The Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge
A Long Time at Sea
Rob Howard / 14.12.2008
The teams spent a peaceful, long and memorable night on Kurkum Island – the leaders were there for 15 hours after yesterday’s shortened course but it was a pleasant place to be. The island was a horseshoe shape with beautiful beaches, the weather was fine, the sunset was superb and before long the full moon had risen to add its light to those of the team camp fires. The race had even managed to get two toilet blocks onto the island and as Duncan Grant of Salomon Crested Butte said, “we are not exactly roughing it!� He added, “It was nice to get away from all the hullabaloo of the race though.�
The restart was at 6.00 and it was still quite dark when the leaders left at minute intervals, then the organisers let the rest follow on a day when the wind had mercifully dropped.
Conditions were good except for the fact the wind direction and sails were of no help – when it was badly needed on such a long stage.
The teams took varying routes on the long paddle across open water to CP2. Mike Tobin of Nike said, “Everyone just scattered, and as we approached the checkpoint we came back together again!�
First to reach the finish, after more than 8 hours paddling were Team NZ who had put in a great effort to make time on the leaders Desert Islands. They succeeded – finishing 6 minutes ahead of them – which might not seem much on an 8 hour paddle, but is significant in such a close race.
Desert Islands came in 4thbut just managed to hang onto their overall lead by 2 minutes. Jarad Kohlar came ashore looking shaky and his first words were, “Where’s the water?� Jay Henry was happy with the stage saying, “We just wanted to survive that as a team without too much damage and we did. You have to be quite conservative on such a long stage, then pushing towards the end is hard.�
Second on the stage and up to 3rd overall were ADCO AROC of Australia and behind them Wilsa Helly Hansen had their best stage so far and moved up to 4th overall. By now it was clear Nike were going to lose significant time on the paddle and they slipped to 10th overall after today, an unfamiliar position for them.
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