Team OrionHealth Adventure

High winds and 2m swells out in the Gulf have had a huge impact on the final two days of the race. Instead of a 128km open sea paddle with an overnight camp on a small sandy island, teams faced a day of enforced inactivity in Mirfa, and 3 circuits around a kayak loop on the downtown Abu Dhabi waterfront.

Orion pushing hard on the final paddle with the ornate buildings of Abu Dhabi in the background.

For some teams the high winds which blew up early yesterday morning were greeted with relief, while others lamented the chance to use their kayaking abilities to gain ground.

Winds of up to 42km/h forced race organisers to make a last minute change to the planned kayak course, an teams were sent on a short 30km 'loop' format course in Corniche Bay. The top teams made short work of this, cutting it out in around 2 and a half hours. With such a short course there were no changes in any of the major places - Kiwi team Thule of course added to their sizable lead, Sonya Clark and Trevor Voyce of team adidas Terrex kept their fourth position, and Orion maintained their 6th place overall.

The teams are now celebrating at the race banquet and prizegiving, before boarding flights home tomorrow. Stu has a particularly nasty schedule, taking a bus from prizegiving to the airport, arriving at Heathrow around 6am tomorrow morning, then heading straight to work! 

After a grueling desert trekking stage, which saw only 8 teams complete the full course, teams have now set up camp on the beach at Mirfa, to do their best to rehydrate and refuel before the 6am kayak start.

Orion have had some illness in the team, with Fleur particularly suffering during the 30+ hour desert stage. They have raced well however, even managing to 'outsprint' Silva Gerber at the end of the trek section. (reports have it that Silva ran out of water by the final checkpoint, so the last 3 hours in 38 degree temperatures must have been a nightmare for them!). In Stu's words they are "Looking forward to the finish now" - although they have two days and 128km of sea kayaking to go first!

The paddle tomorrow should suit all of the Kiwi teams. With an early morning start, teams have until 6pm to get to one of four island checkpoints, where they must camp out overnight. Orion in particular are a very stong paddling team, and kayaking is the easiest disipline for the whole team to help out a sick team member by using towing and good team work, so look for them to be trying to make up time and break into the top 5.

At present the leaderboard has Orion in 6th place overall, only 30 minutes down on the Swedish Net Competance team in 5th - not such a large margin for a long paddle stage if things go well!

And at least they will be paddling fibreglass sea kayaks, so fingers crossed there will be no repeats of the sinking inflatables from the prologue!

The top teams are nearing the end of an epic desert trek stage, with the bulk of the field having to shortcut the final checkpoint.

Teams pushing on through mile after mile of sand dunes.

Thule (NZ) have extended their already substantial lead, with Thule (France) some 30 mins back in second. Not far behind are the Swiss Wenger team, and the big movers in this stage, the Brit/Kiwi Adidas Terex team in 4th. There is a couple of hours back to the chasing bunch, which includes Orion, the Swedish Net Competance who have been in the overall podium for the first two days, and the Swedish Silva Gerber. The teams look to be travelling as a group, and have reached the final CP now, so it might come down to a 'sprint' finish (as much of a sprint as can be mustered after 24 hours walking up and down soft sand dunes that is!).

(My) Estimated time to the finish from the last CP is about 3 hours, so they should be finishing around 4pm local time. Interestingly, all teams after this chasing bunch have had to shortcut the final CP on the trek and are now making a beeline for the finish. This affects places below 8th downwards (ER Tips are collecting the final CP, but took shortcuts earlier in the trek) and includes experianced teams such as La Fuma (France) and Blackheart (Aus). There will be a fairly stiff penalty applied to teams which miss CPs, which might lead to a bit of a shake-up in the overall standings.

Then it will be a long bus ride (2-3 hours) back to the coast at Mirfa, where teams will make camp and try and prepare themselves for the fnial challenge - two days and 128km of sea kayaking back to Abu Dhabi!

The real race is now on - after two days of short, fast legs team are now battling the heat and sands with 200km of desert to cross.

Team Orion in tight formation on the bike ride (L); The amazing salt flats and dunes (R).

Starting at 4am local time (with a 2:30am wake up call!) teams began with a tough mountain bike through the so-called 'Empy Quarter' of Abu Dhabi - full of towering sand dunes, salt flats and very little else!
Race leaders Thule quickly cleared out, with the French Thule team chasing close behind. Most of the other teams making up the top 10, including Adidas and Orion seemed to settle into a peloton. the GPS tracker told of the unpredictable road surface - in places obviously hard packed with teams roaring along at 35km/hr, at other times where drifts of soft sand had blown accross the road and average speed dropping to walking pace.

At the transition teams had 30 minutes 'timed out' to change and prepare for the 115km of pure desert ahead of them. Teams must take a total of 8 hours complulsary stops at no more than two CPs along the way on this leg - time which will be used for much needed refueling and rest, if they can!

Out on the desert leg, the Kiwi Thule team elected to push on through the heat of the day, a tactic also emplyed by Adidas and a Chinese team. The bulk of the field including second-placed French Thule and our own Orion, have chosen to stop at CP H3, to take around 4 hours rest time during the heat of the day. The leading teams will of course have to take their rest time later in the course, so it remains to be seen which tactic has paid off.

Orion left CP H3 after their rest stop in the company of their friends from Blackwater (Australia), and both look to be moving well through the desert. There is still a long way to go!

Message from Stu at the end of Day 2:

"On the bus to the next camp. Today was a tough day for Fleur. We all helped her as much as we could, but it was really tricky on the rough and rocky terrain. The ropes sections were fantastic, with amazing views. It felt like we lost quite a bit of time - it is looking like we will be fighting to get into the top 5 rather than being in a position to challenge the leaders. We will just focus on the job at hand, do the very best that we can do and see how we go!"

Teams on the mountain bike section.

The leader board has not yet been updated for Stage F, the final stage of Day 2 (a run/ropes section which is where it sounded like Fleur ran into some problems). After the morning bike ride, Kiwi team Thule maintained their dominance again posting the fastest time and hold a 25 minutes lead over second place. The big movers of the day have been Adidas Terrex - a combination of British and Kiwi adventure racers including former Orion member Sonya Clark, and Wellingtonian Trevor Voyce - who have moved up to 6th place. Just a few minutes behind them are Orion in 7th. As Stu points out it is a tough ask to catch the leaders who are well over an hour ahead, but a number of teams are within 10-15 minutes, so there will be plenty of excitement to come!