Volvo Ocean Race - Team Alvimedica running hot and cold

by Team Alvimedica on 15 Jul 2014 The Volvo Ocean Race crew onboard Team Alvimedica update us on their trials and tribulations at sea.

We're running a bit hot and cold. One hour Team Alvimedica is pointed east and traversing the northern eddies and meanders of the Gulf Stream in t-shirts and tank tops, and the next we've jibed and are heading north along an ice boundary towards colder waters and air temps. Back and forth we've gone all day and the difference is drastic.

Icebergs have been a topic of interest because they're geographically close, and we're passing near the stretch of water that claimed the Titanic so many years ago. None of us have seen an iceberg during a race and there are mixed feelings on the matter. Camp number one would like to, albeit but from a distance. Camp number two has no interest whatsoever.

Icebergs hold a certain fascination. They are old, they are big, and they are apparently beautiful. Their existence seems mystical in an ocean as vast as this, like ghosts of the past that only exist in stories you've been told. But to someone like Will, our navigator-avoiding icebergs is simply business: 'It's just my job to keep us away.' Regardless of their appeal, Will is probably right. Our 65' carbon craft would stand little chance in the event of a close encounter, and icebergs are probably best observed from the controlled confines of a fjord in Alaska.

So we continue skirting the issue north in search of stronger winds to whisk us around the Azores High, a notoriously light patch of wind between here and England.

Icebergs, wind-holes, quickly changing weather, and somewhere else out there in the midst of all of it... Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing. We're roughly a third of the way through this crossing but who knows what's in Team Alvimedica website