GOLD COAST 080600ZJUL12 SKED – DERRY – DENHELDER

LAT 56 39.0N
LONG 008 13.0W
DTW 120
DTF 660
ETA 0600 12 Jul 12
SOG 8kts
COG 335

WEATEHR WIND 027@22kts, Sea Rough, Swell NW 2m, Cloud 8/8 Clst, Baro 1010

After a truly remarkable, emotional and enjoyable send off by the people of Derry-Londonderry Gold Coast Australia proceeded to the start area off Greencastle. People waving flags, yelling and blowing whistles lined the banks and a flotilla of yachts escorted us out to the start line and beyond in a display that would be hard to match by any other stopover. Gold Coast Australia felt heroic and proud to be part of such an amazing event and on behalf of the crew on board and our supporters I would like to thank the people from Derry-Londonderry, and pass on our congratulations to the organisers for putting on such a fantastic event.

Not so fantastic was Gold Coast Australia’s start, as the wind died with under a minute to go reducing our manoeuvrability in the strong ebbing tidal stream along the shore. While trying to slow the boat down, our Yankee 1 backed and could not be recovered, forcing us to tack and make a second approach to the start line, costing us valuable time.

We have been playing catch up ever since and have worked our way up from mid-fleet to second place overnight. The wind in the early evening was quite shifty and variable across the course and we took full advantage of this to move from the southern to the northern side of the course where the wind has been fresher allowing us to lift higher than many of the other yachts in the fleet.

The wind is now blowing from a more consistent direction, though it is gusting up to 30 knots so we are reefed down and flying our Yankee 2, as we punch our way to windward and up the west coast of Scotland to chase down the frontrunners, Singapore.