From the city hall () in the main square of Punta Arenas, at 19:30 hours the runners with to some of the PATAGONIA EXPEDITION RACE members left the city in the van, with destination to Punta Dungenes, geographic landmark that marks the eastern entry to the mythical strait of Magellan, and the place where in the next hours the southern race of the world.
In the last meeting with the captains of the teams, the organization decided to suspend the firs track of kayak due to the bad weather conditions, especially because the hard wind.
At 6:05 today the race director Stjepan Pavicic started the third version of PATAGONIA EXPEDITION RACE from the PC1 Bahía Posesión (Check Point).
The racers took their mountain bikes under the firsts lights of the morning to start the 233 kilometres in the magellanic steppe. the most wild race of the world has began..
Team 1-BUFF took over the leadership on the first kilometres of the race but suffered a setback of more than an hour due to a failure in navigation. Canadian team 2-ALBERTA-ADVENTURE-RACING which followed the Spaniards closely had a flat tire in the bicycle section, the problem turned out to be more severe than thought the tire was almost unfixable. By using their engineering skill they obtained a provisory solution while in the meantime 10-FEED-THE-MACHINE/IBEX of the USA took the lead.
9:00 am . The wind has increased, coming up to 40 km/hr, hitting the racers by their side and in front, under these conditions the advance is laborious. The team 10-FEED THE MACHINE/IBEX is leading, followed by 7-DAP ANTARTICA, 3-MAD CIENTISTS, 1-BUFF . About team 2-ALBERTA ADVENTURE RACING there has been no news.
19:30. 2-ALBERTA ADVENTURE RACING after missing the original route goes by an alternative road, much longer. In the original route the lasts teams; 7-DAP ANTARTICA and 3- MAD CIENTISTS go together walking by their bicycles due to the strong wind, they are requesting to delay the closing time of Check Point number 2 RIO RUBENS in order to avoid being out of ranking.
22:30. The organization decides to transport Canadian Team for the last 50 kilometres before Check Point 2 RIO RUBENS for security reasons.
The strength of the wind increased and while proceeding to the meteorological station the squalls reached 120 km/h. Teams 7-DAP-ANTARCTICA and 3-MAD-SCIENTISTS joined forces to complete the already shortened path.
At 23:16. Starts the trekking trail, from Check Point (CP) 2 Rio Rubens, 1- BUFF followed by 10-Feed The Machine.
At 00:52 hrs 2-Alberta Adventure Racing, starts trekking from PC2 Río Rubens . However, even though they travelled 190 km of the cycling route that they chose, they are penalized 10 additional hours considering the distance that they still had ahead of them, in order to arrive at the point where the other teams ended this segment.
02:25 hrs. 7- DAP ANTARTICA completes the mountain biking section, and five minutes later so does 3-MAD SCIENTISTS. Both teams are exhausted by the great effort that they put in, to make progress against the strong winds. As for other teams, they have been transported by the race organizers to PC2 Río Rubens.
The racers have ahead of them 63 km of a mellow, but still demanding, trekking route. This first section consists of various infrequently used cattle tracks, first through Magellanic forests, and then to the next PC (Control Point) there is a rough but well marked vehicle track, suitable only for travel in a 4WD with a good and experienced driver. Along this section there are a few outbuildings of ranches, but no place where the racers can purchases any supplies.
They will also start to see their first peat bogs, which are composed of a very dense plant layer saturated with water, which grows above decomposing organic matter. Moving through it is slow, because your feet sink deeply into the spongy surface. For this reason, the ranchers have had to make tracks out of sticks, placing sticks and logs together in a parallel fashion, directly above the peat bog and muddy zones.
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Throughout the morning of the 13th, there have been strong winds which threaten the possibilty of being able to paddle in Obstruction Sound. Forecast winds are between 15 to 20 knots, with gusts to 25 knots, conditions which are the limiting conditions for paddling as defined by the race organization.
12:48 2-ALBERTA-ADVENTURE-RACING reached CP3 Seno Obstrucción, 5 minutes later followed 1-BUFF.
15:00 the organization informed from catamaran that teams 1-BUFF and 2-ALBERTA-ADVENTURE-RACING have met to wait for better weather conditions to begin the second kayak section. However, a doubtlessly unstable situation forced the organization to opt for closing of that route given that a secure crossing in a time frame of 7 to 9 hours could not be assured. It is to mention that weather conditions in the last few days have been exceedingly bad, even though considering latitude and reputation of Patagonia.
16:30 Catamaran took the teams 2-ALBERTA-ADVENTURE-RACING and 1-BUFF to the end of Seno Obstrucción to begin the section of the Paso del Indios. The meteorological condition made it impossible to navigate a kayak and relating to the last information it is getting even worse.
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