Multicolored caravan of motorbikes, cars, buggies and trucks are starting their way, full of challenges, in direction to Lake Retba in Dakar. Today, on such a sunny day nobody among the starters from yacht club in Monaco knows exactly, if he manages to reach the target. Sharp stones, tough sand, breakdowns of a vehicle, navigation problems, contest with rivals and “fight” with their own fatigue – all that is in front of them. Not everyone will make the finish. Those, who do it, will remember the journey all their lives, and those who do not- will dream that one day they will “conquer” Africa!
Today 370 km route in a free mode to the port Sète and embarkation on the ferry are waiting for us. Our travel by water to the African coast will last for two nights and one day. During it a general briefing and an instruction about using tools will be held. This year we will use new ‘repeaters’ for ERTF navigation tool. Compared to the previous ones, the new repeaters show speed readouts, actual direction and direction to the next point, if it is open (see the photo) on one compact screen. We will see how comfortable they are.
Co-pilots will get the ‘first’ of twelve books “Africa Race 2016” by Rene Metge and start work with the road book. We already know his writing and peculiarity of composition, but still we will have to get used to it, as during the year we drive using the road book by Vladimir Korolev and Sergey Talantsev.
Organizers promise a short special stage 100 km long on the first performance day, 29th of December. The surface of the race track is gravel and firm ground. It means, the track will be seen hard and all the crew will have to be particular attentive.
The adventure begins!
