Raid Gallacecia Expedition Race
Coast to Castle to Cathedral
Rob Howard / 15.05.2015
Into the 4th day of Raid Gallaecia the runaway leaders are heading for the finish by the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela and the majority of teams are leaving the coastal section of the race.
Overnight the teams have been making their via the port of Caminares and Trece Beach and completing orienteering sections at each, although many have chosen to miss them as they need to cut more of the course to get to the finish in time. (The course closes at 14.00 on Saturday.)
Near Trece beach the teams visited what is known as ‘Englishmen’s Cemetery’, a spot where 172 drowned sailors from HMS Serpent were buried after a shipwreck in 1890. The whole coast in this area is called the Costa da Morte, (i.e. the coast of death) because of the many wrecks and lives lost.
Those teams who have not passed through Caminares before 14.00 today (Friday) will be caught by the final cut-off of the race and will cycle to Negreira to start the final trekking section to the finish.
With only 3 full course teams still on the route, and teams having taken various cut-off options and missed checkpoints it’s impossible for them to know their race position. All the short course teams are now racing independently, completing as much of the route as they are able to. I met up with the Team Arctic Circle from Finland at Vimianzo Castle, which has a checkpoint situated in the courtyard, and they were still thinking about narrowly missing the earlier Canyon cut off. “We were so close to 4th place,” they said, “but now we have no idea of our position as we’ve missed other parts of the course”
They arrived at the castle just after the third full course team, Adventure Addicts of Spain, who were in good spirits and said they were enjoying the course. The popular Spanish team are some distance behind Seagate and Haglofs Silva, but providing they don’t miss a checkpoint the 3rd podium place is theirs.
They do have one less checkpoint to get now, as the Race Director took out CP93. When we met up with Seagate they said, “We went there anyway on our route, but then had problems finding CP94.” When I asked what had happened they joked, “We thought we’d try a bit more bush bashing in the Spanish gorse to see if it was any less prickly than that on the coast. It wasn’t.”
Sophie Hart was limping slightly at CP97 and took a break to attend to some foot damage, saying, “It’s the same problem we had in Costa Rica.” With the final stage being on foot she will have an uncomfortable time before getting to the finish.
Partly due to their mistake at CP94 the World Champions have slipped behind rivals Haglofs Silva again and Albert Roca of Seagate said, “I just want to finish now.”
The Swedish team go into the final trekking and orienteering stage of the race with a good lead but Seagate will keep pushing hard and the leaders can’t afford any mistakes before the finish line.
SleepMonsters
