October 26, 2001

Course Director, Ian Adamson

By now you will all be either heading to one of the big races or gearing up your training for Expedition BVI. For those of you who have not done a tropical aquatic race before I am including a few tips.

Coasteering
This discipline involves traversing rugged ocean coastlines and may include open ocean swimming, entry and exiting surging water, surf entry and exit on beaches, beach running, negotiating ocean currents, class four scrambling on rocks and route finding. You make the choice of whether it is faster to swim, scramble or do a combination of the two, depending on the nature of the terrain and the state of the sea. The general rule is that you are not permitted more than 2 m above the high water mark.

Yacht Sailing
You are probably wondering how important sailing skills are in the race. We supply a skipper with each boat (unless you supply your own!), and to keep the race fair have a set of rules designed not to disadvantage inexperienced crews. This includes use of mainsail and headsail only (no spinnakers or other non-standard sails), specific start rules (for sailing starts), which will be relayed to skippers at a captains briefing, and rules designed to eliminate unfair behavior. In general, international yacht racing rules will apply to sailing legs.

For those of you with no sailing experience, this is not critical since the skippers are capable of handling the yachts single-handed. Your job will be to pull on sheet ropes, grind the winches and enjoy the spectacle while you rest your body.

Ropes
We have designed two thrilling ropes sections into the event, both of which are fun and exhilarating. For those of you familiar with my ropes sections from MSOQ and FSC, you can expect more of the same, big, heart stopping drops and fast zip lines. The abseiling section drops you into the ocean and you will have to swim around cliffs to access a remote beach, so be prepared to do somebody surfing after the ropes! There is one zipline section that could be extremely fast, so you will need to bring a metal bearing pulley. Plastic pulleys melt and can weld themselves to the rope, not something you will want to do in the middle of a race.

Course Layout
We have designed the course to be challenging for the top teams, but achievable for even the least experienced. Generally the winners of a multi-day nonstop race finish in about half the time of the back end teams. In order to keep the race from spreading out, we are using a format that allows a restart every 24 hours, with everyone crossing the line between 12 noon and 4 pm on the final day.

All teams start in the same category, but may be re-categorized and sent through a modified course depending on their progress each day. This allows every team to complete each day within the 24 hour cut off and finish in one of the three categories (competition, adventure and discovery). Once a team is placed in a category, they can only compete in that category from that point forward, unless they are subsequently placed in a lower category.

Teams in any category are eligible for prize money, but all teams in the competition category at the finish of the race are ranked ahead of teams in the adventure category, and teams in the adventure category are ranked ahead of teams in the discovery category. Only ranked teams are eligible for prize money (teams that do not lose a team member and complete an official course) These rules are somewhat complex, and will be made clear during the race briefing and in the rules.

Training
As you may have guessed, racing in the British Virgin Islands is conducive to all things aquatic. Consequently you will need strong paddling skills and at least be comfortable in open ocean conditions, both in a sea kayak (sit on top) and in the water swimming with fins. I strongly suggest you spend a considerable percentage of your training paddling kayaks and swimming, although there will be some extremely steep hills to bike and hike.

Orienteering skills (the official kind with orienteering controls and punch cards) will also be incorporated in the race, so join your local club and have fun with your map and compass!