Straits of Gibraltar in sight for Team Adventure

by Keith Taylor on 20 Mar 2001 The 110-foot catamaran Team Adventure was
only 400 miles from the Straits of Gibraltar this afternoon, after two days
of high speed sailing in strong following northwesterly winds. With weather
forecasts for the next few days becoming more consistent, the nine-man crew
is now predicting they will finish The Race of the Millennium in Marseille
some time on Friday

'Most of Sunday was spent surging forward on a perfect sail, with speeds
well over 20 knots all day, actually averaging around 25,' skipper Cam Lewis
reported by satellite email.

'With smooth seas and big sails, full mainsail, quadrilateral and staysail
we are once again enjoying the marvelous characteristics of this flying
machine. With the windward hull light most of the time, a moderate amount of
spray flying, the helmsman concentrating, and a minimum of two crew standing
by the sheets, we just skim over the ocean, gobbling up the miles.

'We are making fast miles to Gibraltar but from there it is less certain. We
will have to wait a day or so to see what waits for us after that. It looks
promising but we'll have to see what the wind gods of the Mediterranean come
up with. The Med is one tricky place and we definitely want to get finished
before a strong northerly wind called a Mistral rears its ugly head. This
would make us beat upwind against massive cold winds and big horrific seas.'

Lewis reported that the boat's ability to shorten sail had been affected by
damage to the outboard end of the mainsail at the first reef point.

'The first reef point is not as strong as it once was, because a primary
soft clew constructed from Kevlar has failed,' he explained. 'We are using
the remaining back-up safety webbing and we are hoping this holds for the
rest of the voyage.

'The mainsail is an amazing pieces of equipment, engineered and built out of
super high tech fabrics, with hundreds of carefully cut and shaped small
pieces sewn and glued together. It is then attached on the boom, bolted to
cars that travel up and down the mast and is hoisted aloft with a halyard
strong enough to lift your house on a 140-foot long all-carbon tube that is
big enough for a man to go up inside all the way to the top. This whole
contraption needs to withstand sun, salt, rain, hail, chafe and the
occasional broken battens with over 29 tons of static load on the mainsheet
and dynamic loads of, who knows, maybe 45 tons.

'This one small failure, is the biggest to date and it really has not slowed
us down yet. Going upwind in waves with a single reef will not be possible
because the webbing that is remaining will certainly fail. However, this
should not change things much as far as getting to the finish is concerned.'

The deadline for teachers to apply for two communicators' jobs aboard Team
Adventure on a 'Voyage of Discovery' from Lisbon, Spain to San Salvador in
the Bahamas has now been extended to April 1. The search is being conducted
by Monster.com, the world's leading global online careers site and the major
sponsor of Team Adventure. To view the job listing, go to www.monster.co.uk
and use the search words 'schoolteachers ahoy.'

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.

For more information on Team Adventure, go to http://www.TeamAdventure.org
or visit the race site at http://www.therace.org. Additionally, individuals
wishing to donate to the Team Adventure Education Foundation or corporations
looking for sponsorship opportunities should contact Lydia Langston at
Lydia@TeamAdventure.org.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Keith Taylor Lydia Langston
Taylor Associates Team Adventure
Tel: +1 (781) 837-8833 Tel: +1 (401) 662-1700
KeithTaylor@TeamAdventure.org Lydia@TeamAdventure.org