Helsal II Halfway

by Event Media/Sail-World on 28 Dec 2005 23 hours into the 480 mile Heemskirk Consolidated Melbourne to Hobart race and race leader, Bill Rawson’s Helsal II is abeam of Pieman heads, halfway between Cape Grim and Cape Sorell.

This is just on halfway to Hobart in just 23 hours putting the Victorian pocket maxi on target for the race record. The record stands at 1 day 23 hours 15 mins and 38 seconds.

The good news is that the weather forecast for the rest of today and tomorrow for the central west coast is west to north westerly at 20 to 30 knots, all good for driving the lead boats towards home.

Gusto is currently nine miles behind Helsal with Tevake II a further nine miles further back, abeam of Sandy Cape.

Tevake II and Quetzalcoatl are within two miles of each other and duelling as they travel south. A group of five boats are tussling just south of Marrawah being Runaway, Yoko, Boots, New Morning II and Beyond Outrageous

Its far from plain sailing, George Shaw from Boots..reported by Sat phone to Sail-World this afternoon, that he has some electrical problems

‘Our alternators not charging our batteries, a little problem to solve. We’ve really not have time to work on this. Last night the solid westerly, came through rapidly, we had three reefs and a three for a fair bit of the night, its was in the 40’s (knots) with 3-5 metres sees and we could see similar winds tonight. ‘..

Avenger have just past Cape Grim and Rough Red are west of the southern end of Hunter Island.

Kevin Robinson, the skipper of Rough Red reported to Sail-World this afternoon ‘We are not pushing the boat too hard, .we enjoyed a pretty good electrical display before the strongest winds hit last night... conditions were hard..but we had no problems..

‘We are expecting to see 30-40 round South West Cape, so that should provide a little excitement’.

The Mornington yacht Zest is bringing up the tail end and are halfway between King and Hunter Islands.

The Bureau of Meteorology site has issued a gale warning for the South West coast, with west to north westerlies at 30 to 40 knots.