Teams face decision time as 'dicey' moment looms

23 May 2012, 12:08UTC

Teams face decision time as 'dicey' moment looms

With forecasts changing and a "dicey" situation looming, the fleet is facing decision time on Leg 7 from Miami to Lisbon, as CAMPER navigator explained in a live video call on Wednesday.

CAMPER are furthest to the south but Oxley said a coming high pressure system may cause the team to switch strategies.

"At the moment we are playing some cold eddies to the south of the Gulf Stream," Oxley said. "We have got favourable current but we are all heading for a narrow finger of breeze as there is a big high about to roll down over the top of us. That is a bit of a dicey situation at the moment."

He added: "The routing is showing two quite dramatically different solutions right now. If you are slow you need to bug out now and go well north to get above the high pressure that’s coming in from Canada. If you are fast enough you can slip through to the Azores high and play the edge of that with the front. So that is the dilemma right now.

"We just got a GRIB in that suggests we should bug out and go north, so I am just about to analyse that a bit further."

Click play to see the whole video of the call.