Adventure Racing World Championships 2015 Brazil

Enduro

Looks like they're finding big way-points (The village) and going fairly directly between them. Gonna be tough! Looking like it'll be woejus altogether in the dark.

Godzone are on a slightly different track now compared to prior teams, but still going well. Hopefully all OK there.

shotgunmcos

AT 6 was PC17 and AT 7 is PC 18. So, do they have to dib the reference point or is that just a reference to say you are half way through teh trek?

By nightfall there could be a half dozen teams on stage 7 if some don't stop at AT 6 for a kip. Great racing.

Poor Raidlight. Where are they off to? They make big leaps then big mistakes.

shotgunmcos

Ok found the answer, ref points not CPs

Update from Bash on AttackAR

The race began 4 days ago - Saturday around 13:00. Here's where everyone is:

Stage 7 Pack Rafting
1) Seagate - with a decent lead, especially considering their full night of sleep at TA6
2) Haglofs Silva
3) Columbia (45 mins back)

TA6
4) Merrell - although they didn't track at 13:30 so they could be pack rafting now
5) SAFAT - arrived recently

Stage 6 Waterlogged Trek
6) Godzone - with unranked Azimute
7) Tecnu
8) Estonians
9) Raidlight - going in circles for the past 3 hours
10) Peak Performance
11) Quasarlontra
12) East Wind
13) Kailash Brou
14) Aroeira

Also two Short Course teams - Grilo and Summit Adventure

TA5 (end of river paddle)
15) Enigma Papaventura
16) Yogaslackers

Stage 5 Paddle:
17) Terra de Gigantes
18) R'ADYS
19) Fenix Multisport
20) Issy Adventure

Also Unranked Team Canoar Acampamento

Stage 4 Trek
21) Ekos Pinheiros Selva
22) Nossa Vida
23) Uruguay Natural Ultrasports
24) 4any1 Lobo Guara
25) Rosa dos Ventos

Because TA4 was supposed to close at noon, I'm not sure of the status of the final five teams. There was talk of extending the deadlines after the leaders exceeded course estimates.

sconhome

TA4 extended until 3pm

Here's an update that I just received from Rob Howard:
"Update from AT4 on day 4 at ARWC Pantanal. The closure time here has been extended to 3pm, but its unlikely all the teams still trekking will make it.(If they don't they will have to wait for a boat downriver.)
Almost all the press are here and going nowhere as fuel is low and the plane is broken down, so don't expect much in the way of news today.

Everyone is having an adventure!!

shotgunmcos

Yeah thats now. So boat pick up to drop them down to TA5. Will the pick up anyone else on the way I wonder?

Haglof look to be about 9km or 3-4hrs behind Seagate. Thats a lot closer than 24 hours ago! Although Seagate must be fresher.

Looks like Haglofs and Columbia both heading for the same village Seagate did. I wonder how much wading vs paddling is going on? With it being so flat how far out can they spot that village? How far ahead can they spot another team? Any stingrays about yet? I saw a pic on FB from teh race of an Anaconda sticking his head out of the water! :eek:

shotgunmcos

Latest report from Rob Howard Sleepmonsters
http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_id=9210

Latest from the Race FB page

Teams BAR Nossa Vida (21) and URY Uruguay Natural UltraSports (32) arrived after the TA4 closing time (15:00) so they are now out of the race and are being transported to TA 5 with the HQ boat.

So the full course contingent narrows by a further couple of teams. Ekos the last team that can possibly make full course. Albeit highly unlikely. They should make the adjusted 2am cut off for TA5, (they are about midway on the paraguay downstream paddle). They would then have to go straight through TA5 and burn the trek to make the 8am TA6 cut off. Issy Adventure in a smilar boat.

In the middle Peak Performance, East Wind back to Radys with 4 brazilian teams and Yogaslackers in between have work to do to make the 8am cut off too but less so. At least they will have daylight for the pack raft stage 7. I can't see any of these teams making the full course and will prob shoot straight from PC21 to PC25.

Raidlight are making things really difficult for themselves but could bank some sleep at TA6 and get out fresher that the rest of the mid packers in the morning. Tencu already at TA6

Up Front

Still Seagate leading the way. Both Silvaand Columbia were making inroads to the lead until the decided to head West and East respectively for opposite horizons?! This is playing into the hands of SAFAT, who can pass them both during the night plus GZ and the Estonians not too far back in 5th and 6th, or 6th and 7th if Merell are in front

This stage 7 is indeed creating some inital chaos. Seagate are pretty much bang on the race line now. Will they even make the bike cut offs?

shotgunmcos

Best day so far on the Fantasy. Up 31 places to #77.

Edit: SAFAT about to run into Solva who are still bearing West. Que Swedish high Fives!

Meanwhile, Raidlight. Jesus lads yer minds must be fried god love ye. And Columbia, where on earth are ye headed?

sconhome

The Estonians are off after the Columbians. Tiredness obviously playing a massive factor in this. Reports seem to say the landscape is completely featureless with just the same stuff in every direction. Your nav would really need to be on point.

The Swedes have good compasses

How many will make full course?

shotgunmcos

Well teh route choices from TA6 have been interesting

Estonia are now out East hanging with Columbia, who look like they are pakrafting back to Spain
The Swedes nodded at each other before SAFAT took advantage of Silva having a kip, no love lost there!
GZ ventured about 3km out of TA6 then turned around and headed right back. Hope all is ok?
Merrell posted the fastest trek time and have since spent 16 hous in TA6?
Raidlight finally made it to TA6!

Kailish Quasarlontra and Peak Performance are heading North to find Santa and there are a bunch of other mid packers gunning for the 8am TA6 deadline. I'd say we could be down to les sthan 15 full course teams by the end of the day

shotgunmcos

Last updates from twitter

I wonder now if they will wait for the other 11 teams on stage 6 to arrive in to put them all on the plane to CP17?

GZ were either lucky or made a blessed call during the night to return to TA6!!

Even though they are ranked in the top 5 for now, really feel for the Estonians and Columbia

AR World Series@ARWorldSeries
41m Final kayak will be cancelled for all teams. Teams ride direct to ropes from cp 19. #arwcpantanal pic.twitter.com/Sigd9hrUP8

View photo·AR World Series@ARWorldSeries
41m Short course - teams will be flown from cp 17 to 18. No more teams to start this leg. All will be ranked behind top 5. #arwcpantanal

View details·AR World Series@ARWorldSeries
22h Cp17 the most remote part of course. No access. Media flying in to try to get photos. 1950's Cessna. #arwcpantanal pic.twitter.com/F4emwkTgda

View photo·

Neady83

My heart is breaking for Columbia and Estonia.

Have their compasses been compromised do you think?

mossym

respect MCOS, trying to guess what is going on from following a bunch of dots is not easy. i tried doing it for your dot this summer and it was tough and i knew a lot of the areas you were in.

sconhome

Neady83 wrote: »

My heart is breaking for Columbia and Estonia.

Have their compasses been compromised do you think?

Apparently there was a rope section in a high Iron area which leads people to think the compasses are FUBAR.

Happened to us before and it is no fun.

Enduro

A 1950s cessena will be doing well to take one full team at a time. This is going to take a while to work through. Logistical nightmare coming up.

Seagate storming it.... yet again!

Poor old Columbia. They must be nearing a meltdown at this point. Will do well to dig themselves out of this one without external assistance I'd say.

Great going by the Estonians. They look to be making solid progress. Not many would have thought they would be doing this well before the race.

Nice inter-swedish racing going on too. Silva should have the edge on SAFAT on experience, but they're both progressing nicely. Looks to be very little in it between them.

And just as I type, more teams going for a wander northwards before getting to PC17. Sounds like nightmare nav conditions all round.

sconhome

Judging by the latest tracker it looks like the plane is still sitting on the ground



I doubt Seagate will hang around this CP for long but could you imagine them walking in there and finding teams that they left behind days previously which have been flown in.

What a mind melt this race must be.

And there are teams still on the ridge (or at least their trackers) where Seagate were 60 odd hours previously. Machines!!

sconhome

word is that teams had to pack their food before seeing the maps, with nothing to go off of other than the time estimates. Might see some teams of 3 coming out of the swamp trek.

Slowest teamie gets eaten!!

Better watch my back

Neady83

GODZone have been flown to PC20, each plane takes four people so the teams are being transferred in the sequence in which they reached TA6. This may take a while. I wonder did the race director foresee any of this.

.... Seagate are motoring on stage 7 ..... after a slight deviation.

Columbia seem to have been stalled for a long time on stage 6 now. Will they have to be picked up?

Can't help but feel for GODZone, they're an awesome team so stage 6 must have been hell for them to retreat back to TA6.

shotgunmcos

Enduro wrote: »

A 1950s cessena will be doing well to take one full team at a time. This is going to take a while to work through. Logistical nightmare coming up.
.

I read they could take 4 :eek: Piling them up like sardines maybe. something like 16 or 17 teams need flights at approx 120-130km round trip! Logistical nightmare is right!

GZ have been transported to PC20 already. Didn't Merell arrive at TA6 before them?

The first 7-8 teams, Raidlight aside had a good line to TA6. The chaos going on 12 hours later as East Wind et al negotiate it is nuts. The conditions muct have changed. Lokks like Fenix and Rady's could steal a march and get a flight to CP 20. After lounging in te hmid 20s on stage 3-4 they could catapult themselves inot the top 10!!

Huge kudos for Estonia plugging through the swamp and if they keep going will be close to the 2 swedish teams. Columbia, oh dear...

Seagate smashing the "short" trek. Must be a relief to get onto better ground. I'll guess the are all going to kiss their bikes!

shotgunmcos

Merell on their way now.

Are Seagate on horseback or something...
Astonishing pace after 5 days racing!

shotgunmcos

Pic from the swamp

sconhome

Worth remembering this trek Seagate are on is 50% of the race!!! :eek: :eek:

Gonna be so so glad to see a bike and with this profile it will be like a blessing from God!



A SAVAGE course altogether! Unbelievable racing. And as for the teams off for a ramble behind TA6 - what hell are they going through?

shotgunmcos

Latest word from Rob Howard Sleep Monsters

ARWC 2015 Brazil - Pantanal



Courses Shortened, Five break Away

Author : Rob Howard

If you have been watching the dots on the YB Trackers at the AR World Championship in Pantanal you’ve probably been wondering quite what is going on among the leading teams.
Race leaders Seagate are still on the jungle pack raft stage as I write this, though they are close to finishing it. They’ve been out there a very long time, moving very slowly. Behind them are the 4 other teams who have started the stage. Columbia Oncosec and Estonia ACE Adventure are following a similar line to Seagate, while the two Swedish teams are on a different route and are moving faster. Behind these teams those who have reached AT6 have stopped, with Godzone Adventure having set off and turned back.
The story, as told me by Race Director Shubi Guaimares this morning is that the Swedish teams are on the right track. “They are following the route I suggested,” she said, “which is to follow a cattle driving track. It looks like they are managing to find this and move more relatively quickly. The others appear to be taking a more direct route on a bearing, maybe thinking there is water everywhere, so they can make progress, but there is vegetation too and it’s not so quick.”
Back at AT6 there was something of a rebellion in the jungle. Godzone returned to the transition some 8 hours after setting out, and the message was relayed to Shubi that the teams didn’t want to go on. “I think the teams that came back freaked everyone out,” she said. “They were saying it’s impossible to go on, to find a way or navigate and all the teams got together and called me. I spoke to Nick Gracie and tried to explain that the route on the cattle track was better, then later rang them back to say we would fly the teams out from there. They were so thankful when I said this!”
I asked Shubi how she felt about the decision and she was clearly disappointed. “I had hoped maybe they could have done a little more,” she said, “and when I rang back I felt maybe some did want to go on, but by then it was too late, they were not in the right frame of mind to go into a difficult stage and I couldn’t risk them needing rescue on the pack raft stage. It became much more a matter of security. There is an airstrip there and we can move them forward so that is what we have to do.
The original plan was to move them by plane to the next AT and to shorten the course after that. This was then changed and the plan is now to fly all teams at AT6 to CP20 and to finish the race from there. Their bikes will be moved to CP20 and from there they will ride to CP21 then take the short course option to CP25 and finish the race on that route.
There are two planes and each can take 4 so the teams will be flown out in the order they arrived, then resume racing, time adjustments will be made later on. I also heard some food would be made available as teams are running out, and another comment was that racers who are dehydrated at AT6 have been allowed to take IV drips without any penalty, though not all took up the option. Again this was purely a safety option to keep teams in the best possible condition in the circumstances.
The top 5 teams who completed the pack raft will remain on the course, completing the next shorter trek and then picking up their bikes at PC19. They will then ride to CP20 and take the same short course route as the other teams. This means they will miss the river paddle and be on a reduced mountain biking leg (from 250km down to a total 185km … so there is still a long way to go.)
“It is very difficult to estimate the times,” she told me, “and I did this pack raft stage myself as I did the whole course. I even did the Amolar trek in 20 hours, and I thought Seagate would be quicker than me as they are stronger, but they took 22 hours. Of course they are more tired from the race, but I think the biggest factor has been the heat. It is never usually this hot at this time. Usually it’s around 30 or 31C, but it’s been 38C or more and that is a big difference. It has made everything so much harder.”
The top 5 teams will of course be ranked above all others and the question now is which of them will emerge from the pack raft stage in the best condition to reach the finish line first on the revised course.

shotgunmcos

The maps from TA6 to TA7

Map 1 to ref point



Map 2

shotgunmcos

R'Adys are truly lost. I don't know what conditions are at the end of that trek but it must be something brutal. 4 teams within 4km of the transition. At least the other 3 seem to be on track.

3 Teams now at PC20. It will be a while before the transport the lot there. I reckon Seagate will be on their bikes before the other 4 full course get to TA7, if they get to TA7...

This race has been carnage. Of 32 starting teams, just 5 are on the full course and 1 of those under serious pressure to make the next cut off.

They are 5 DAYS into a race without seeing their bikes yet! :eek:

Neady83

From Merrell Adventure Addicts FB page

"I (Sarah) am back in Corumba off the boat and with some internet finally. Thank you so much to Grant Ross for updating the page with limited info that I could get to him.

So, last night, those of us closest to the race –actually here - went to bed with the vague notion that Merrell, along with the others were out on a pack raft and would be traveling in the direction of TA7 where they would put shoes on for yet another trek. The tracker had been still but we had no info other than assuming it was not working.

This morning the rumour was: 9 hours after leaving TA7 Merrell and Godzone returned and staged a mutiny and convinced 5 other teams that it was impossible to complete this leg and were demanding to be flown out.

Finally at 11h30, we receive information from the race organisers: Godzone had left the Transition onto the packraft at 16h00 on Wednesday. After 8 hours they returned having not moved further than 2km from the TA and protested that this section was impossible.
Merrell had arrived at this TA on Wednesday at 05h00 and had not moved for 20 hours. They had not begun the packraft. The organiser said they seemed ok, were offered IV for rehydration but did not take it.

The decision was made by the organisers to rearrange the course. The 5 teams that are already on the packraft, stay there and continue and attempt to complete the full course without the kayak legs between CP 21 and 25. At 16h30 local time, Seagate had finished this leg in 39 hours and were on the trek to the bicycles.

For the rest, up to TA 7, all teams will be short coursed, transported in two small planes, a half hour journey, one team at a time, to CP 20. The bikes are being moved to CP20. They will cycle 114km to CP 21, 10 to 12 hours, then from there direct to CP 25, 26, 27, another 71km and 6 hours.

This is the information we have at the moment. It may well change. And you will probably know it before I do. Right now, and for the last 2 hours, I am trying to reserve a room for the team when they hopefully arrive sometime tomorrow evening. I will try to reach them during the course of tomorrow when they are on their bikes and get some more explanations for all of us.
Thank you to all for the messages and support. We can only admire then even more through all of this"

Sounds like there's some finger pointing going on.

This is my first time following an ARWS, I was expecting tough but is there usually this amount of carnage?

Neady83

Yeeeeeee Columbia are on track again. Wonder is the regular plane flying overhead giving something away?

sconhome

Unprecedented amount of carnage in this one Neady, I think.

If planes flying over head with emaciated adventure racers hanging off the side roaring "WE'RE GOING HOME!!!" wasn't enough of a clue there are discussions that the sudden ESP/Columbia course correction may be down to intervention over phone.

Neady83

Bloody hell, Seagate spent very little time in TA8, is there a chance that they'll overtake everyone on the bikes?

This is one epic race for them, they're unstoppable.

Glad to see the top five all on the right track now and moving well

shotgunmcos

Making progress in the fantasy, up to 56th

6th to 10th in a good battle. Tencu catching Merell and GZ. They should all group at the ropes.

Some slumber party at TA6 with a 7 Brazilian teams and a few others over night. They will start to be flown to TA7 in an hour or so.

After the chaos of the last 2 days we have some racing again. I'm not sure Columbia will make the cut off but kudos to them and the Estonians plugging away at the full course. This race has been EPIC already!


Who are you rooting for?!

Enduro

How does any work get done at all? This race has been compulsive dot-watching. No time to read facebook these days

MCOS and AKW, be nice to your new 'mercan friends

Those aircraft must be a big hint to teams out in the navigationally featureless bush. They all seemed to merge in on cp17 yesterday evening once the flights started.

The maps are truely crappy. Exactly the kind of race I hate, where there is not enough information to make a fair race. Becomes a bit of a lottery (A "Tombola race" as one of our visitors to the BoB described that style of race).