YUKON 1000 - Longest Race in the World

Current Race up-date live from the Yukon 1000 in Canada.

all teams have GPS spot tracking linked to google maps

live race results at www.yukon1000.com/10y1k/resultsx.html

Australian Paddlers Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey are currently in the lead in the Yukon 1000 the longest Canoe and Kayak Race in the world.

We're now into the 3rd day of the event and the guys are paddling well, with a short stop yesterday at Carmacks in the Yukon Territory Canada - we got an update from Tom and Steve - "I'm great"

we're running a blog at www.tomsimmat.blogspot.com

we've also posted a video of their run down the "five finger rapids"

If you see this thread please pass the word around
I'm now driving for about 6 hours - I'll post again when we get to Dawson City. Tom and Steve are due for a stop tonight in the town - I'll try and post an interview video for you all back home

Cheers Kobs

IT's now a waiting Game.

Tom and Steve didn't make it into Dawson City Last night as we had hoped. They are still in front, and are maintaining their lead, but are behind their estimated arrival time for Dawson City where we the support crew eagerly wait.

Yesterday afternoon and into the early evening they were maintaining speeds of over 22kph, there are a couple of rivers that have now added flow to the YUKON. What is important is that they are maintaining the lead over the next team a very strong double racing Canadian canoe.

I tried to get a boat up river late last night but by the time I tracked down some of the locals the local bar was in full swing and the blokes we're not leaving that party.

I'll check back in this afternoon after we get the team moving and drive 5 hrs to the next stop.

read more at these links ........

www.yukon1000.com/10y1k/resultsx.html
www.tomsimmat.blogspot.com

Cheers Kobs

Dawson City Checkin - ALL OK.

Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzy checked into to Dawson City at 11.45am (PDT). A radio relay to the team started about 5kms before the check point, with all reports that they were going well.

The team stopped for no more than about 10 minutes and were able to report that they were both still in good condition after 3.5 days paddling. They got away from their overnight camp in good time and were able to maintain their lead again early in the morning.

Team STARFACTOR took the lead in the late hours of the previous night as Tom and Steve took on more drinking water and treated it with "puratabs".

Tom said that they had to "really put-in" to take back and increase their lead before the mandatory 11pm stop for 6 hours.

Tom said "we didn't muck around, we stopped at 11pm (PDT) found a fishing cabin by the river and bunked down for the night" up at 4.30am we were back on the water at 5pm and hit our "spot tracker" and got going again.

The landcrew have been tracking the other teams and were able to spur Tom and Steve on with a report that they had increased their lead on STARFACTOR to about 10kms (approx 30 minutes) - This is really a tight race, over 3 days of paddling their is still only about 50 minutes between the top 3 teams and 2 more teams trailing not far behind that. In this type of wilderness race anything can happen, you could hit a log jamb, go down a longer stretch of the river, not take the shortest channel and loose your lead.

Between Eagle and Circle Tom and Steve really have to focus on their navigation, the local maps are absolute crap, this wilderness area has had no real up-dates to maps created for the military back in the 70's.

keep and eye on their progress at...


www.yukon1000.com/10y1k/resultsx.html
www.tomsimmat.blogspot.com

Cheers Kobi Simmat

An early morning up-date from the Landcrew here in Tok Alaska is that late last night Tom and Steve crossed into the Alaska Time zone and were able to paddle for an addition hour to get the US Border crossing on the river at Eagle.

The 2nd place team didn't make it to the Timezone change,so missed the critical additional hour needed to keep them in a close second. Tom and Steve left Eagle early this moorning and as at 8am this morning AK time they were leading by about 30kms - this is now around a 1.5 hour lead on the team in second place. Still a close race given that they have been going now for 4 days.

We're going to try and relay updates on the other teams to Tom and Steve from the bank of the river at Circle.

Afternoon Up-date
Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey have today increased their lead to a little over 30kms. With the current flow rate in the river this is around a 1.5 hour gap between 1st and second place.

Interesting developments today it that team "TIPC" moved up into second place and team "Starfactor" have dropped back into 3rd place and a gap is opening as at this up-date they were standing at around 4kms behind 2nd place.

This is an interesting development - Starfactor were maintaining pace and were in good contention for taking the lead in the last day of the race.

For those following this blog - Crossing the "flats" tomorrow is the day for you at home to open the results webpage on your PC and leave it running for the day, watch the changes in distance over the day as the up-dates come through. This next stage of the river is difficult to navigate - check it out on the google earth link on the results tab. Taking a wrong section of the river can add between 10 and 20kms to your journey and equally give the teams in 2nd and 3rd place a 10 - 20 km shortcut.

We were not able to drive to Eagle as the road is once again closed. The Team had hoped to get to Circle by tonight, with their current progress they may make Circle by around 8am tomorrow - watch the results and see if my estimates are correct.

We'll keep you posted - make sure you click on a couple of our sponsors links to the right of this page..... more to come.

www.yukon1000.com/10y1k/resultsx.html
www.tomsimmat.blogspot.com

Cheers Kobi

Tom and Steve are charging today - they are well into the Yukon Flats 45kms past "Circle" the land crew were unable to get to Circle due to the estimated time of Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey passing the village.

We are endeavoring to work out a plan to rent a float plane to get from Fairbanks out to Fort Yukon totry and spot the team from the air, we're not sure how this will go but, i'll keep you posted.

With no roads in the area and no boat rental that will let us take them into the Yukon Flats - all we can do is watch their "myspot" GPS locators on the net and the race results website


Today is the day of action - at the end of the Yukon flats it will be a 1.5 day sprint to the finish. Maintaining a lead in this stage of the event is a gamble on picking the best line. There are no-detailed maps of the river here with the exception of what you can see on google earth. We have a map of the area from the Alaskan Government, get this, the scale is 1:1,400,000. SO basically you might as well take a "globe" from a kindergarten classroom with you on the race.

The team have zoomed in shots from google earth and some basic maps provided by the race organizers. We plotted way points back in Sydney Town and loaded them into the spare GPS's that have taken. So with some hope the way points should give them guidance.

Also consider when you zoom in on google earth in some locations the Yukon Flats that you see are over 15km across

I'll check back in this afternoon with another post

cheers Kobs

This race is really starting to get interesting - late in the afternoon Alaska time today TIPC and Starfactor drew up even and battled it out for 2nd place position. Starfactor were unable to take the 2nd place spot away from team TIPC and have now dropped back significantly. TIPC are now the team to watch as they maintain a relatively similar position behind the leaders Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey the Australian Paddlers.

Stay tuned for further developments on the 2nd place position. There is a mandatory stop coming up in 2 hours. The teams have to stop and camp for 6 hours and they must pull up no later than 23:00 hrs AK time and can then only start back on the water after 6 hours rest.

Not long to go now. All teams still now need to keep an eye on their course and pick the best lines across the remainder for the Yukon Flats. For those of you following us on the results tab of the race website
www.yukon1000.com/10y1k/resultsx.html
make sure you select the "display map" box and zoom in on where the teams are. This part of the river is difficult to navigate and the only guidance they currently have is the pre-planned way points we set using Google Earth back in Sydney Before we left.

We have been unable to up-date the Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey on the positions of the 2nd and 3rd place teams now for 2 days so we can only hope that if the 2nd place teams start gaining on them they "put in" and maintain their lead.

The land crew are heading to the Dalton Hwy Pipeline Crossing of the Yukon River tomorrow at Midday with a hope that Tom and Steve can finish the race before midnight. IF not they may have to camp just 10kms from the finish line to comply with the mandatory rest stop rules, so this will mean that they finish well into the morning of the 26th of July AK date/time.

Stay posted for more developments over the next couple of hours, watch for the "OK" spot check that means they are off the water and taking the 6hour break.

THIS RACE IS CLOSE!!
I'm now sitting on the floor of a construction camp hall way on the Dalton HWY. For those that have seen "Ice Road Truckers"n cable TV - that place. It's summer here now - no ice but it's 3am in the morning and the moon is in full view and the sun is about to rise ..... 3am some one tell the sun to go back to sleep. The trucks have been back and forth all night. Were next to the only bridge over the Yukon River in Alaska!!. All other bridges are in Canada so this is the only one that can service the oil fields in the north.

Back to the race - for a race that is now in it's 7th day it's close. The tussle across the Yukon Flats yesterday was a tough fight to maintain the lead. Team TIPC closed the gap considerably on their rivals Team Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey. This race is one for line honors - obviously the field is small, we've had 3 teams pull out officially.

Team Starfactor dropped their hold on 2nd place late in the afternoon to TIPC this came as a surprise, to the gathering supporters in the cafeteria last night when a team who we thought had a good preparation and good maps of the flats took a long shoot and lost valuable kms on more than one turn.

The river water is moving and the teams appear to be making good headway but what we can't see in the results as they build 1 km at a time is that their are both slow channels and fast ones and short turns and long ones. According to the locals the river ice "break-up" last year was slow but in the spring of 2009 the ice break was fast and to use a local tern the ice "crashed" down the river taking out a number of large turns and making the river straighter - the google satelite images you see on the internet with the results.

so the placings as at 4.05am is
Toms Simmat and Steve Pizzey with a 10k lead.
TIPC - 800m in front of 3rd spot
Starfactor

these are the 3 teams to take out the race - this is going to be a close one.

cheers Kobs

IT appears that the river has some flow and now with the mandatory 6 hours stop completed for the 1st and second place teams the race is on.

Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey as sitting on about 20kph.
TIPC are maintaining about a 10km gap behind the guy's.

Also keep in mind here that the river has some "HUGE" bends and that these teams camped independently of each other on the river and don't know each others positions. The mandatory stop is 6 hours - once you hit your OK on the "myspot" device you can't move. So Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey were the first to stop and camp for 6 hours and at the time had a lead of about 12km's - in a straight line to the next checkpoint GPS location.

there is now 600m between 2nd and 3rd place - the race is on.

think about this - these teams have paddled over 1500 km's in a little over 6 days. They are now battling it out for the 1st place spot in the longest canoe and kayak race in the world. They are drawing on all the end of their reserve strength and endurance to take out what is only a title that can be placed in the "absolutely mad" category. 1000 miles, 1600kms of wilderness, muddy water and a team mate who is equally as mad.

Cheers K

The leading team have 3 hours to go. I've just done some quick calculations based on the race plan and we have an internet GPS based average speed of 16 - 17 kph and a distance of 18kms to Steven's Village and then a leg of 44k's to the dalton Hwy so 62k'sto the finish.

So all they need to do now is "Molokai" it put's this race in perspective.

it's now a waiting game - watch for the 30 minute posts of the GPS myspot locations.

cheers Kobs

The final leg of the race is now underway!! Steven's Village to the Dalton Hwy.

In the last 3 hours as the sun has tried to rise a dense fog has rolled into the River Canyon. The 3 leading teams have rounded a massive bend in the river, at one point bringing the 2nd and 3rd place teams to within 800m of each other.

Now the Dense fog is playing a critical role in the play of the top positions in the race. Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey have about 3 GPS way points for the last reach of the river so navigation could be difficult.

The teams in 2nd and third place have an equal issue with the Fog, but if the team in 2nd place takes a run down the wrong bank and into the slow water of a turn in the river the team in 3rd place can easily strip some of the distance and take over the 2nd place position.

There is a gathering crowd around the "Race Directors" laptop here in the cafeteria of the construction camp, we're all paying close attention to the up-dates to the GPS "spots".

"I need to watch the progress of the teams in 4th and 5th position" Said Peter Coats the Race Director. "We saw that early on the race there was some tussling for positions and we did think that the voyager would pull up into the top of the field"
stay posted for the next installment

watch this critical stage of the event live at
www.yukon1000.com/10y1k/resultsx.html

cheers Kobs

It's ON!! Live From North ALASKA!!!

The leading 3 teams have entered the last shoot of the river - a 30km straight down to the Dalton Hwy Pipeline Bridge. The fog has now lifted and the sun is peaking through the lifting fog. It's still a little overcast from last nights rain shadow.

With a little rain overnight the air is cool outside adding to the chill of the river, with shoes off it feels like about 10oC of less in the water.

"The cold water adds to fatigue, as the boat is always cold" said and innocent bystander here in the cafeteria of the Dalton Hwy Construction Camp.

For those tracking the live results this is a straight run now down to the finish - from the bridge we can see about 7k's up the river - we're on the inside of the bend where the boy's will pull in.

Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey have again increased their lead with some lucky navigating through the thick fog. The next straight leg of the river will give you a good accurate measurement to the final GPS check point the finish line.

for those of you running event s I can really recommend the "myspot GPS" trackers to make this a much more valuable spectator sport from anywhere in the world. Even here 60kms from the Arctic Circle!!! in Alaska.

Watch these final stages - I'll check back in with some quotes from the guy's in about 2 hours.

We're heading outside to the river bank to watch the last straight run.

Cheers Kobs

WINNERS!!! AUSTRALIA TAKES OUT the 2010 YUKON 1000.

Team Aussy Toms - Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey have taken 1st place in 30 minutes under 7 days.

Star Factor have taken 2nd position in 1 hour over 7 days.

" This race has taken a week" said the race director standing on the banks of the Yukon river at the Dalton Hwy crossing.

Tom Simmat and Steve Pizzey passed under the Dalton Hwy crossing at 11.30am this morning Alaska bringing the win of this massive endurance race in, in 30 minutes less than a week.

Well done - we have some video of the final moments and shots of the boys as they got out of their Kayaks after 6 days and 1600KMS !!!!! yup thats 1000 miles for you older folks!!.

We'll get the shots posted after we settle into the hotel

Cheers Kobs