GOLD COAST 240600ZMAY 12 SKED PANAMA – NEW YORK

LAT 31 27.2N
LONG 075 18.8W
DTF 530
ETA 0800 EST 27 May 2012
SOG 12kts
COG 030

WEAHTER WIND 180@22kts, Sea Rough, Swell Confused 1m, Sky 6/8 Cl Cb, Baro 1014

What a fantastic day in the office! Today was a near perfect day of high active, good adrenalin and well thought sailing.
A day where everybody worked their guts out, performed well, got little sleep, without a whisper of complaint for tiredness or hunger.

The day started for Gold Coast Australia in moderate conditions with the wind blowing from the south west. We were sailing
along nicely towards the NW with the kite up aiming to get into some good current. In the morning watch the wind near
dropped off completely and then swung to the East. By the forenoon the wind had picked up in strength and we were reaching
along nicely under full main, Y1 and Staysail. The weather was so nice it afforded us to do some maintenance on the deck, replacing a few chafed sheets and end for ending the vang.

At happy hour we were sad to find that for our efforts we had not made any miles on Visit Finland, but put the challenge up
to work hard and try to win back some miles over the next 24 hours. During the afternoon watch it all went crazy. We were
sailing along in fantastic conditions when a squall came, sending the wind to the south. Up went the medium weight
spinnaker, but before too long the wind was gusting in the mid 20’s, so we pealed to the heavy weight spinnaker, all the time the rain bucketing down on giving the boat and crew a welcome shower.

As we are reasonably light handed on Gold Coast Australia spinnaker peels and sail changes require all hands on deck, so
this means the off watch crew have to get up on deck as quick as possible to help with the change. One watch in particular
(The Orca’s) were woken four times today for sail changes and did a great job. With only a few days left in the race, we
can aford to burn the midnight oil a little bit, but the entire crew are doing a fantastic job on very little sleep whilst dealing with squally conditons on deck.

Another squall approached and the wind backed, so we hoisted the Y1 and dropped the spinnaker, before the wind veered
shortly after, promoting another hoist of the spinnaker, before the wind backed and again up went the Y1.

Some excitement while writing this blog (at 2am local time) when I heard a bunch of commotion and squealing on deck, poking
my head up to see if everything was ok it all looked in order. Annelise Nelson (aka fish head) had been trimming the main
sheet when a flying fish jumped out of the water hitting her in the face, and then backflipping into the hood of her foul
weather jacket. In the hood it carried on like a fish just out of water, until crew-mate Taz came to the rescue and flipped
it out of the hood and back into the deep blue where it will no doubt terrorise future yachties.

We are now charging towards Cape Hatteras assisted by 1.5-2kts of current flow and with some pleasant wind from the south.
Cape Hatteras is famous amongst sailors and is known as the Cape Horn of the east coast, producing some exciting weather due
to strong winds over fast currents. With our current speed we are making up for lost time amongst the islands, and
hopefully also overhauling our competitors to the East as we race towards the finish in New York.