The PowerBar Three Peaks Yacht Race
Mountain Kings
Rob Howard / 29.06.2011
The pair have been quickest on all the mountains and tonight they began the mountain run in 8th place, but overtook 3 other pairs to move up 5th with a time of 2 hours 59 minutes. A weary Ridgeway said, "I hate that descent. I run it every year in the Ben Nevis race and it never gets any better!" The team were very happy with their 5th place, considering their boat is 21 years old and the competition they were up against. Owner Geoff West told me the boat had done the race 7 times (and won it twice), and looking at the fleet gathered in the basin added; "The first time we raced it was one of the biggest and fastest yachts in the race ... but times have changed!"
The other team to move up several place on the night were adidas TERREX, whose runners Adam Marcinowicz and Gareth Craft put in a time of 3 hours 23 minutes, moving their team up to 9th. Skipper Keith Mander said they were well placed to the Mull of Kintyre, but then found no wind and frustratingly watched the rest of the fleet catch up with them. "Coming into the final stage of the race we were so bunched up it was like the race had started yesterday," he said, "we were racing hard all the way from there." Marcinowcz said, "This is such a great race and there are so many variables and sailors and runners get on so well ... they don't understand each other, but they enjoy each other's company!"
Bill Tipper, the skipper from Satisfaction looked a little dazed after his run up Ben Nevis and no wonder as he'd run it in 3 hours 58 minutes, one of the faster times of the night, pushing his team up to 11th overall. Another sterling performance by a sailor was put in by Pete Robinson of GFT. He'd joined the team as a last minute crew member, then had to complete the longest land stage to Scafell Pike after one of the teams runners pulled out. From there the 4 person team, pressed on, gaining many places on the final sail, and Robinson made the Ben Nevis climb with Saul Lovett, helping the team to finish an amazing 12th.
The closest race of the night was between the runners from Moby J and Madam Wen, who raced back from the foot of the mountain and finished just a minute apart after more than 4 days of racing. It was the young Moby J runners, brothers Charles and Ed Brent who just managed to stay ahead of the chasing pair, who said they'd given their all and left nothing on the mountain.
As the runners finished into the night and the early morning a few more boats were coming in, so there will be several pairs of runners on Ben Nevis in the few hours of darkness and some finishers in the early daylight hours of tomorrow.
SleepMonsters
