GOLD COAST 080600ZJAN12 SKED AND BLOG

LAT 07 18.0N
LONG 144 25.7E
DTF 2555
ETA 0600 25 JAN 2012
COG 270 SOG 10

WEATHER Wind 066@20kts, Sea Moderate 0.5m, Swell 000@2m, 060@1.5m, Cloud 4/8, Baro 1004.7

Gold Coast continues sailing in fantastic sailing conditions north of the fleet towards the next waypoint at the eastern
edge of the Celebes Sea accross the Pacific Ocean. It has not however been all plane sailing for the Gold Coast team who had another upset with their Medium Weight Spinnaker

Yesterday it was reported that our Medium Weight Spinnaker was up flying again after some fantastic repair work by our team.
Later that afternoon I was woken up to an all hands on deck only to discover that the leach tape of the newly repaired
spinnaker had split in a completely different spot to the previous repair and the spinnaker was once again in two pieces.
The Spinnaker was taken back down below and replaced immediately by a heavy weight spinnaker and the the sewing team is now
back down in the sauna making new repairs and thinking positive thoughts while the crew on deck work away sailing the yacht
with the Heavy Weight Spinnaker to the west. On a positive note the repairs made the previous day were spot on and had held together perfectly.

Gold Coast has been carrying the heavy weight spinnaker ever since and trying to make ground on the yacht to the south. I
am interged to find that they seem to have more wind than we do to the north and hoping the tables will turn and we will
make gains from our investment over the next few days before the fleet starts to converge at the next gate.

Today we past Halik Atol which provided a bit of excitement for the crew however the distance we passed off was
unfortunately too far off to get a good look or see any signs of life but it was a good opportunity to re-calibrate and tune our radar for a known object.

Later this afternoon we should pass the Woleai Atol and that will be the last bit of land we see before we reach the next mark of Marore island.

Richard Hewson