The Race - 1330 - 12/1/01

Mark Chisnell reports as Team Adventure creep back into the lead

A relentless pace is being set down the South Atlantic by the two leaders, Grant Dalton's Club Med, and Cam Lewis and the Team Adventure. With Lewis setting a 24 hour run of 572 miles and Club Med managing 532, both boats are sustaining high speeds. But the advantage is slowly shifting back to the Team Adventure crew. After 24 hours of grinding down the lead Lewis finally went ahead this morning, and at 1100 GMT was just under two miles in front.



But after this boat speed sprint in the south-east trades, it's all about to go into the weather washer again, as the leaders approach the top of the South Atlantic High. And this system isn't going to make it easy for them to break through.



We can see just how dominant the high pressure is in the bigger weather picture - one paltry, lonely isobar spread over about four thousand miles or so. In anything other than a maxi cat this would be a depressingly slow scenario, good for nothing but a suntan before the crew hit the Southern Ocean.

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