PAVICIC PRAISES TEAMS IN “SPECIAL” RACE

Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race organiser Stjepan Pavicic praised the strength of the field in the 2010 event and said the race was “special” this year because so many teams had come aiming not just to finish the gruelling adventure but to fight hard for a place on the podium.

Last year’s winners Helly Hansen-Prunesco raced into the distance after overcoming the close competition in the middle stages, but the rest of the finishing teams were all extremely close, with the final podium place eventually being shared by two teams, Switzerland and German team Herbertz.

Pavicic explained: “This race was special because usually the teams come to compete with nature but this year there were many of them looking for position. Helly Hansen-Prunesco were in a league of their own, but there was a group of six teams looking for the podium and that showed by how close the times were at the finish.”

The race was one of the coldest in history but although strong winds cancelled the opening kayak and blew racers off their bikes on the way down through Chilean Tierra del Fuego, the racers generally experienced good conditions for most of the race – and Pavicic believes that is also down to the strength of the teams.

“We had snow fall just when the teams were going through one of the passes in the Darwin Range – so the teams had winter conditions in summer,” said Pavicic. “This was one of the races with the lowest temperatures we have ever had but we had three helicopters – from DAP, Carabineros and the Navy – and we didn’t have to use any of them because the teams were so strong.

“In the end, fifty percent of the teams arrived to the finish line and half of them had abandoned the race around the half-way point, just before the beginning of the hardest section. The strongest teams were the ones who confronted the hardest conditions in the Darwin Range but I was impressed with the strength and will of all the teams that entered this year’s race.”

JAPAN FINISHES, GERMANS HANDED EQUAL THIRD

Japanese team East Wind became the first team from the Far East to complete the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race when they arrived at the Beagle Channel finish line on Tuesday night – and the day also brought good news for Germany after organisers amended the results to put them level with Switzerland in equal third place.

East Wind had been the last team to arrive at checkpoint 15 after a steady trek across the Darwin Range but they had to wait a day to cross from Tierra del Fuego to Isla Navarino after arriving too late to kayak across the Beagle Channel with the rest of the teams and they completed the final section on their own.

Race director Stjepan Pavicic said: “I have always been happy that we had our first team from Japan this year and the organisation has a special affection for them so we are happy that they have reached the finish line.

“They weren’t fast, but they were methodical and constant, and that got them through. The photographers who followed them say that they hardly stopped. They never tried to compete with other teams, their competition was internal. They wanted to reach their goal and they got it.”

German team Herbertz, meanwhile, launched an appeal after missing out on the final podium place by just 12 minutes.

The point of discussion was the Tyrolean traverse at checkpoint 10, which had been set up in a different place to its original map location. Helly Hansen-Prunesco missed it completely and decided to swim the river while the rest of the teams spent hours trying to find the rope crossing.

The organisers had declared the issue ‘force majeur’ but had specifically given Switzerland a 30-minute time bonus because they were forced to wait to cross the Tyrolean when it got stuck and had to be fixed. But after discussions between Herbertz, Switzerland and Pavicic the teams agreed to finish on equal time.

“All teams took different times to find the Tyrolean and the times were so close for third that Germany proposed the two teams share the position,” said Pavicic. “I was happy with this but we had to check with Switzerland. They considered it and agreed because they said they are both strong teams and the time difference is nothing in a race like this.”

FINAL TIMES (Confirmed)

1. 1 Helly Hansen-Prunesco UK 126hrs 8mins
2. 16 Air Europa Bimont ESP 142hrs 46mins*
3=. 4 Switzerland SWI 145hrs 6mins***
3=. 9 Herbertz DE 145hrs 6mins***
5. 7 GearJunkie.com USA 147hrs 31mins**
6. 5 Untamed New England CDN 148hrs 17mins**
7. 2 East Wind JPN 162hrs 20mins**
8. 11 Nord Water FIN/SWE reached PC15
9. 12 Almost Famous USA reached PC10
10. 6 Terra Mundo Lontra BRA reached PC10
11. 3 Eddie Bauer USA reached PC10
12. 8 Almas Patagonicas CL reached PC10
13. 14 BOE Ejercito de Chile CL reached PC9
14. 15 Fast and Light UK reached PC8

*Inc 6hrs penalty

**

Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race leaders Helly Hansen-Prunesco paddled into the frothing waters of the famous Beagle Channel on Sunday morning to continue their relentless race pace with the rest of the remaining teams still trekking to reach the put-in point after overnight snowfall in the Darwin Range.

Heavy low cloud covered the mountains and rain lashed down on the shore as the organisers considered whether the conditions were suitable to kayak but the weather improved slightly and the British team was cleared to take to the water at around 7am on day six of the race and headed out from Yendegaia Bay at 7:35am.

Mark Humphrey, of Helly Hansen-Prunesco, admitted the conditions would be testing and said: “We’re in quite a sheltered bay at the moment and when we get out in the open channel it could be quite big – but these guys know what it’s like out there, they will have had a forecast, so we’re going to give it a go.

“It’s going to be safe otherwise we wouldn’t be going. I’m sure if it gets any worse they will pull us back in or pick us up. In these conditions you just need to get your head down, just go for it really and get it over and done with. It’s going to be pretty cold out there, I think.”

Clouds cleared as the team headed into the open channel and in the current conditions it is expected to take the team around eight hours to complete the 46km paddle from the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego to Wailua Bay, on the Isla Navarino, where the archipelago of islands that stretch south to Cape Horn begins.

From there they will have to climb Mount King Scott during a trek of 35km to the finish line, which is situated on the Beagle Channel – and the team has predicted that if all goes to plan they will finally reach the finish of the 600km course sometime in the night at the end of the sixth day.

Meanwhile, any teams who arrive at the Yendegaia Bay during the day will have their race clock stopped and will not take to the water until the morning of day seven. Five teams have already dropped out – Fast and Light, Terra Mundo Lontra, the two Chilean teams and Americans Eddie Bauer.

Team Helly Hansen-Prunesco continued their relentless pursuit of a second consecutive Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race victory after completing a gruelling 117km trek in southern Chile’s Darwin Range – but four more teams joined Britons Fast & Light in dropping out of the race.

Helly Hansen-Prunesco took two-and-a-half days to cross through the towering snow-capped mountain to reach the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego, where their race clock was stopped overnight before restarting in the morning to begin a sea kayaking leg on the Beagle Channel and a short final trek to the finish.

The team, which won the race last year, admitted the trek was one of the toughest and most spectacular they had done and Bruce Duncan said: “The relentless up and down was hard work and we were going as hard as we could but we got to the top and you had a stunning vista – so you wouldn’t feel the pain.

“This big wall of mountains was just stunning, bit the big thing was that mentally we knew what was coming. That was the real big part of the battle. We knew what did work and what didn’t, we’ve tried to move as fast as we could but we had better sleeping bags, a better tent, better clothes. And the big thing is better weather.”

It was not so enjoyable for some of the teams at the back of the pack, with the two local teams BOE Ejercito de Chile and Almas Patagonicas having to retire after missing the time cut-off at PC9 and PC10, in the foothills of the Darwin Range, while Brazil reached PC10 in time but were simply too tired to continue.

American team Eddie Bauer, which includes two members of the Calleva team that got lost for four days in the mountains last year, had taken a slow approach to the early part of the race to concentrate on the final trek – but they missed the cut-off and were forced to retire.

The remaining teams are still in the mountains, facing bitterly cold winds, sleet and rain as the weather deteriorated during the fifth day of the race. Spain are currently lying second and are expected to arrive during the night, while Canada, Finland and Germany are all progressing through the challenging terrain.

Early leaders Switzerland, however, are struggling after getting lost before checkpoint 13, which they were unable to find. They used their satellite telephone to call the race headquarters – a move that is allowed in the rules – and they admitted they were very tired and without food.

Tough conditions will make it difficult in the mountains and Helly Hansen-Prunesco captain Nicola MacLeod, speaking at checkpoint 15, said: “Now it’s raining, hailing even, and it worries me that other teams are out in that, because it’s horrible. You really feel for the ones who are going to have to sleep out there.”

Helly Hansen-Prunesco are now favourites to take victory when this year’s race, which has been incredibly tight until the final trek, continues on day six with any teams that reach checkpoint 15 before 6am able to head out on a 46km kayak and a 35km trek, which will include summiting Mount King Scott, to reach the finish.

HELLY HANSEN-PRUNESCO POWER AHEAD

Updates, new images and racer quotes will be uploaded to this site as quickly as possible from the race course – but as this wilderness region of Chile is so remote please bear in mind that regular communication may not always be possible.

An awesome performance on the second long mountain bike section of the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race pushed Helly Hansen-Prunesco ahead of the lead pack as the teams began what will be a gruelling 114km trek through the notorious Darwin range in the southern part of Chilean Tierra del Fuego.

The lead three teams had been separated by just eight minutes at the end of the first trekking section but in an echo of the powerful mountain bike run that helped them win the 2009 event, the four British racers were determined to push hard on the bikes again in what could be a crucial part of the race.

The team arrived into the forested campsite at 12:45am, three hours ahead of their closest rivals after 13.5hrs of non-stop biking and Bruce Duncan said: “That was a monstrous bike. Oh man, the mountain pass was absolutely brutal, it just did not stop, and on the way down, oh god, it was freezing, absolutely freezing, so wet and cold.

“The plan was just to get that done, we knew we had to get it done so we had to get our head down and get on with it. We had a good run and we’ve now had three hours sleep, so that makes four hours in total so far. Now we want to get out for first light for this first trek and just keep going.”

The 178km ride, which took competitors through the beautiful forested hills of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Karukinka reserve, proved a gruelling test of endurance with a seemingly endless climb over a mountain pass – but most of the lead teams missed the beautiful views as they completed it entirely in the dark.

All teams had to stop at the Karukinka Reserve headquarters, the seventh checkpoint in the race, during the ride between PC6 and PC8 but Switzerland were unable to find the building and decided to continue without stopping. They arrived at PC8 in third, four hours behind the leaders and an hour behind second-placed Untamed New England.

The teams were now spreading out, with some electing to sleep beside the road en-route to PC8 and others pushing through to rest at the checkpoint. Helly Hansen-Prunesco chose to do the latter and, after three hours of rest they set off along a small rushing river at first light, with Untamed New England second out, almost four and a half hours later as the race moved through the forest and into the Darwin foothills.

PC8 (Latest Feb 11, 7:30pm)

This blog will be uploaded as quickly as possible from the race course – but as proven on the opening day of the race, this wilderness region of Chile is so remote that regular communication may not always be possible.

Keep updated with the latest information on twitter and the news sections of the official website www.patagonianexpeditionrace.com

Teams were still arriving here at PC3 in the morning as we returned to work on the satellite antenna in a vain attempt to communicate with Punta Arenas from remote HQ, which was now stationed inside a rickety and increasingly smelly house on a sheep shearing farm set amongst the beautiful flat central rolling hills of Chilean Tierra del Fuego.

In 2009 the race had begun in Chilean Patagonia’s main tourism district of Torres del Paine, Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas, where communications had been relatively plentiful for half the race. In stark contrast, this race went out of its way to go out of the way. And it did it very well.

As soon as we had walked 100m away from the ferry port on the upper tip of Tierra del Fuego, all mobile phone coverage was extinguished and we were on our own. We were now reachable only by satellite connection, and as you may have noticed, that has turned out to be rather unreliable.

When we tested the antenna in Punta Arenas it didn’t work. It logged on, but it couldn’t find the satellite. Chile obviously wasn’t a priority when the folks who put the satellites in the sky planned their routes around the globe. When we looked on the map for the one satellite that should have been able to help us out, we found it. It was in Africa.

Last night it was in India. And this morning, when we went up the hill to try and get a better ‘view’ of the sky, well, we don’t really know where it was. But it certainly wasn’t there.

Fortunately, plentiful Organikos coffee helped us through the ordeal but it still couldn’t help us get out of there – because the ferry had been stopped for 11 hours and the island was running out of petrol.

Which is why we’ve been sitting in our smelly sheep shack for most of the day, working on photos, stories and racer comments in the hope that sometime soon we will be able to tell the story to the outside world!

And now we can.

So what is happening? Well, Helly Hansen-Prunesco headed out of here in second place last night, just five minutes behind fast-starting Switzerland. The next checkpoint, PC4, was closed due to logistical reasons brought about by the cancelled ferries on the rough Straits of Magellan, so teams were allowed to by-pass it and make their way across the salt flats past numerous lakes and bluffs and into PC5, where the teams would come across a cave created by local inhabitants after the last ice age.

The teams went off in different directions – and by the time they arrived at PC5 there was a surprise – Spain had come from fifth, two hours behind, into first place, by taking a different route to the one originally planned for the race before PC4 had been wiped out.

As the racers have continued down the island, we have been sat under skies of broken cloud and blue patches. The pace of the lead teams is still high, the clear weather and strong breeze helping them move fast down through the long route to the Wildlife Conservation Society reserve of Karukinka, and the 1160 square miles of peat bogs and high-latitude forests that fill this environmentally important region which the race helps to protect.

Now we have petrol, a vehicle, and a new plan. We’re off to PC8, where some of the lead teams, rumours have it, have already arrived and all the teams that started the race are still competing.

When we will next get in touch with the outside world, who knows, but when we do, with the teams heading into the notorious Darwin Range, there are bound to be a few interesting stories to tell…

From Jake Warga – US journalist embedded in the Race:

Day One: Back on the Bus

Random observations from an embedded journalist.

The race started, like all good races, with a bang—this particular bang came from a Chilean policeman’s pistola.   The beach was empty of teams long before the bullet fell god knows were.  Getting to this point however was far from easy.

6:30am, Punta Arenas 

Everyone, including the first rays of sunlight, gathered in the town’s Central Plaza to board a fleet of busses, busses we would get to know very well.  Many of us had already survived the greatest danger of the day: riding in a local frenetic taxis.  We watched our last city sunrise for many days and packed into the tour coaches for transport to the kayak launching point and the official start of the race.  The early hour muted some of the excitement as racers settled-in: highly engineered sox started poking up from reclined bus seats by those achieving those curious pretzel-nap poses only possible on chartered transports.  Lumbering down the highway I watched the scenery change from graffiti-peppered buildings to industrial brick-making plants to just lots of plants being nibbled on by sheep.  Lots of sheep.  Then the vast nothingness of land, of that something we’re here to traverse and treasure.

We arrived at the ferry dock and got off the busses.  Then we got back on the busses to drive a short distance to the (intended) starting spot.  However, there was a bit of a breeze.  A very strong breeze.  Let me be honest: it was a ridiculous wind holding at 40 knots which caused two-meter swells in the middle of the channel causing most of us to frown, many to fear, and the brave ones to say, Yes!  But the navy, who would have to be the ones to rescue those who might say oops shortly after saying Yes! said, No (which in Spanish also means No).

As we waited on the beach, yoga masters Chelsey Gribbon and Jason Magness of team GearJunkie.com performed warm-up yoga stretches on each other much to the glee of the photographers who swarmed around them and, who at that moment, seemed to outnumber race participants.  There’s a lot of media glass glinting in the sun, if there were sun.  The weather was worsening, so it was back on the bus to take the ferry across instead of paddling.  But not so soon: it was back off the busses so they could board lighter.  Same for docking on the other side.  A few of us truly brave souls ate microwaved hotdogs from the little, very little, shop on the boat.  Dolphin-looking sea life swam alongside, I don’t know their names, I’m sure there are photos somewhere.

Then, yes, it was back on the bus to begin the race just down the road.  The Japanese team, I noticed, had the biggest smiles and bluest pants (probably no connection).  The GearJunkie folks fiddled with their gear.  All the racers telescoped out their walking poles, the whole affair sounded like soldiers locking and loading their weapons before battle.  And battle it was:  even walking down-hill was a challenge in the increasing wind that lifted sand and blasted our faces, no amount of chap stick was enough this morning.

A valuable bit of advice was dispensed:

Stay on the beach.  Tide’s coming in, but inland, up there (he points), there are mines…?Cómo se dice?…Landmines…Stay on the beach.

So the choice was possibly getting your feet wet, or having them blown-off, is this way whistles are a required packing item?  

Little did we know we were the last ferry before the storm forced even these mighty beasts to weigh anchor and wait it out.  Unfortunately (this is something only I as an ‘embedded journalist’ knows) the truck with the bulk of our food has yet to make the passage.  Oops.  I’ll leave our coordinates and appeal for international aid.  Till then, the race is on. 

Your observer,

Jake Warga

Good news
Jan 14th 2010 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

Other firms’ suffering has bolstered the public-relations business

Illustration by Claudio Munoz
THE past year or two has tested the idea that all publicity is good publicity, at least when it comes to business. Undeserved bonuses, plunging share prices and government bail-outs, among other ills, have elicited the ire of the media and public—and created a bonanza for public-relations firms. The recession has increased corporate demand for PR, analysts say, and enhanced the industry’s status. “We used to be the tail on the dog,” says Richard Edelman, the boss of Edelman, the world’s biggest independent PR firm. But now, he continues, PR is “the organising principle” behind many business decisions.

According to data from Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS), a private-equity firm, spending on public relations in America grew by more than 4% in 2008 and nearly 3% in 2009 to $3.7 billion. That is remarkable when compared with other forms of marketing. Spending on advertising contracted by nearly 3% in 2008 and by 8% in the past year. PR’s position looks even rosier when word-of-mouth marketing, which includes services that PR firms often manage, such as outreach to bloggers, is included. Spending on such things increased by more than 10% in 2009.

Not all PR firms did as well as IPREX, a global consortium whose revenues increased by 14% last year. Many had to shed jobs, and some estimates show the industry’s overall revenues declining, although not nearly as sharply as those of most of the businesses it serves. According to a survey by StevensGouldPincus, a consulting firm for the communications industry, nearly 64% of participating firms saw revenues slide in 2009 and only 23% saw revenues increase, perhaps because businesses put their faith only in the biggest and most established firms.

PR has done well in part because it is often cheaper than mass advertising campaigns. Its impact, in the form of favourable coverage in the media or online, can also be more easily measured. Moreover, PR firms are beginning to encroach on territory that used to be the domain of advertising firms, a sign of their increasing clout. They used chiefly to pitch story ideas to media outlets and try to get their clients mentioned in newspapers. Now they also dream up and orchestrate live events, web launches and the like. “When you look at advertising versus public relations, it’s not going to be those clearly defined silos,” says Christopher Graves, the boss of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. “It may be indistinguishable at some point where one ends and the other begins.”

PR has also benefited from the changing media landscape. The withering of many traditional media outlets has left fewer journalists from fewer firms covering business. That makes PR doubly important, both for attracting journalists’ attention, and for helping firms bypass old routes altogether and disseminate news by posting press releases on their websites, for example.

The rise of the internet and social media has given PR a big boost. Many big firms have a presence on social-networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, overseen by PR staff. PR firms are increasingly called on to track what consumers are saying about their clients online and to respond directly to any negative commentary. When two employees of Domino’s, a pizza chain, uploaded a video of themselves apparently sticking ingredients for dishes they were preparing up their noses, the firm responded by posting a video of its own online, of a senior executive apologising for the incident.

Blow-dried blogs
That sort of content is proliferating. A PR firm called Ketchum helped IBM start a blog about sustainability, complete with posts written by the technology firm’s executives. It also created cartoons on the subject that it uploaded to YouTube. Edelman recently worked with eBay on the launch of a web-only magazine, “The Inside Source”, which provides articles on shopping and tells readers what is selling well on the online retail giant’s website.

VSS forecasts that spending on PR in America will surpass $8 billion by 2013, with much of the growth coming from online projects such as these. According to Miles Nadal, chief executive of MDC Partners, a media holding company, investment in digital PR accelerated during the recession “and will go forward in perpetuity” because clients became more focused on measuring the impact of their efforts. The internet offers various yardsticks, from traffic to cheerleading websites to numbers of Facebook fans, whereas the number of people who see a conventional advertisement is much harder to gauge.

Perhaps the best indication of PR’s growing importance is the attention it is attracting from regulators. They are worried that PR firms do not make it clear enough that they are behind much seemingly independent commentary on blogs and social networks. In October America’s Federal Trade Commission published new guidelines for bloggers, requiring them to disclose whether they had been paid by companies or received free merchandise. Further regulation is likely. But that will not hamper PR’s growth, says Jim Rutherfurd of VSS. After all, companies that fall foul of the rules will need the help of a PR firm

Monica and Maria Elena Price

Experience Plus!  Bicycle Tours, an ATMS client for one year, celebrated their new office space in Old Town Fort Collins last night, January 11, 2010.  Founded in 1972 by Rick and Paula Price, Experience Plus! is now owned and operated by Price daughters, Monica and Maria Elena.  Monica lives full-time in Italy to operate the business there and Maria Elena runs the US operations from Colorado.

Experience Plus! offers wonderful cycling tours in Italy and other points in Europe and in South America.  You can check out all their tours at www.experienceplus.com, including a culinary tour of Provence!

All of us at ATMS congratulate this fine company for their many accomplishments and look forward to working with them for many years into the future!

Salute!

I returned yesterday from a cruise aboard the Via Australis. Norie Quintos, Sr Editor of National Geographic Traveler and I met in Ushuaia, Argentina on December 26 to board our ship that evening. We traveled first to Punta Arenas, Chile by way of Cape Horn, Waluai Island and Magdalena Island where we spent several hours visiting a colony of Magellanic Penguins.

Returning to Ushuaia we visited spectacular Ainsworth Bay and the Marinelli Glacier, Pia Glacier and a colony of Elephant Sea Lions, a rookery of Kelp Gulls and one of Comorants.

The Expedition Leaders for Cruceros Australis bring these spectacular sights to life and make things lively for the 120 passengers.

We celebrated New Year’s Eve by cruising the Avenue of the Glaciers. The Captain toasted the New Year at midnight while guests danced the night away in the Sky Lounge.

Walking to the tip of Cape Horn early on January 1 was inspiring. Hiking Waluai Island was our last disembarkment before docking in Ushuaia January 2 just in time to catch our flights back home.

These fabulous expedition cruises are offered by Cruceros Australis. 3,4 and 7-night cruises are available at www.australis.com