Day 3; Ups and Downs on the Way South

Rob Howard and Anne-Marie Dunhill / 17.09.2012

Overnight all of the teams had some sleep.  For the top 3 teams it was a mandatory 4 hour rest, but the vast majority of those chasing them were caught in the dark zone on either the raft or kayak stages (D & F).  They had a full 11 hours to camp and to sleep wherever they could.  Some were waiting to get on the water first thing in the morning, others had to stop on the riverside at 20.00.

With no time credits given for the dark zone this was most frustrating for those who were close to finishing one of the river stages, and especially for Team Silva in 4^th place.  They were less than 10 minutes from the end of kayaking stage when they had to stop and camp – so they went from being 15 minutes behind Raid Quechua to 7 hours behind them.  (Even more frustrating was the fact they had spent 30 minutes looking for an earlier checkpoint, which was not in place at the time.)

 They came off the water around 7am and moved straight out onto the following trek.  They are better rested and will be stronger for that, and it is possible another dark zone will be applied to section L on the River Var which could still reshuffle the leading pack, so Silva are not out of the chase for the top 3 positions, not with so far still to go.

Another team who just missed out were Tecnu, who were only 5 minutes from the end of the rafting when they had to stop for the night.  Had they arrived in time they could have completed the following trekking stage before camping for the night.  At least it was a dry night, but it was a chilly one for the racers, especially as they were tired and wet.

When teams resumed in the morning there was plenty of chance to get wet again.  Team Mountain Hardwear camped just above the triple step rapids and Kim Collison was thrown out of the boat for a while on the descent.  Later on in the day the other place for a swim was at Rabioux Rapids on the kayaking stage on the Durance River – this is a well known wave and though the water was not high it was fast enough and difficult enough to capsize some of the sit-on-tops.  (They all had heavy loads of kit as well, which didn’t help.)

Kyle Peter and Bob Millar of Tecnu tipped over, as did two members of Daredevils Adventure Racing, who struggled when the boat was pinned to a rock below the rapid.  Another team who had problems were Team Switzerland when one of their boats sustained a big crack in the fibre glass and took on water.  Not surprisingly it became unstable and they capsized.  Once ashore they contacted the race and were given a replacement, but this took a while and the team was separated, with the other two racers continuing down the river.

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