle snapped and Andrew managed to grab the two halves as we came ashore.�
Nicky described it as “one of those horrible, scary moments� and though it shook the team up they recovered well, whittling a piece of wood to jam between the 2 halves of the paddle so they could go on. While this was happening Kathmandu passed them but Lythgoe were not going to take any more risks by racing hard to chase them, not after what had just happened. As it turned out though they very nearly did get second place back. Kathmandu missed their way and came to the finish line overland carrying their kayaks – much to the surprise of everyone watching the river for their arrival - arriving just a few minutes before Lythgoe.
“We’re quite happy with the result,� said Nicky. “We’re not that competition driven these days and you’ve got to be happy with a good position. Just finishing laid some of the ghosts of last year and it was a great course. The paddling was fun and not as bad as we thought and the full moon over Fishtail Mountain was spectacular.�
Jim added, “There is no point in saying ‘What if’ as there are so many possibilities. We did get lost for 2 hours in the mountains and know that if everything works out we could win, but really you are competing against the course, not the other teams. If you finish the course and enjoy it anything else is a bonus. This year it was certainly wild country and a great adventure.� How much of the country he remembers is doubtful though as the SleepMonsters had got to him and according to his sister “Jim thought we were in Thailand a lot of the time!�
SleepMonsters
