Cloud has been a problem for quite a few days, so we don't have a recent sea surface temperature image from the NOAA satellites.
The latest satellite sea surface topography map (courtesy Madeleine Cahill of CSIRO) is for the seven days centred on 29 March (plotted on 4 April). The radars on the satellites Topex/Poseidon and ERS punch right through cloud to give a sea surface heights with a resolution of a few centimetres. From the resulting grid of data a map of sea surface topography can be drawn and then currents can be inferred from the slopes of the sea surface.
So -- let's take a lot at the topography and inferred currents: Leaving Sydney you may come under the influence of the edge of an anticyclonic (warm core) eddy that is a double-yolker made up of two coalescing eddies with their centres on a line SE from Sydney.
Then there is a large eddy centred out from Coffs Hbr, with a smaller one at its southern tip.
The East Australian Current (EAC) meanders southward along the western side of all the highs (red) that you see in the map. Reaching the latitude of Bass Strait it then turns back to run northward on the eastern side of the highs.
In the "elbow" in the EAC off Sugarloaf Point there is a low (blue) that is a cyclonic (cold core) eddy with currents rotating at about 1 knot.
Back to considerations for the race: The currents could be unfavourable at about 1 knot until you reach Newcastle. Then expect them to be, if anything, slightly favourable as you pass Sugarloaf til about Laurieton. From Port Macquarie through to Evans Head you will run into very unfavourable currents (2+ knots) if you stray too wide out across the shelf. In fact, near Smoky Cape you'll probably run into 2 knots anyway -- close in.
Monitor your temperature. Look for water colour changes and changes to the sea surface wave structure. If you run from greenish water into clear blue and you are in cusp-shaped waves you have probably just crossed into the EAC.
The EAC system is anything but static and there will be changes to it by the time you sail. For an idea of these changes take a look at the movie made by Kim Badcock a couple of years ago: http://www.marine.csiro.au/yacht_races/Syd_Cof/2000/
Have a safe and challenging race!
George Cresswell