Coming, Going and Missing in Sierpe

Rob Howard / 05.12.2013

Transition 4 at Sierpe was busy through the night as more teams came in from the paddle through the Mangrove swamps.  There were a few changes of position as a result of the decisions teams made on that mammoth stage, principally Thule Adventure getting the jump on Seagate and turning a 3 hour deficit into a 2 hour advantage.  Seagate were said to be very frustrated as they made some navigation errors and then lost the tide, after which it was almost impossible to make progress.

Other teams had their troubles too. The Jeep Adventure Team tied their boats up to sleep then when they woke up paddled in the wrong direction for 90 minutes before realising their mistake!  Dark Horses said they too tied up to sleep. They were afloat when they did so, but woke up on a big mud bank as the tide had gone out, and they had a tough time getting out of the mud. 

Dave Darby said they’d “made a tactical choice” to miss several of the CP’s in the swamp and gone directly to the transition. “We wanted to stay in the race, and there is nothing to cut after this. We knew if we went for all the controls we’d never make it, so it was an easy choice to make.” He added that CP19 was underwater when they got to it.

Last night the adidas TERREX team from the UK struggled to get into transition against the tide and stopped at a riverside restaurant to get some drinks. They were debating whether to try a portage, but with a trolley broken were unsure what to do. They’d lost 6 hours looking for one checkpoint, slipping down a few places in the ranking as result. It could have been worse AXA adidas have been out in the mangroves for a very, very long time now, two nights on the paddle, and must be in some difficulty.  No one has heard anything from them.

It was an amazing paddling stage and some racers did enjoy some parts of it. Aaron Prince of Silva Haglofs said, “It was amazing out there paddling down the channels, and at high tide you could go anywhere. Really beautiful.”

I asked if the team had any problem reaching up to the CP flags in the trees at low tide and he said no they were tall enough!  I’m not so sure about of the Costa Rican teams though – they are not so tall!

Sadly I was talking to him after his team pulled out. Josefina Wikberg fell from her bike and hurt her arm on the steep and very rough road up to the Superman zip line.  She went down the zip line, but wasn’t able to grip the handlebars to continue the ride and the team had to pull out. They spent the night at the zip line and were brought back to TA4 the next morning.  It was a real disappointment as the team had been 3^rd at the time and were chasing Seagate.

At the moment there is no news of what is likely to happen to the slower teams who still have a long way to go on the paddle. This is a very long race and teams have a lot of time in which to complete the distance, but it is likely that those at the very, very back will be asked to miss a stage, rest, and continue at some point.

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