The Three Peaks Yacht Race
Mach5 – Out for Adventure
Rob Howard / 07.06.2014
I’ve now caught up with the mysterious Mach 5 team from Switzerland now and they are a team who mostly have a mountain climbing and paragliding background - in fact the reason we knew nothing about them before they arrived was “we were up in the mountains”.
The motivator behind the team is Thomas Thevrillat and he happened to meet Frenchman Christian Mach, who lives in Holyhead and sails. In fact they were climbing the Matterhorn together and were in a mountain hut and Mach said, “When I mentioned sailing his eyes lit up and after finding out about the 3 Peaks Yacht Race he had to come.”
Mach has lived in Holyhead for 20 years, so he knows the sailing conditions in the early stages of the race well and now he has a team of 4 adventure loving friends to guide through the race ... and none of them have done any sailing at all!
“Christian is very experienced but has not raced the event before,” said Thevrillat, “so the plan is simple. He is in charge of all things at sea and getting us there, Paul is our real runner, the others are paragliders and I am also a psychologist – so will double as the team shrink.”
“We are paragliders and mountaineers who have come to learn about sailing on a cool adventure where we are out in nature. We sailed here from Holyhead – it’s a bit different from the Alps and Switzerland, but we can handle the boat a little bit and are really looking forward to the race. Our aim is to the get the finish for the party and have a sporty holiday!
“It is a different adventure for us,” he said. “Normally we are climbing big walls and working as guides, so we know how to keep going when things get tough. Paul (Guschlbauer) is a Red Bull sponsored athlete and completed the Red Bull X-Alps twice, and I have supported the X-Alps winner Christian Maurer several times. (Christian would have come if he were not racing the national championships this weekend.)
“Paul will run all 3 peaks and we’ll send someone different with him each time to try and complete the Tilman Trophy. Our plan is to drink Red Bull, eat Pasta, and drink coffee (we have a coffee machine with us). We are going to have fun.”
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