Intro:

Bound for Lisbon in Portugal, the six-team fleet in the Volvo Ocean Race came through Tropical Storm Alberto off the Eastern Seaboard (the East Coast of the United States) early in Leg 7.

Script:

With the boats having departed Miami for Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race to Lisbon, their first test was Tropical Storm Alberto.

It lay simmering on the Eastern Seaboard directly ahead of the fleet, serving up some brutal hours of chaos in the Atlantic.

Groupama were the team that managed to profit from the conditions, gybing east just in time to avoid the worst of the weather and building a 70-mile lead.

SOUNDBITE: (English) Phil Harmer, Helmsman, Groupama:

"You can see to leeward it looks pretty nasty and we did a good job staying out of that. And I think the rest of the fleet is in there somewhere so... let's hope we can keep going fast and they can go a little slower."

Abu Dhabi and CAMPER found themselves sucked into the storm and at the mercy of violently shifting conditions.

Team Sanya were having a rough welcome back to the race and trailed at the back.

With all the fleet having survived, the conditions began to settle and developing high pressure systems allowed the boats to close down on Groupama.

The French boat and Telefonica chose to keep a more southerly course, while the rest of the fleet split north in search of more breeze.

Not a great choice as they were left with little wind and the northern part of the fleet sailed through leaving them in fifth and sixth place.

After the high pressure it was Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing that held a commanding lead of around 80 nautical miles.

PUMA, in second, had a cushion of just under 20 miles over CAMPER in third.

But with only five miles separating the boats from third to sixth place, the race for this leg is far from over.