Volvo Ocean Race

Twelve days before the official start of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season, Tropical Storm Alberto swirled off the coast of Georgia as a compact storm with a tight center of circulation.   http://spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=40928

It has impacted the luck of the Volvo Qcean Race Contenders-  At the last position report, Camper had made the biggest gain - picking up 15 miles on Telefonica in three hours.

• Leader Telefonica are now only 13 miles ahead.
  
• Abu Dhabi has been the other big mover in the fleet, claiming second place seven miles off the lead.
• Camper have worked their way back through the Volvo Ocean Race fleet - from last to within striking distance of the lead.  Heading north in search of wind in the Atlantic has finally paid off for Chris Nicholson's crew, sailing from the back of the pack to third place in the space of 48 hours. The Camper crew are working frantically to eke out every last notch of speed - with the help of the remnants of Tropical Storm Alberto and the last eddies of the Gulf Stream.
  

Camper's decision to sail north, after suffering frustrating losses, was quickly followed by the rest of the six-boat fleet.  The cold front the fleet had hoped to leap on to for a quick ride across the Atlantic has already passed them by.  Now they head north-west to meet the next predicted front, and sail towards iceberg territory in the process.

Race organisers have put ice gates in place to keep the fleet south of ice brought down on the Labrador current.

Camper navigator Will Oxley says.: Nico and I have been scratching our heads pretty hard down here, and the boys have been doing a pretty awesome job on deck just gybing the boat and moving the stack around trying to optimise it," 

"We took a couple of big shifts to the north on the remains of Alberto that were still around, so we got a bit of a shove from that. Right now we should be in 12 knots of wind and we are in 22.  "We're trying to use the last of the Gulf Stream eddies, which are pretty important. The current is significant - two and a half knots at the moment - so trying to stay on this makes a massive difference. Right at the moment, we are reaping some of the benefits of it. But it's still a pretty confused situation."