Some souvenirs from up the mountain. Above, Jacqui Guy and Tim Jones, below, video footage of Team Whistler running through the fog.

Deguello is expected next but not until 12.45am, so I'd say Team Whistler has this one in the bag... touch wood.

They're all mad. The fog was so thick it was like a cold wet towel wrapping itself around you as soon as you stepped out of the car. Even with a thermal singlet, t-shirt, fleecy jumper, musto snug and a beanie on, it was still cold, and these crazy runners are out there in shorts and thin tops, maybe a waterproof jacket if they're lucky. But apparently hamburgers after will make it all okay...
They're now on their slippery way down...

Now at summit of Mt Wellington. Team Whistler reached the Springs 20 mins ago. it's so foggy you can't see your hand in front of your face and it's freezing cold too. On the way up we saw half a dozen police cars, lights flashing, launching a seach and rescue party for some lost walkers.
Deguello has been round the Iron Pot and says ETA midnight.

Sorry, forgot to upload the last media release I sent out again.
This was done just before Team Whistler arrived.
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Hobart’s David Rees and his crew on Team Whistler have sailed a tactical leg from Coles Bay on Tasmania’s east coast today to be the first crew expected to arrive in their home city. They must then complete a 33km running leg up and down Mt Wellington to decide the winner of the 22nd annual event.
The Dovell 36 is currently running with a light southerly breeze up the Derwent River and has given its estimated time of arrival as 8.15pm.
Rees will then have to make a tough decision for his crew, who have been hard in training all year for their attempt to win the Tilman Trophy. The trophy, named in honour of the race’s founder, British mountaineer Bill Tilman, is awarded on a points system based on the number of team-members who complete running legs, the crew’s average age, and for cruising division entrants the amount of motoring allowance used.
To send all five team-members running up the mountain may secure Team Whistler the Tilman Trophy yet sacrifice their chance at an overall win, with 14m catamaran Deguello just 20 nautical miles behind and boasting a strong pair of runners.
However, Team Whistler would be almost certain to retain the title of winning racing division monohull, with its short-handed competitors Don’t Panic (Jamie Cooper) and Carey Hire (Tristan Gourlay) well back in the fleet.
The race will also be on for the minor podium position between fully-crewed monohull Haphazard (Nick Edmunds) and racing Chamberlain catamaran VisitFlindersIsland.com (Steve Laird). Fully-crewed division rules forced Haphazard to sail around Tasman Island while Laird’s yacht was able to take the short-cut of the Dunalley Canal.
The first five boats are closely-placed and should all arrive in Hobart before midnight.

Team Whistler leaves Constitution Dock for the Mt Wellington run

They sent all five!
David Rees, Jory Linscott, Tim Jones, Jacqui Guy and Michael McIntyre are now running up Davey St in central Hobart, attempting to be the first monohull sailors in a decade to win the Hydro Tasmania Three Peaks.
They have a break of about an hour and decided it was enough time to attempt to take out the Tilman Trophy as well.
Good on them... Their official departure from Hobart race control two minutes before 8pm so we'll be hoping to see them back about midnight.
According to the yacht tracker, which calculates ETAs based on the speed the yachts are travelling, VisitFlindersIsland is now in second and expected just after 9. But they'll have a battle on their hands with Deguello and Community Carbon, which is within sight behind them.

Everyone should get ready and get down to the dock ASAP - Team Whistler is ahead of its own ETA and could be here at 8pm or even earlier. They're off Taroona doing seven knots. Go guys! what a great end to the race. They've got 20 miles on Deguello and 30 on Haphazard.
But don't discount those two boats coming down from Frederick Henry Bay (VisitFlinders and Community Carbon) - a bit of an unexpected puff there and they could well be in contention for the minor placings.

Team Whistler has rounded the Iron Pot at 6.26 and has given their ETA as 8.15. Could have an earlier finish than expected!
VisitFlindersIsland.com has been through the canal (losing one oar on the way) and has an ETA of 12.30am. Community Carbon followed them through and is only a couple of miles behind.

For anyone who didn't see, an anonymous blogger raises an interesting point: If Whistler arrives in Hobart first - which it may well do - will it be prepared to sacrifice its chances of winning the race overall by sending the whole crew up the mountain in order to win the Tilman Trophy? Or will they sacrifice the sailors' fitness training and just send Jacqui and Michael in order to post the fastest possible time and perhaps claim an overall win?
A very interesting debate.
However, Team Whistler would still win racing monohull division even if they sent the entire crew up the mountain... and really first in doesn't count that much any more now there are two separate divisions.
Sending everyone up would probably only add an hour to the total run time and they are about 30 nautical miles ahead of Haphazard, which is carrying injured runners...

Views at Coles Bay, kit checks and early morning in one of the world's great places.

Have arrived in Hobart! Can't think of anything to blog so ask me questions - what do you want to know about the race/competitors/locations/boats?? If I don't know I'll attempt to find out!

Not only do we have close and interesting competition at the front and back of the fleet, we’ve got a mini-fleet stuck in the middle that will make interesting watching. VisitFlindersIsland.com.au is going west of Maria while Peccadillo and Don’t Panic have gone east... Community Carbon looks to be following VisitFlindersIsland. There'd be less than 10 miles between the whole group which can be not much in changeable conditions.
It’s great not to be able to predict the outcome of the race – it’s been a few years since we didn’t know who would be in the first two or three positions. But guys seriously you're never going to get the publicity you deserve if you turn up in the middle of the night?

Interesting tactical decision by Deguello - they've gone outside Tasman Island even though as a racing crew they're allowed to go through the Dunalley Canal. They're currently 16.7 nm (30.9 km) east of Eaglehawk Neck with 63 miles left to race and current prediction is that they'll arrive in Hobart just after 11pm. They're travelling at 6.5 knots... closest weather observation is Tasman Island where the BOM is recording seven to nine knots from the SSE. So it would be a fair bet they're reaching and decided they would take the boatspeed and favourable wind direction instead of the shortcut.
Haphazard would be in similar conditions as they're setting pretty much the same course but are about 5 miles behind. It will be hard to catch a cat on a reach... can they do it??
Whistler meanwhile is in the canal. I wonder if they had to get out their kayak - yes that's right they have a kayak below deck - to help them get through...

Report from the deck of Haphazard has them making about seven knots in a 15-knot SE'ly which puts them on a single tack to Tasman Island - bit of a relief no doubt.
Whistler appears to be abeam but inshore of Haphazard while Deguello's made a bit of a break on the fleet by heading further out to sea. The gap's about three miles but the tracker has them moving slightly faster than the two monohulls as well.

It's official, the fleet has left Coles Bay, and all are now en route to Hobart. Wildfire's Karl and Gerry returned at 11.47am posting a run of 5 hours 16 minutes and Ian and Adrian from Carey Hire just got back at 12.11pm looking absolutely exhausted and soaked in sweat. They took 5 hours 26 minutes. So two good runs there, quite a bit faster than most of the guys who did it in the dark, their times were almost all between 6 hrs 10 and 7 hours. This also gives you an indication of how mad Aub and Doug are - running 4.46 in the pitch black dark when two strong teams manage five and-a-bit in the daylight!

Summit times for our two teams still on the Freycinet run course as follows:

Team Wildfire's Karl and Gerry (pictured checking in this morning) 9.14am - that's a run up of two hours 38 minutes- very quick! Of course they have the benefit of the daylight but that's our second fastest summit time this year.

The Carey Hire boys Adrian and Ian made the top at 9.26am, that's two hours 41 minutes to the top - what a close race! if they hold this pace we can expect them back at race control at about 12.30pm, and it will be interesting to see which team is in front and by how much - and can they hold that lead until Hobart?

Latest press release just sent out, plus a photo of Carey Hire's Adrian and Ian heading off from the jetty.

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5/04/2010 10:04 AM

The race to Hobart is well and truly on after a shake-up of the leading boats overnight. Southern Tasmanian catamaran Deguello has maintained a narrow lead but racing monohull and Tilman trophy entrant Team Whistler has used its oars to move into second place during the night’s windless conditions.
The order of their arrival in Hobart will depend on the outcome of a major tactical decision that has seen Deguello opt to sail outside Maria Island and Team Whistler choose to navigate the channel between Maria Island and Orford.
The western side of the island is considered the rhumb line, or most direct route, but is more sheltered from the current south-westerly breeze other leading boats are heading into and has seen Team Whistler’s speed drop to five and-a-half knots (10kmh).
Meanwhile Deguello is moving at nine knots (16.5kmh) and holding a three-mile lead over third-placed Haphazard, also sailing outside Maria Island.
Haphazard arrived in Coles Bay in a close second place, but its runners battled injury throughout the Freycinet run, setting the team back about an hour.
As a fully-crewed entrant it will have to round Tasman Island while its two main competitors are eligible to use the Dunalley Canal as a short-cut to Hobart.
Recent forecasts show that the fleet can expect light south-westerlies for the rest of the day, but current observations at Maria Island show a stronger 10 to 15 knot breeze from that direction. These headwind conditions should favour the monohulls, which often perform better upwind than their multi-hulled counterparts.
With 90 nautical miles still to sail, the top boats are not expected to arrive in Hobart until late this afternoon. Their runners will then wrap up the 22nd annual Hydro Tasmania Three Peaks Race with a 33-kilometre run up and down Mt Wellington, the race’s tallest peak at 1270m.

Stuart and Travis just returned (see left) at 8.41am to record today's longest run of 8 hours. They said they didn't particularly enjoy the tough run, and spent a lot of time consulting the map to make sure they didn't get lost.

Can see Travis and Stuart jogging back along Richardson's beach - they'll be here in minutes. Then it's just Wildfire and Carey Hire to go on the East Coast and then race operations will move on to Hobart to prepare for the end of the race.

Pix of this morning's sunrise, and Wildfire's arrival.

They have dropped off one sailor, Jon, who injured his back on the sail down the coast. Although they now only have the crew numbers of a racing monohull, they'll still have to round Tasman.

The "wooden spoon" race is on between Wildfire's Gerry and Karl, who left race control at 6.36, and Carey Hire's Adrian and Ian, who left at 6.45.
Adrian has suffered quite a bit with sea sickness and hasn't taken in much energy since the start of the race, but said he was feeling much better. Piers, Tristan and James are having a well-deserved smoko after using pedal power to get the boat through the windless bay.
The only runners on the return journey are Community Carbon's Stuart and Travis and they must be getting close.
Pictures to follow soon!

According to the tracker Team Whistler has overtaken Haphazard with Deguello still out in front, all three still west of Schouten Island. I'm sure Team Whistler are making the best use of the four oars they've installed on the boat.

Good morning with a beautiful pink sunrise from Coles Bay.
We just had a long conversation with Gareth and Karl from Peccadillo who unfortunately got back to find their boat still moored out in the bay. "we're going to have some food and a sleep but first we're going to shout at our sailors," they said, after attracting the big cat by yelling and flashing their head torches.
They were extremely happy to find they had posted the second-fastest run of the day, six hours 12 minutes, to finish at 5.46am. Gareth said he wanted to come back and run it again in the daylight to see how beautiful it was.
Aub and Doug from Don't Panic ran 4hrs 46 (race record is 4.10) so another fantastic run guys - looks like they'll be a shoe-in for king of the mountain.
Gareth said: "they passed us on a bit that we thought was un-runnable, it was so steep, but they were just flying down."
VisitFlinders' John and John got back at 4.37am, a good run of 6 hours 22 minutes.
Community Carbon's Stuart and Travis reached the top at 4.57am.
Wildfire is almost here with a little puff of new breeze and Carey Hire is not far behind. Maybe another half an hour? Five yacht are visible from race control, either coming or going.

Our tail-enders are creeping up on us, Wildfire about 8nm off and Carey Hire about two miles behind them.
Whistler just returned after six hours 26 mins on the course, just 10 min slower than Deguello's runners. The boat left Coles Bay at 2.50am, at roughly the same time Don't Panic's Aubrey and Doug reached the top of Mt Graham. That's just 2 hours 20 mins to the top, a journey that has taken all the other teams three to 3 1/2 hours to complete.

The forecast looks to be improving marginally as the day progresses, by 1pm should have very light easterlies and by 4pm slightly more from the north-east.
Just spoke to Johnno: his IT Band (for those of you non running-inclined, that's the tendon-y thing that runs down the outside of your leg from your hip to your knee) has seized up on him making it almost impossible to run downhill, painful to run uphill and okay to jog on the flat. So they spent a fair bit of time walking considering he said it played up from halfway across the first beach, Richardson's beach. Thinks he'll be alright for Wellington though!

BOM windmap showing that our teams can expect 0-5 knots from the SW when they leave Coles Bay. That's okay for Haphazard because they think they can drift faster than Deguello. At this stage they're separated by about half a mile, just judging by the distance of their nav lights.
Team Whistler won't be far from finishing the run so we can't discount them as possibilities for line honours. In fact Pete Sluce has his money on this team and in the light and variable conditions, with their extra special secret human-powered devices and the amount of reconnaissance they've been doing on the tricky canal, he could be right!

Time update:
Deguello left Coles Bay at 12.52 after a 6hr 16 run by Allan and Mal but they haven't got far as there's not much wind. Haphazard just got away after just over seven hours by the boys. Johnno has hurt his knee and was limping, must be bad as they were aiming for well under that time, even in the dark.
Don't Panic 's runners Aubrey and Doug started the run just before 12.30am and Community Carbon was only just behind at 2.41am.