DART-nuun News
presented by nuun

Saturday, March 27, 2007 3:27PM (Pacific Time)
From the Hotel Santa Isabella. Ensenada, Mexico, the Baja Peninsula. 74 miles south of San Diego California, on the Pacific Ocean.

Quick note: Racers queued at 8AM for the race start. All teams headed out into mounting winds from the NW. Team Hype lost a rudder bolt 3min into the race! Photo album at the bottom of the blog.

Todayâ??s moment: Tyler Patterson and Erik Nachtrieb along with race director Karen Lundgren and a Charlie from team Exodus spring into McGyver action and fix team Hypes rudder in 34mins flat!

Report: The race is off! At 8AM Paul Romero countdown to the start and the teams strike the water hard with their paddles from a sitting water start and head into the winds, and currently reported 7â??-9â??swells with 9sec troughs. Paul repeats over and over, â??If you break the 50meter rule (teams not in a Seascape triple kayak must be within 50meters of each other) I will take you out of the race. I mean it.â??

3â?¦2â?¦1..Start! Both team DART-nuun's speed to the front side by side in a mater of 100meters. You would think it is a 5K race! All the teams are scooting. I guess when you face the fear of the open ocean straight ahead, you just want to get it over with.

Within 3min a kayak is returning back to the start. Everyone is questioning what is happening. Experienced expedition racers and support crew legends (smile here) Tyler Patterson and Erik Nachtrieb jump to life within seconds running down the breakwater to meet the returning boat. Arriving on the seen the duo accesses the problem, a lost rudder bolt. The rudder is hanging on only by its steering wires. Immediately they begin sourcing materials to fix the situation. Erik sprints back to his support rig at the hotel, intent on finding a spare bike skewer to double as a bolt. Race director Karen Lundgren and a support member Charlie from Team Exodus had arrived on the scene. All present began tasking the situation. Within 34 minutes they had turned one bike skewer, one umbrella, a kayak portage carriage and several zip ties into a new rudder bolt design. Donâ??t try copying it from the pictures, itâ??s patented.

Team Hype was in the water and paddling toâ?¦.

We now head to the bike TA.

From the field, whoâ??s your McGyver now baby, Erik Nachtrieb.

Race start photo album

Baja Travesia Race Start

Labels: Real Time Race News