Rocking and Rolling in the Rapids

Rob Howard / 13.11.2014

On the morning of day 4 of the race a group of teams set off from TA6 after overnighting there due to the dark zone. Some had more sleep than others overnight, and Tecnu (USA) got the most, so perhaps it wasn’t surprising that they lead the way once teams were on the water.

We made our way to one of the rapids on the descent to watch the teams come down. Just a 2 hour dirt road drive, followed by an hour’s jungle trek ... so one of the easier places to get to on the course!  It was worth it though as the teams laid on a show for us.

First through were Tecnu (USA), and they paddling into the middle of the rapid with no hesitation. Mari Chandler and Rob Preston were quickly capsized, and Jason Popilsky fell out just as they left the white water.  Kyle Peter let out a whoop of exhilaration, and to celebrate being the only of team still in a boat!

adidas TERREX (UK) didn’t have any such problems. Sally Ozanne is an accomplished paddler and lead the way with Nick Gracie, but Kim Collison and Warren Bates were stuck for a while – they stayed in the boat however. Bates was paddling canoe style with half a kayak paddle and as more teams came down we were to see more broken paddles.

Raidlight (France) also came down trouble free, but CZE Black Hill didn’t. Their second boat hit the biggest rock in the river a full broadside and tipped paddlers and gear out into the water. It took them a while to recover and get everything back together.

Two Swedish teams were the last we saw come through and they both had a lot of problems. First were Peak Performance and instead of heading into the rapids in the main channel they tried to paddle into an area of rocks and shallows alongside. Maybe they’d been swimming in earlier rapids and wanted to try and avoid them, but it didn’t work. They were soon stranded, aground and separated, and all ended up walking and/or dragging their boats through the rocks, which took a long time ... and they capsized anyway!

SAFAT didn’t fare much better as they followed their Swedish friends and once boat was over very quickly. This may be the one which is cracked.  They’d stopped earlier with a flooded boat and had borrowed some duct tape from a safety marshal to try and patch it up, but once through the rapids were on the bank again tipping water out. And to make matters even worse both of the paddlers in this boat had broken blades, as did one of their team mates in the front boat! (Maybe carbon fibre blades are not the best here ...)

They continued on with only one good paddle and one damaged boat, and will be glad to get off the water I think, but worried about finding replacement paddles for the final stage of the race.

You can follow the race live at http://live.huairasinchi.com/

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