rest than others and a few at the back no rest at all.Helly Hansen UK,
were one of the teams who had little time to sleep as they had been
held up at the cave the previous afternoon and then lost one hour when
a member of a team ahead of them panic which delayed them a further
hour.
The pace of the race has been very demanding and all the support crews
are suffering as they rush from one transition to another to support
their team. Today proved to be especially difficult with a short Kayak
of 7 K followed by orienteering and then mountain biking bfoe a 56K
kayak leg down the river Rhone.
The early morning restart saw teams departing in race order and only
team 6 made a mistake when they capsized 20 seconds prior to their
start. All the teams found the orienteering difficult as the final
checkpoint was at the entrance to an old Roman aqueduct tunnel, the
GPS position brought teams onto a high rock above the tunnel when they
needed to backtrack to a hidden entrance. The leading teams were close
together with Wilsa Sport Helly Hansen running safely in 3rd place.
Gerard Fusil stated earlier this year said there would be no sailing
leg, however a favorable wind blowing down the Rhone for the Kayak leg
saw many teams trying out sails with good results. Helly Hansen UK,
had planned to use K2's on this stage but changed to sea kayak with a
sail in front and an umbrella at the back to bake best use of the
following wind. One team did use a k2 and Vaucluse Aventures Evasions
were first away using a sail followed a few minutes later by Wilsa
Sport Helly Hansen, who used sea kayaks without sails.
Various sailing devices were used from off the shelf products to
custom devices and last minute DIY using trekking poles and shirts.
LES FOUS DE BASSIN TDR BX probably had the biggest sail at 2Sq meters
a square sail mounted in the middle of their sit on top kayak, Lieues
aventures used a small spinnaker on mast forward, but it meant the
front person could not paddle.
Wilsa Sport Helly Hansen tactics proved to be the best as they
finished the stage ahead of Vaucluse Aventures Evasions with WILSA
WCUP CHTI Raid in third place. The sails had worked on the Rhone but
once the teams turned into the lesser Rhone the direction was wrong,