Did they make the cut-off?

YES

As reported by Sleepmonsters 21 teams made the 9pm cut-off at the end of stage 3 although there are a few team numbers missing from the list - Orion, Nike, etc so it is probably a few more than that.

I placed another call with the Supercrew as they were in the aftermath of cleaning up the transition area. The TA was absolute bedlam as almost 100 adventure racers were frantically organising themselves for the next Stage before the cut-off. Some Teams were starting to look a little worse for wear and maybe a couple of days hard racing is starting to take it's toll. Blackheart finished the paddle, taking the shortest route and dropping another couple of CP's like almost all of the other teams. They then went about the usual TA business of organising gear and planning the next leg and left after shovelling in as much pasta, noodles and pizza as possible. Blackheart are flying! They were all really excited to have made the cut-off and to have survived the last roller blading section (well almost). After I hung up the phone last night things got a bit more interesting on the roller blade leg. The guys were doing nicely until they came to a reasonable downhill. Josh, Rob and Kim took their skates off a decided to walk down while Damon thought "hey, I can skate that" apparently he was doing ok for a while, then a crash and now a bruised a$$. After the initial worry I'm sure the rest of the team would have been appreciative of Damon's sacrifice for their amusement.

In an innovative show of teamwork on one of the shorter downhills to save time Josh took his skates off and Kim and Rob left theirs on. Both Kim and Rob held a trekking pole behind them and Josh walked down with his skates around his neck and the other end of each pole in his hands acting like an anchor keeping both their speed under control. Apparently the first comment when Blackheart arrived at the end of the Roller blade was a big sigh from Josh and a comment "How did we survive that?". Teams are now on Stage 4 which starts with a short paddle across the river then a ropes / jumar section that we assume is up a castle wall. Then there's a 60km Trek followed by a 160km MTB. Hopefully the pace will speed up a bit with far less elevation gain on these legs however this is likely to still be a 30 hour Stage. Photo of the Maps below - have fun Rob!

I can also confirm a few assumptions I have made to date. The guys did take 90 min sleep on the first night (Stage 2), followed the second night by another 90 min in transition at the start of Stage 3. They will sleep somewhere on the Trek tonight and apparently now that they're out of the high mountians the weather is far more mild and so should get a comfortable sleep.