 fullsize Tangerine with Andrew (support), notice Dave and Julie both seem keen to have fun. |
 fullsize Less antics. |
 fullsize Randall actually doing something useful (maybe) |
 fullsize Craig giving the first briefing. |
 fullsize Oh so kind of you to give me the finger Danielle... |
 fullsize Wayne is behind D with the bottle and Liam next to him, two of the other 4TC members. Prue is seated next to Danielle. |
 fullsize Tangerine finally got around to looking (too?) serious. |
 fullsize Matt getting his softie geo half race bibs. |
 fullsize Danielle getting the |
 fullsize 4TC race |
 fullsize bibs |
 fullsize Kim getting her teams bibs. |
 fullsize Dave getting the Tanfgerine bibs. |
 fullsize 4TC (L to R) Wayne, Danielle, Grant, Liam |
 fullsize Getting ready for team photo |
 fullsize Your first challenge should you choose to accept it is |
 fullsize lift a 65 KG woman cradling helmets with AYUP lights on them. |
 fullsize Tangerine moseying (I wonder how seriously they were planning to mosey around the the course this weekend) |
 fullsize Tangerine: Ready to mosey |
 fullsize 4TC decided to go have a test paddle on Friday to get comfortable in the boats |
 fullsize Which could be a good thing |
 fullsize as the guys paddling the red and white boat fell in twice, on the way out, and on the way back in. |
 fullsize I got to have a swim rescuing Matt and Amanda's Mirage while they were swimming back in holding their paddles. |
 fullsize Fortunately Matilda was much better behaved as Wayne and Danielle had no problems. |
 fullsize Interestingly there were two humpback whales playing around 2 KM off shore. |
 fullsize So the team were able to paddle out close (3 or 4 hundred metres away) to the whales and see them play. |
 fullsize Us land locked people watched the whales from a headland. |
 fullsize I do not really need to keep commenting on these paddle shots. |
 fullsize I took some long shots from the headland we watched whales from. |
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 fullsize Amanda and Ben on a healand a few beaches away where we ran to. |
 fullsize I actually worked out how to do timer shots on my camera so I could hop in also. |
 fullsize Saturday morning before the start getting boats sorted. |
 fullsize Prue taking a photo too. |
 fullsize The launch was from inside Coffs Harbour so no waves and conditions like glass. |
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 fullsize Tangerine ready to go too. |
 fullsize Kim and Sean ready to go, I wonder if they found having uneven speed boats annnoying (Kim and Sean's Mirage 730 and the slower yellow boat behind them) |
 fullsize |
 fullsize With flooding in Sydney and rain or similar everywhere else on the east cost we got lucky with sunshine and clear skies again this year. |
 fullsize And go. |
 fullsize |
 fullsize What a lovely morning |
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 fullsize It is not entirely obvious, however the team got away very fast here, they rounded out of the heads of the harbour in the first 5 or so teams. |
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 fullsize First Mirage team finishing. |
 fullsize The competitors in Geo Half lining up to start their race. |
 fullsize Richard Mountstephens running past the geo half start after finishing the long paddle. |
 fullsize Dave and Matt lining up to start, what is likely to be a win for them racing Geo Half. |
 fullsize Dave's first AR longer than 4 hours so he may have no idea what he is about to do. |
 fullsize Geo half people off and racing |
 fullsize running up the beach with body boards and flippers for the somewhat pointless body board leg. |
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 fullsize Tangerine coming in, Julie and Randall (the stronger paddling pair) with great paddle synchronisation</tic> |
 fullsize Ooh a butterfly |
 fullsize Dump the boat and run for the body boards |
 fullsize Dave and Gary coming in a few metres back. |
 fullsize It is interesting if you look closely here you may see Dave attempting to decapitate Gary with his paddle. |
 fullsize It may not be obvious in the photos but it did happen. |
 fullsize Fortunately Gary kept his head and Tangerine could keep racing. |
 fullsize Wayne and Danielle coming in in Matilda for 4TC. |
 fullsize Tangerine's Tangerine Mirage Doubles |
 fullsize And some other boats |
 fullsize up the beach |
 fullsize Matilda sitting among similar (but not as pink) company. |
 fullsize Andrew at the transition Tangerine forgot to ring ahead for, I am sure they needed a 10 minute rest anyway. |
 fullsize Leading half team (what a big surprise that is) Salomon Blackheart coming through assisted by Amanda and Ben. |
 fullsize Ben was being generous helping rather than standing around taking photos like some idiots... |
 fullsize Grant doing control card things at the TA |
 fullsize 4TC getting into their boats (lit by really freaking bright ayups on the nose of each boat) heading out for their night paddle. |
 fullsize Though the lights do not show up well (facing away from my camera and my camera does not do dark well) they really were bright. |
 fullsize At the end of this paddle when they returned I saw them coming from a long way off, Andrew commented that they were much brighter than his AYUPS so thought they were some other team. |
 fullsize Anyway we now get a rest for an hour or two. |
 fullsize Heck after a busy Saturday of supporting Craig kindly set the course such that we did not see the team for 12 hours, so I wandered over to a head land on the beach and read a book for an hour among other things. |
 fullsize Tangerine snuck into the finish while we were not looking |
 fullsize They came in at around 32 hours in 4th place, well done. |
 fullsize They needed a support crew to do it |
 fullsize So thanks Andrew and Tony. |
 fullsize Almost an hour later 4TC ran into the finish too, holding 5th place. |
 fullsize Way to go guys, caught up an hour on Tangerine in the last 12 hours of racing. |
 fullsize Wet and tired |
 fullsize Wedges go down well after 33 hours of non stop racing. |
