Team Adventure Resumes Her Rapid Pace Eastward

by Keith Taylor on 8 Feb 2001 The pace picked up for Team
Adventure overnight after nearly three days trapped in light airs south of
Cape Leeuwin at the southwestern tip of Western Australia.

Now south east of Cape Leeuwin and level with the bottom of the island of
Tasmania, the 110-foot American catamaran is again sailing at high speed,
with a following breeze and building seas. She continues in third place in
the Race of the Millennium, behind race leader Club Med and second-placed
boat Innovation Explorer, both of which are rapidly reaching the halfway
point between New Zealand's Cook Strait and Cape Horn

'Our speed is 27 knots and the wind speed is 35 knots,' skipper Cam Lewis
said in an message from the boat. 'The seas are building as we sail
southeast, with a big bright moon. Basically a gorgeous night. This is good
downwind sailing at last - just as the brochure promised.

'We have had some sail changes today. We started at daylight with a full
main, mule and staysail. We swapped the mule for the quadrilateral jib when
the wind went light (into the high teens). At dusk the wind increased again
and we changed back to the mule.

'We are heading 'down east' as they say when arriving in Maine. At watch
change with the wind peaking to 38 knots we changed down to the Solent,
raised the tack one meter, went max outboard on the traveler, put two reefs
in the main, added some ballast in the aft, windward tank and clocked a
steady speed of 25 knots plus. Not bad!

'Life is good. The past two days have been refreshing - a lot less water on
deck and below. Time to dry out, clean the boat and our bodies and listen to
some tunes.

'Our ETA off Tasmania is Friday and we will reach the Cook Straights
sometime Sunday.'

Team Adventure is a partner in a pair of innovative web sites.
www.nationalgeographic.com/teamrace, the web site of the National Geographic
Society, is the educational partner in the collaborative venture. The
National Public Radio affiliates WBUR in Boston, MA, at www.WBUR.org, and
WRNI in Providence, RI, at www.wrni.org, are the exclusive radio media
partners.

Monster.com, the leading global online careers site and the flagship brand
of TMP Worldwide (NASDAQ: 'TMPW'; ASX: 'TMP'), has signed a Sponsor Level
Partnership - becoming the first major sponsor of the team.