GOLD COAST 200600ZOCT11 SKED

20 OCTOBER 2011

LAT 45 50.5S

LONG 082 38.2E

DTF 1823

ETA 0600 31 Oct 11

WEATHER

Wind 281@22 gust 25 shifting 20deg, sea state 5 swell 270@3m cloud 8/8 cl,

water temp 12C Outside temp 10 deg, baro 1019 rising

SKIPPERS BLOG

A good days run for Gold coast Australia as we maintained our lead over the

yachts further to the south. Cold conditions require crew to add layer

upon layer of clothing. One member has taken to wearing 3 layers of

thermals, jeans, midlayers, a rubber wet suit top, a rubber wetsuit hood,

2 beanies and 3 pairs of gloves all underneath his Henri Lloyd Shell. Hot

water bottles are also a very popular item onboard with people filling

them up prior to their watch and placing them inside their wet weather

gear. It is not surprising that we are cold as our position in nearly

closer to Antarctica than Australia.

The cold weather also produces other problems and our batteries do not

seem to be working correctly even though they are charging as normal. I

am in the process of fault finding and swapping batteries around to try to

get our generator re-started in the cold weather.

Gold coast Australia is now preparing itself for the Ocean Sprint and

should at arrive at the start longitude of 90E tomorrow at midday. The

weather conditions will not be record breakers, but we will give it a

conservative shot. At this stage in the race when we are so close to our

finish we have being sailing very conservatively and do not want to

jepodise our position or safety of the boat and equipment by pushing too

hard in the ocean sprint. After the sprint, Gold coast Australia is

looking forward to heading north to enjoy the more tropical climate of

Geraldton.