That Lattitude 38 lead ariticle makes it sound like the Groupma boys knew the boat was breaking up, you can see how they turned nearly 90 degrees off course to the north, to get out of the wind and waves...
I think that would be surprising. I had wondered myself how they ended up up there, but my recollection is that the blog on the Groupama site mentioned earlier that they were heading northeast to position themselves relative to a storm system.
