Eco-Challenge 2000
A personal account of Eco-Challenge 2000.
Steve Duffy / 16.02.2002
After days of skills testing, food packing, equipment selection and eating horrendous amounts of food, we\'re finally going to start. Standing in knee deep water with our Perahu outrigger canoes loaded with kit, we nervously wait for Mark Burnett to fire the starting pistol so we can set sail. This stage is more of a prologue than a genuine start, and we\'ve been told it should only take us about 3 hours to make the island which will be our home for the night. Just when the waiting is becoming unbearable, the gun goes off. We push off, jump into our boat and start paddling.
Ten minutes in, we decide to unfurl the sail; no sooner have we done so than an American team broadside us, but neither boat appears to take any damage. As we skim across shallow reefs and into deeper waters, we see that a couple of teams behind have capsized. The wind picks up as we near our island, and a few kms out we start to take in a little water; experienced sailors would have looked at the chop and taken the sail in. We are not experienced sailors. Whilst bailing, a wave breaks over the back of the boat and all of a sudden we\'re in the water with our Perahu turning upside down.
Steve, Keith and Naomi hold onto the boat and gear (which we\'d foolishly left lose in the boat, rather than tying it all down) whilst I swim around rounding up strays. A rescue boat comes in for a closer look and offers help but we politely decline, as if we accept help our race is over. PFD’s (personal floatation devices) on and kit rounded up, we attempt to swim the boat the 5k or so into shore. The tide is against us and although no-one says so, we all know it\'s a lost cause. Fortunately, word comes down that accepting help on the prologue does not lead to disqualification, so after 45 minutes in the water we get taken in, sans boat.
We arrive to find that 10 other boats capsized, so we don\'t feel too bad. Then our boat gets towed in - minus an outrigger and mast base. Panic time. We find a local guy who helps fix the outrigger for a small fee, but we\'re told there\'s no way to sort the mast. As we prepare to sleep on the beach, fellow Brit and captain of Team Targus Tim Costello comes over and says, \"At least you used up all your bad luck on day one.�
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