Anaconda Lorne Surfcoast preparations

On Sunday there was an outing to Lorne in Victoria for the second preparation day for the Rapid Ascent race to be held on the 7th December. So I wandered along and took some photos of my father and brother in law who are competing. Four legs including swim, kayak, run and mtb ride. The swim goes from the pier to the beach at Lorne, here are the assorted bodies getting in for their test swim. It looks sunny but it was bloody cold in the water.

Even though the organisers refer to the next leg as the ocean paddle and people use kayak a bit when talking about the paddle most people seemed to be using what I would call a wave ski, I would think they are a bit quicker than an enclosed kayak in these conditions. What was interesting was that no two boats seemed to have the same design. A briefing was held on the beach with some pretty handy pointers given out for the novices.

The next leg started and ended fairly quickly for our entrepid team. Here you can see the ill fated vessel being carried in. There are two wires that run internally from the feet pedals to the rudder. The left hand wire came loose in the breakers, we fixed that then on the second attempt and still in the breakers the right hand wire came off and dissapeared inside the hull. The paddler was not happy.

The run and mtb legs apparently went well, but we'd already taken off for the trip home so i didn't get any photos unfortunately.