"Gold Coast Australia" cleans up...

Crew of Gold Coast Australia, celebrate their win, in the fifteen-day race
Nova Scotia to Londonderry, 29 June.  Babs second from left at front.

Below: Email today from Babs, who was with us on Xena in the King's Cup 2010.
Gold Coast Oz now have a lock on the overall race, with 10 bullets out of 12 races, 36 points ahead of Visit Finland, and this 13th race giving them another ten points, they can't be beat with just two short races to go.
Way to go GCA! Congratulations to Skipper Richard Hewson and all GCA crew!

HI all

Here’s mini films of our arrival after winning race 13 from Halifax Nova Scotia to Derry Ireland. We crossed the line around 2.30am then had a 2 hour motor up the river Foyle to the city. We had the most amazing reception, people had got up at the crack of dawn and were there waving from the river banks to welcome us in.  The little sail boat came alongside to give us champayne and the coast guard which had escorted us on the last few miles across the finish line handed us a bottle of Whiskey. A wonderful finish to a tough, wet, foggy and rough 15 day race across the Atlantic, our last big ocean crossing of this mammoth adventure. 
Vid One
Vid Two
Vid Three
See you all soon
Babs x
[email babs, click here]
LATER: Meantime in other news of sometime Xena crew: Ranger, with "our" Bicky on board, as upwind/downwind trim at the Falmouth J-class regatta have pipped Velsheda to overall Regatta win: they win on count-back what's more! (both on 4 point)  Results, Report Race 5.  Earlier post below, here.

Gold Coast Australia: fifth straight bullet... on for the record!

GCA crew in Tauranga, 10:30pm last night HK time

And now they're on to equal the record of six leg wins in a row.... Congrats to Skipper Richard and hi to "Our Babs" on board!
From the Clipper website.
It was a nail biting and frustrating finish for Gold Coast Australia, one of the ten 68-foot yachts competing in the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race, as they closed in on the Race 5 finish line at Tauranga, New Zealand, to secure their fifth consecutive victory in the 15-race series.
Beating into a strong north westerly breeze they crossed the finish line at 03.26 local time on Friday 25 (1426 UTC Thursday 24).

The team had led from the start of the 3,800-mile stage, which set out from Geraldton, Western Australia, 19 days ago and has seen all ten teams face the full fury of Mother Nature as they raced across the Southern Ocean, riding out storms and surfing waves as tall as buildings. But, as they closed in on the finish line in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty, the brakes went on for the front runners and they had to watch as the chasing pack closed down their lead. As they rounded the East Cape, 100 miles from the finish line, disaster struck and they damaged their mainsail, forcing the team to complete the race under a much reduced sail plan.

Arriving in Tauranga Bridge Marina, the fleet’s base for the next ten days, Tasmanian skipper, Richard Hewson, said, “The whole race was really hard. After we left Geraldton, we got around Cape Leeuwin and it was on. Basically it was blowing over 40 knots the whole time or we were becalmed. There was nothing in between. The gusts seemed to last hours at a time.

“As we came around the East Cape we had a fair bit on and the other boats were catching us. With that bunch of five boats so close together we could easily have gone from first to sixth place if we didn’t get everything in order so I’m really happy. The crew dug really deep and I’m very proud of them. It’s nice to have another pennant.”

Gold Coast Australia’s winning streak equals that of Ras Turner and his crew on Ariel in the first edition of the event, Clipper 96. The record of six consecutive wins is held by Alex Thomson, winning skipper in Clipper 98. [More]

Xena slims down... GCA drifts to fifth bullet.

Gold Coast Australia, making
less than 4 knots.... 03:00 GMT

First, on Xena: she's tidying up in Ao Chalong, Noel and Mike putting all cruising stuff ashore.  Details of what the boyz are up to in Grant's email, in the Comments section of the post immediately before this one, below. [and here]
Heard from our Xena crew member in this year's Samui regatta, Tony Levett, who will be at KC this year, on our arch rivals Baby Tonga.  We're competing again for the Tong-Xena Cup, as well as the Cup....

Meantime, in the Clipper Race we're following on this blog: Gold Coast Australia is drifting to her fifth straight bullet, still in front of the fleet, but battling light and shifty breezes.
Sadly, Qingdao, the Chinese boat has retired and is making her way up the coast to the finish at Tauranga, and we hope she can make the start of Race Six.  Singapore is heading to the finish, also having retired and carried out repairs in Melbourne.  She's going over the top of NZ: that's her in the top left of the screenshot above.

Gold Coast Australia at start of Race 5, from WA to NZ

Meantime: in the RC44 Worlds, just finished in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote, with "our G" on board the Russian entry Katusha, as bowman, some news that they did very well, but not quite enough to catch the leaders of the series, Artemis Racing.  In the Match Racing Katusha were second overall.  Way to go "G"!
From the RC44 website;

It was Katusha (RUS), steered by Steve Howe this week with Francesco Bruni calling the shots, who relished the windier conditions in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote. The team did not put a foot wrong, as the wind touched 23 knots at times, storming to victory in every race. But even three wins was not enough to get close to the leaders Artemis Racing (SWE). [read more here]

"...it is simply one of the best sea sailing venues in Southern Europe."

 And, re the venue, Lanzarote:
Of the seven main Canary Islands, Lanzarote is located furthest to the north, meaning sailors can take full advantage of the predominant NE Atlantic trade winds. Puerto Calero is situated on volcanic Lanzarote’s south coast, which is more sheltered and boasts more sandy beaches than its rugged, dramatic north coast counterpart. [more]
 

Gold Coast Oz powering to fifth straight bullet...

Gold Coast Oz is 110 nm in front of Derry-Londonderry
Screen shot at 11:00 GMT, 21 November

Update 22nd Nov: YouTube vid of Gold Coast Oz in the Southern Ocean is here.  Other vids are on the Clipper website here. [For some reason I can't embed vids on this blog.  I have three other blogs, on all of which I can embed fine, just not this one for reasons that -- to me at least -- are a mystery].
The fleet has made very little progress in the last 24 hours, battling shifty light winds and with speed over ground of just 2-3 knots.  "TIA" as Stevo might say.... "This Is Aotearoa" (usually, it's "This Is Asia."  On my recent car trip it was "This Is Africa"...).  End of update.

**************

GCA in the Southern Ocean

Alert readers of this blog will know that we've been following the Clipper Round the World Race, and in particular Gold Coast Australia. Not just cause she's an Aussie boat, but also because she's got on board one I've been calling "our Babs" -- Babs Yendell, who crewed with us last year on Xena at the King's Cup, so we feel a certain proud proprietary sense, especially when we see how well they're doing!
This is the fifth leg of the Clipper Round the World race, and Gold Coast Australia has won all the previous four legs. She looks well set to win this fifth leg as well.
On the left of the screen-shot above is the boat Singapore which had had to pull in to Melbourne for some repairs and is now on the way to the finish of leg 5 at Tauronga, to start again for Leg 6.

Fleet leaves WA, start Leg 5

The race tracker is here.  It's also got a neat feature -- "Replay".  Click on the button on the top left of the screen.
Also:  I was floating round the Sailing Australia website (looking for some articles on Mainsail twist for Jing....) and came across a blog by Gold Coast Australia's skipper Richard Hewson.  It makes good reading, and with thanks to the host of his blog, I'm pasting it below.
The full text of Hewson's latest blog entry (exciting reading) is below the fold.  Click "Read more".

Gold Coast Oz in lead again!

Positions at 09:30, 14 Nov '11

After their fourth straight bullet in the race to Western Australia, Gold Coast Australia, with "our Babs" on board, is again in the lead of the pack.  See screen shot at left, taken this morning 09:30 Hong Kong time (GMT +8), where they are just south of Tasmania, off South West Cape, which I went round in 1983 on way from Hobart to Adelaide on a 42' steel sloop, Adria Australis and had some pretty wild weather.
They have to go through that gate (the white dots), then south of New Zealand, up the east coast to Tauranga for their next finish.
See the Race Viewer here.  There's a neat function at top: "Replay" which gives speeded up picture of how they got here.  Pretty cool.
There are some comments from various folks here.  "Friends of Babs": keep adding your comments, here.  Babs picks them up when she arrives in port, as it does seem you can't put individual messages on the race site....
Meantime, not sure where our Xena is.... should be near, just about in, Singapore...

Mail in from Babs on "Gold Coast Australia"

Hello Peter
Thanks for all your good wishes and blogging on my behalf !  [PF: an earlier Post is here]
Had incredible journey over from Cape town. Bloody scary at times, but some incredible sea scapes that I shall never forget. In Western Australia now and enjoying a couple of days off before we head out again on the 6th for another tumble around in the roaring 40’s. We will be going as far south again as our new route is around the bottom of NZ. I’ve been really enjoying wearing shorts and t shirt here and not taking about 20 mins to get dresses in all the insane layers of clothing needed to keep warm.
Hope all your sailing is going well. I heard from Stevo before I left HK that you had plans for a few races. Hope they were successful. Look forward to perhaps doing some sailing again with you when I get back...... I won’t be so green after 40,000 miles !!
Bye for now
Babs x

Gold Coast Australia finished

Screen grab, 09:30 HKT, 30 Oct.  Real-time race viewer here

They finished at 07:04 this morning, HKT. Congratulations to skipper Richard Hewson and the crew, which includes "our Babs", from last year's King's Cup on Xena.
Report here.

"Gold Coast Australia extends lead..."

You can virtually "see" the high pressure system in this screen grab of the Race viewer! (HKT: 15:30, 29/10)

Check out the milling boats on the left! Gold Coast Oz went down and right
and picked up the breezes filling in from the East

From the Clipper site, Race News:

Gold Coast Australia’s bold move to sail much further than the other teams in order to run around the high pressure system that has dominated proceedings for much of the last week seems to have paid off.

“We have successfully escaped the grasps of the massive high pressure system that is currently playing havoc with the rest of the fleet,” reports skipper, Richard Hewson. “Yesterday we set ourselves a goal to try to be in a certain position away from the light winds of the high, and we managed to reach it before the high pressure system caught up with us.  This is a massive relief as now it looks like we will have good winds all the way to Geraldton.....[read more]

"Gold Coast Australia" powering to 4th Bullet! Go Babs!

Gold Coast Australia at far right, on way to Geraldton, 08:00 HKT, 28 October
The above is a screen shot.  See the real time viewer here.

Remember: "our Babs", who crewed with us on Xena at last year's King's Cup, is on Gold Coast Australia in the Clipper Round the World Race.
They won the first three legs and look in good position to win the fourth, to Geraldton, Western Australia. That's them way out in front in the screen shot above, with about 450NM to go.  Plug the wind in, on the real time viewer, and they look in good position to get the strengthening breeze first.

See the crew profiles here.

Related: Volvo Ocean Race.  In-Port race in Sanya, Hainan Island, 18th Feb '12.  Chinese entry, Team Sanya, with Mike Sanderson at the helm, here.

Babs at last year's KC.
Iris, Stevo, Digger.

Update: found Babs' diary entry on the race site, latest, Day 10 of Leg 4, 18th October.  Dramatic stuff!

I have come a long way, from the person who till a year or so ago was pretty scared of water, to one who is now sailing through storms in the most feared ocean on earth, the Southern Ocean.

18/10/11 RACE 4 - DAY 10 - by Babs Yendell (Gold Coast Australia)
As you probably know if you've been following the latest Gold Coast Australia updates, we are down in the Southern Ocean, at the bottom of the world, in one of the most remote and extreme environments on earth. We are such an insignificant little blip on the huge expanse of ocean we are crossing.

Everything associated with this ocean here is bigger and wilder than any other. Birds, waves and wind are all of enormous proportions. We've experienced some rather extreme conditions down here in the southern ocean these past few days. 

"Gold Coast Australia" gets second bullet of two races! Go Babs!

Follow "Gold Coast Australia", one of two Aussie boats in the Clipper round the world race. They just picked up their second win from two races so far and are now in Rio.
Babs, from our crew last King's Cup, is on board.
See the Race Viewer here.

Babs crewed with us in last year's King's Cup and is now in the round-the-world Clipper Race on "Gold Coast Australia", which won Race One and is leading race two.
Check them out here. "Gold Coast" is the green boat with yellow stars.  Click on it for info.
Report on Race Two, to date, by crew member, Army Officer Wayne Reed, here.
They'll be back in this part of the world around May/June next year.
A couple of photos with Babs:

Babs and PF getting off the Longtail boat, Kata Beach, Phuket, Dec 2010

Babs in the middle, Klaus and TC on either side, crew party, King's Cup 2010

Babs heads off round the world!

Babs on Gold Coast Australia

Xena crew, family and friends, will know the lovely Babs Yendell: she crewed with us on last year's King's Cup, and now she's heading off in the Clipper Round the World Clipper race starting in Southampton UK this coming Saturday.

Check out her blog and cheer on Gold Coast Australia!

Email from Babs:

Hi there,

Firstly my apologies for this mass email, but  I wanted to let as many of you know about the amazing adventure I’m soon to undertake.

On the 12th February 2010 I signed up to take part in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, an 8 leg  40,000 mile yacht race. I’d originally planned to sign up for just the one of the legs, but to those of you who know me well I can be rather indecisive and as I couldn’t decide which of the 8 legs to do, the simplest option was to do the whole 40,000 mile circumnavigation !

So on July 31st I shall set off from Southampton in the UK on a circumnavigation of the globe. It will take 11 months to complete and during this we’ll cross the Atlantic Ocean, the South Atlantic, the Southern Ocean, the Java and South China Seas plus the mighty Pacific. We’ll go around two of the three great capes – Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin and we’ll dip down into the roaring 40’s on our way to New Zealand.
In the race there are going to be 10 identical 68 foot stripped down racing yachts with 18 crew on board, each boat will be representing a country or a region of a country.

I’ve set up a website here and I’ll be trying to post updates from the various ports, the posts with photos and video will document my journey from a novice sailor to a seasoned circumnavigator on board the yacht Gold Coast Australia. I hope that you will come with me on this incredible journey around the world. 

You can also view the race on the official website here. it has a link to the race viewer which is updated every 3 hours and gives near real-time positions of the boats as they race around the globe.   

Seems a funny thing to say but have a good year and I’ll see you when I get back, 22nd July 2012 Ocean Village Southampton 40 000 miles later !

Bye for now
Babs