Brian Carlin (OBR)

Night shots from the stern of spray. Nicolai: "Pedestal. Who's on the pedestal?" Brad, in the morning, talks about the difficult night and trying to battle through it. A bird (barn swallow?) perched on his shoe. Nicho, on the helm, calls for the A3 to be forward. They flop in light winds. Jules talks about a cloud. They decide to tack back. Jules, at the nav station: "Release ourselves from the grip of this. Caught the northern wall of the Gulf Stream, 4 or 5 knots. And unfortunately the wind cut off before we could get out of it. Rain. Martine tries to rescue the birds (more than one, apparently). She was going to put them in the box so they could rest, and release them after. She grabs a bird and puts it in the box. Disney princess Martine.Sunrise. Drone shot of Akzo sailing by. Nicho on the helm talking to Nicolai. Justin: Before the sun got up was very light. Wind direction about 145. Waiting for about 165 before we can gybe. Instruments. Justin: On the last sched lost about 10 miles to the other boats. Better pressure before us, and that's just the way it is. Luke, below: We are gybing toward Newport, so moving the stack quickly over. easier to throw things downhill. Nicho on the helm talks about the gybe. Stacking on deck. We see the gybe. Simeon: Heading in the right direction. Busy upcoming 30 hours. Been a difficult leg so far, so hopefully we can have a little luck our way and have a better result. At least we've got a lucky Irish OBR.Low-alttiude drone shot. Nicolai: It's all about the last 24 hours. We're coming in fresh. Just go around them. Drone shot from above. Emiily: Passing by Bermuda. Which I think everyone knows by now is where I'm from, because I've been talking about it all week. I haven't been home for a year. So it's pretty cool for me to pass by. Give a wave. Simeon: During the watch we'll come into lighter pressure in the high. Once we sort of 90 degrees with the high pressure we've gotta gybe off. It will be tomorrow before we do that gybe. Drone shot.Pretty drone shots of AkzoNobel surfing on starboard through blue water and occasional sargasso weed.Drone shot tracking behind them as they sail fast. Wake. Rudders. Slomo washing machine in the cockpit. Spreader cam. Stacking.Drone shots of AkzoNobel triple-heading. Slomo spray. Martine grinning on the helm. Crash cam footage. Martine eating below. Brian: Any good? Martine: Hunger is the best spice. Nico comes below, hangs up gear. "One you've gotta acknowledge it's a bad situation you didn't want to be in. 100 miles back from the leaders. You'd rather be neck-and-neck. Trick now is to push just as hard. Hoping for the weather at the end. The nature of the sport is you try all the way to the finish line. I've seen plenty of races where it happens... We need something to happen weather-wise for us to reel in the leaders... But it is nice doing 20 knots roughly toward where we want to go. Might like to take a month to wear them down, but we've got 6 days. Martine: Still very wet. It's not easy. In the first week we had 19 headsail changes in two watches. But we're going to have a lot of this so we're gonna get tired of this. Drone shots.Wet shots on the foredeck: Luke and Simeon rigging for a sail change. Justin and Emily in the pit. Luke at the clew. Brad: Just left the doldrums, but it was harsh on us. Coughed up quite a few miles to the other boats. A little down at the moment, but we'll be back up. Now we're in 15-20 knots, tight reaching. Nicolai, below, eats something tubular. "Maybe not. Put that back." He wraps it up. He talks to Emily in the bunk above him about food.Drone shot of AkzoNobel going through sargasso. "Massive patch to leeward." Emily: Just crossed the equator and have just gotten into the Sargasso Sea. Brad, below, shows the endoscope. Underwater shot of Brad flossing the rudder. Jules: The only way to get it off is to physically stop the boat and make the boat sail in reverse. Drone shot of them doing a backdown.Simeon: Have been 70% of the way around the world, and haven't seen any wildlife. Just a few random dolphins. 12 or 13 years ago I remember a lot more; orcas, big whales... I don't know, it's the time of year or could be we need to find a biologist and get a proper explanation. Nicho, on the helm: You always hope it's better than it is, but the impact... The difference is quite scary. In certain areas you'd see schools of dolphins, 200, 300 of them. Albatrosses, dozens of them circling the boat in the Southern Ocean. This time it's been scary how little. Martine: 15,000 miles of sailing, and haven't seen... Nicho: It is a worry. Hopefully up here in the Gulf Stream we'll see rapid improvement. Nicolai: Main reason most of us do this race is to see the world, see wildlife, see the cities. But seeing pollution is dramatic. Hopefully we can turn the tide. Martine: Talks about the loss of wildlife. Emily: This is how nature resets itself. Probably won't happen in our lifetime. Seeing a huge decline in animals on land and out here. We're messing up, bigtime.Luke, on the pedestal: Had a good sched, back in the hunt. Tradewinds on the other side of these clouds. Taking off the miles; everyone's happy on board. Emily: We were gybing every hour. Have to make a go of it. As much coffee as you can take. Brad, on the mainsheet, talks about the transitions. Jules, in the hatch, talks about this gybe vs the other gybe. Windier conditions with spray coming over the bow.Time lapse of the cockpit from the stern at night. Jules, at the nav station, explains that they're trying to negotiate some current, but didn't do as well as the boats ahead of them. Emily, below, sprays water on herself. Jules: Using larger sails, VMG running. Less concerned about the current, more about the clouds. Unstable wind; lots of rain.Drone shot of the rig. Closeup of the outrigger. Nicolai: Talks about one design, same sails. It all comes down to how you set up the sails, small adjustments. Maybe gain 0.01 knots of boatspeed. But over a week that's going to pay off. Shots of the sails. Nicolai explains the outrigger. He explains that it's like an airplane wing: At high speed want it flat, at low speed/low wind want it deep and powerful. Simeon: Look a lot at the heel trim. The longitudinal trim. And the shape, the amount of wetted surface. But also the stability. In light air we're not planing, so we want that fat ass out of the water. So we trim forward. Nicolai talks to someone below about the stack below. Simeon talks about the foils, keel, lift vs. drag. Like how we trim the sails, we basically trim the hull as well. Stacking below, close drone shot. Stacking sails forward. Jules talks about the other boats, and then the instruments, as the gauge they look at. Art vs. science. Helmsman's feel.In the late afternoon, Martine: We saw Vestas earlier on. We've spent pretty much the whole day in sight of Brunel. She talks more about the competition. Crew sailing in the cockpit in the sunset. Martine talks about the good breeze and the cool sunset.Nicho, on deck: We're halfway through our gas. He explains: heating gas. "She's high." Martine explains. Emily goes to check. Emily: I told people not to change so I could keep track." Emily counts bottles, she calls up: We've got 8 full bottles left. "False alarm." Martine is relieved.Wind noise and winches at night.Radar shows a cloud. Night time crew work. Simeon: "Tack coming off, Nicolai!" "Can we have the jib on here?" Simeon, below, explains that they can see the rain showers coming by on the radar. They can see, like now, when the cloud has gone over and sucked all the wind away, so they switch to a bigger sail. Someone (Justin?) talks with Brian about the massive cloud sucking up all that energy. Lightning. Nicolai: I think it's day 5... I miss the Southern Ocean. Sail flopping. "And it's warm. I hate the warm."Simeon: It was a hectic night; hit some good squalls. Crash cam footage at night of them easing sheets. Simeon says the fleet is in a line west to east. Trying to stick their neck out and be the first one to go around the corner of Brazil. Drone shot from overhead. Simeon: That's the cool thing of this sport is motivate yourself. Everyone is tired, but it gives energy when everyone is into it. You don't have it always right, but when you have it right it's good teamwork. Hopefully we can keep it up for a week and be mentally, physically stronger than the rest of the teams. And a bit lucky, and it can make a difference. Justin: It's the first time I've seen them headed. Simeon: Nothing comes without energy. Lots of energy. It's a game of human performance. Everyone is almost as fast as each other. Pushing all the way to the Hague.Martine explains that no one has slept much because they've had a vew opportunities with clouds. Night shots of them sailing. Scallywag is behind her. Shots of the crew with Scallywag in the distance. Brad talks about having Brunel, Dongfeng, Scallywag, and MAPFRE next to them. Timelapse of the cabin, and then of the cockpit, then the nav station. Nicho: The benefit is lack of sleep. If you enjoy lack of sleep there's a high benefit to being this close to other boats. Drone shot of AkzoNobel and Brunel sailing a hundred yards apart. Shot from the deck of three boats on the horizon. Nicho explains that you can try out mode variations vs. the other boats. In this upwind stuff they haven't been consistently strong, so they need to work that out. "Yeah, we do need to get that sorted."Jules: Starting to approach Cabo Frio and there's quite a bit of cloud. Especially this time of day it gets quite active. He and Nicho look at clouds. Brad on the foredeck. Peeling J1 to MH0. Nicho on the helm: Just had a section of clouds, and got a split of Vestas and Turn the Tide on one side of the cloud, and us on the other. So we've had to do a bunch of tacking and stacking... Took a couple of miles out MAPFRE and Brunel. Dongfeng had a nice slot through the clouds, so they've gained. Drone shot with sunset behind AkzoNobel's masthead. Drone shot with sunset and crepuscular rays.Time lapse from the stern cam as darkness falls. Simeon, below, talks about the wind dropping and going right. Probably will do the stack and get on the hip of those guys. Below, Martine and Brad stacking. Jules at the nav station. Night shot of stars, moon. Luke, in the dark, explains that they're right on the crossover of the J1 and the Masthead 0, and it's difficult to know if they should change or not, if the better sail will pay for the loss incurred in the sail change. "Where we are in the fleet at the moment we can't afford to make any losses."Time lapse of the cabin below. Nicolai: We're not going so well this morning. We're reshuffling the weight of the boat. It's quite painful when you're losing. Simeon on the helm; Luke crossing the cockpit in slomo. Emily looks through binoculars at a competitor on their port side. Luke: Have been struggling. Breeze is shifty and up and down. "It's not the easiest sailing, and we haven't been doing it particularly well... Put it down to learning I guess."Time lapse below of Martine (I think?) getting into her bunk. Simeon at the nav station: Whole fleet is close to each other; 4 or 5 miles. Increase of wind in the night, but very unstable. Pretty busy on deck. Sails on/sails off. At the moment we're making good progress. Probably will tack in the next couple of hours, whenever Jules is happy.Something going on below. Nicho: "No, it's loose." (Keel inspection?) Justin talks about how other boats sailed away from them, except for Vestas. Not sure why. Tried everything. "We wait until dark and then we pull our moves out." Sunset. Emily says the start of the leg was quite nice. A bit frustrating, but nice to be back on the water. Drone shot circling AkzoNobel in the sunset.Parade follows Simeon and Nicolai, intercut with starting line shots. Martine kisses her dad good bye. Dockout. Starting line, with Vestas, Dongfeng, and TTToP. Brunel behind them. Scallywag right behind. Scallywag ducks them at a mark rounding. Jumper jumps off. Simeon: I think we had a good plan on the start. But just a few seconds after the start it's such a critical position. Fell back. But recovered well. Middle fleet. Nicolai helmed well. We're rolling Turn the Tide now; we'll keep close to the top to guys so uh- (And then the video cuts off. Um, Brian?)Drone shot of TTToP triple-heading on port gybe past an island (Camiguin in the Phillippines, maybe?). Someone (I think maybe Annalise?) takes a bearing on the competitor to leeward. In another shot, we see that competitor (Brunel) a few miles away. This is where Brunel made their final pass to take what becomes 5th (after the Vestas retirement). Elodie, on the helm, sounds stressed. "We're not going so well at the moment, so Brunel is gaining on us. Trying to find a good mode, but it's not easy. The pressure is changing quite a bit and the boat feels... not good at the moment." Later, Martin on the helm explains that they're sailing into a light spot so they're going to gybe. Shot of them gybing; shot of Brunel ahead of them. Dee: "Still have the islands ahead to nogotiate... Sort of a freestyle; take it as it happens. Kind of frustrated right now." She looks it.Pretty sunrise drone shot. Martin, on the helm, talks about gybing into the Luzon Strait. Brunel should be somewhere around here. Brian [Johnson] and Dee look at the chart. Dee describes how Brunel is super close to them; just off their quarter. Drone shot. Brian talks about the tricky wind patterns ahead of them and the positions of the boats around them. Dee laughs about Brunel being right there, and how she's tired.Slomo washing machine in the cockpit. Drone shot of TTToP sailing fast. Surfing shots from the drone. Francesca in the cabin: "We need to keep pushing." Bernardo, crouching in the pit, explains that they did well in the last sched, but they're to leeward, so their distance-to-finish hasn't gained as much. But they think the wind will favor them. In the hatch, Francesca talks about how good things are: Sun. "Elodie is driving so we are going fast. The sky is so nice. We have more than 20 knots. It's perfect." Shot of Elodie on the helm. Drone shots of them sailing fast. Bernardo: "We have to push... and see what the outcome of the leg is." Were unlucky crossing the equator with a few clouds. Wake shot.Frederico, trimming, explains that they just gybed because they got an unexpected header, so they're now on course but on port insted of starboard. Liz steers. Drone shot with rain in the distance. Dee: "Let's make this cloud our friend and stays with it." Dee discusses strategy and nearby boats. "We're in really light airs and just need a bit more oomph, really."GoPro view as Brian [Carlin] releases a drone on the stern. Drone shots of pulling away from Brian, then circling TTToP, triple-heading on port gybe. GoPro view of drone retrieval. Brian: "Yeah. There we go."Wraparound VR views: Below. Dee sits by the galley. Brian [Carlin] works at the media station, editing a video. Someone lies in her bunk, looking at a mobile device. Nav station showing chart software. Brian in the media station again. VR GoPro view from a camera mounted on Liz on the bow.Drone shots from various angles of TTToP surfing.Closeup of chart software. Slomo of Bernardo on deck. Bernardo, below, summarizes their position. Talks about how all the gear makes them sweat a lot. Liz works on the watermaker pump, explaining what she's doing. Brian [Carlin]: "You would have made a good dentist." Dee talks about how Liz is very good at fixing boats, but doesn't have the empathy to work on humans. Shots of Liz soldering on the watermaker pump. "It's in, it's installed, it's working. We're gonna make some water to celebrate. It's like champagne. But it's water instead."High-speed sailing on starboard gybe. Washing machine; slomo of Frederico shaking water out of his hair, Bleddyn coiling. Liz on the helm. Whooping and laughing.Dee, on deck, talks about how she went to a dark place (due to their being left behind by 4 other boats, I assume), but she didn't show it outwardly. "If I came up on deck swearing and miserable and head down, then everyone would go down rapidly. So I went to my bunk for a little while... You have to look at, what can you do? If you're just miseralbe about it it doesn't help you go aster. We've got 90 miles to find; that's one bad cloud for them, one good cloud for us, and we've got 2,900 miles to go. There's a lot of sailing left... We thought we'd be fighting at the front, and now we're fighting at hte back." Bernardo talks about trying to improve all the time, working with the team. Elodie talks about trying. Bleddyn talks about how it's good that they have two boats close to them, and just keep pushing. Dee talks about leading by example, and how everyone has come around in their own way.Martin and Frederico lay out and look at the damage to their J1; apparently it was ripped in a squall the day before. Martin: "There are two battens that are gone, and the pockets are also gone. We've got a big rip in one of them. It's going to require a lot of work." We see crash cam footage of the squall from the night before. Martin and Frederico consider the work that's needed. Frederico: "I don't know. It seems pretty bad." Martin: "I think this is a good opportunity..." Frederico (chuckling): "...to pass the torch." [Maybe they're talking about swapping it out for a replacement J1 at the next stopover?] Brian [Carlin]: "Do you think it's fixable?" Frederico: "Yeah, but here... maybe not." He shows the ripped batten pocket.Oy. Dee and Liz as Neptune prod Bernardo, who's in his bunk, with a trident. Dee: "Let's go, pollywog." On deck Bernardo seems legitimately groggy. He and Bleddyn are herded forward and strapped to the weather daggerboard. Liz: "We've got similar reasons for punishment. One, you're a little too beautiful. And two, we have public displays of nudity. Don't do that!" (poke, poke) She takes a pair of scissors. "What do you want: the eyebrows or the hair?" Bleddyn chooses hair. Bernardo takes the set-aside trident and prods at Liz; Dee intervenes and takes it. "I shall prod them from a distance." Liz cuts a reverse mohawk into Bleddyn, then Bernardo. They put red hair dye in their eyebrows. Bernardo: "Freddy? Come and dance for us. Come and dance for us." Frederico does a quick dance in the cockpit. Bernardo: "This is not fair." It's over, thank god.We see the position readout tick over from S hemisphere to N. [Oh god. Here it comes. Please may the hazing ritual be merely silly, rather than cringe-worthy. (J/k. I know it will be fine. Goofball Boat Mom and Her Trusty Wisdom-Voicing Sidekick don't do abusive hazing.)] Sitting on the stack forward in the morning light, Bernardo says it's done; off the bucket list. Bleddyn looks at him: "One part of it, mate." Brian, in the cockpit, talks about how they've stuck within 2 miles of MAPFRE all day and all night. Slomo shot of MAPFRE. Time lapse sequence from a camera mounted on the starboard side of the stern showing them approaching a big squall, rain falling on them. Brian talks about the big squall in front, and the satellite showing a light patch of wind. Slomo of people grinding in the rain. Dee talks about the pollywogs, and how Neptune doused them with a rain shower. "And strangulation!" as Liz throws a sheet around her neck and mock-tugs on it. Liz points forward: "Neptune is pretty angry. And prolonging it. And Neptune hates waiting." Bernardo grins at the camera. "I'm terrified!" Francesca, on the middle pedestal: "Save the eyebrows!"Sunrise as TTToP sails slowly (but moving) on port tack. Dee stands in the cockpit to report on the latest sched. "We haven't fallen out the back. But we've lost touch with those [gesturing forward]. Need to claw our way back." Later, we see Dee sitting next to Liz on the stack. Dee has her feet on the weather daggerboard. "17 miles at 010." Sounds like that's the distance to Vestas, the leader in the sched at 2018.01.10 23:05:49 UTC. Francesca: "Scallywag and Bruel behind. So, it could be worse after the cloud problems of yesterday. Of course it could be better... MAPFRE's really close. They are pushing, they are going really fast right now." Annalise looks at MAPFRE through binoculars. "61, 62." [bearing, I assume.] Shot of MAPFRE. Bleddyn talks about all the plastic in the ocean. "Crazy. Plastic everywhere." Drone shot with sunset.Annalise stands on the bow with a glassy sea and clouds around her. Shot of raincloud behind them. Frederico points to port. "We have a twister. It's somehing new for me as well. And this one is connecting to the water already. It's not as big as the other one we have, but it might have a lot of breeze... Wait and see." Shot of the funnel cloud. Rain falling; crew rushes into the cockpit to shower. "Give us some soap!" Francesca, on the helm: "Main on. Someone!" Dee interrupts washing her hair to grind. Slomo of Martin grinding, grinning at Dee. Shots of dolphins under the bow. Dee, sitting in the forward hatch, points out where the different boats are. "It's the first time we've been clear north of everyone."At night, in the red light, we see rain coming down on deck as the crew trims the sails. There's a flash of lightning and almost immedaitely a crash of thunder. Brian [Thompson], who was in the cockpit in his shorts getting a shower, heads below. "Instruments went down." The camera follows him to the nav station, where Dee is sitting. "We just lost everything... I think it's coming back on. Whoa; the computer's just went funny. Okay; it's coming back on." On deck it's pouring rain. There's another flash, and several seconds later the thunder. Brian, looking at the radar screen. "Half a mile. We're getting out of it pretty quickly."TTToP slats in the night. Dee, on the foredeck in the morning light talks about the other competitors, the position report coming in in 15 minutes. Sunrise. As the light grows they pick out the other boats. Bernardo takes bearings. At the nav station, Dee checks the sched. "We're still in the lead by four and a half miles." She announces the sched on deck. Vestas is 10 miles away bearing 059. Drone shot pulls away from the crew on the bow. Very high drone shot looking down on them. Pole shot underwater showing the keel. Dee talks about knowing where everyone else is. Difficult bit is in 12 hours when we think the breeze will start to fill. At the moment they're not stressed. Confident in their position. But it's about geting the boat going when the breeze fills. Then the stress will begin.We see a shot looking down the foreward hatch into the bow, where Bernardo is lying on a pad. Next to him Francesca is sleeping; Bleddyn is putting a blue hat on his head. Bernardo laughs. On deck, Liz and Dee sit in makeshift tent. Liz: "Is this allowed? We're using all supplied equipment... all parts of the boat, so I figured it's class-legal." Brian asks Dee what she thinks. Dee: "I think it's a savior. An absolute savior." Shot of the glassy see in front of them, winch, the bow. Dee: "It is hot. Damn hot. So hot you have to put your shoes on to walk on deck. And we have a white deck." Liz shows sunscreen, hat, hand-bearing compass, binoculars "for potential bird-watching and looking at the competition". Dee describes the latest sched: "At the moment we are leaders of the pack." But she points out that 6 of the 7 boats are within sight of each other. "There's not a lot in it." Drone shot from above showing someone at the masthead and the deep blue water all around them. In the tent, Liz and Dee and Martin discuss optimizations. Dee says they never use the A3, so let's rip up the A3 and use that.Drone shots of a piece of flotsom (looks like a log with a net trailing from it). A couple of sharks circle it.Drone circles the masthead. Someone (not Liz, I don't think, but not sure who) is there scanning for wind. Drone shot from high overhead looking down on the deep blue sea beneath the boat.Slomo shot of sunrise clouds on the horizon ahead of them with a distant sail: AkzoNobel. Brian shoots from the foredeck facing aft; Dee is sitting near him, while Liz calls from the wheel: "I told you I had a halo, but nobody ever believes me." Dee: "We were in sight of Vestas, and now AkzoNobel and a red boat [Dongfeng] which is very exciting." Dee discusses their position with Annalise and someone else on the bow in the half-light. Night shot of stars, red-illuminated sails. Sunrise shot slatting with no wind. Elodie looking thorugh a hand-bearing compass. Bernardo and Francesca sit nearby. Francesca points out the nearby boats: "Dongfeng is there, AkzoNobel is here. And Vestas is there. We are in second. It's all about Elodie." Elodie laughs. "No. What is important is our spot at the finish." Bernardo: "It doesn't matter how you start; it's how you finish." Elodie: "It's good for the morale of the troops." Shots of a distant competitor. Shot of someone on the helm (maybe Annalise?) with the sunrise behind her. Elodie, on the bow, calls to the stern: "Three degrees we gained." Then quieter, to Francesca sitting next to her: "I think." She takes more bearings; they talk about Támara on MAPFRE. Drone shot of TTToP sailing in light wind.Liz, in her bunk, playfully pushes against the bottom of the bunk above her. "Just relax to beat the heat." Francesca raises her left arm to spray something (deoderant?) on her armpit while grinning at the camera, then lowers her arm to spray the right arm, revealing her completely badass upper-arm tattoo. Maybe it's a lighthouse? Also has elephants on her left forearm, and something else (a floral pattern? waves?) on her right bicep. In his bunk, shirtless, Bernardo talks about staying cool "with this beautiful fan". Liz sprays him with a spray bottle; he laughs. She sprays Brian [Johnson] at the galley. Shot of someone (Annalise?) and Francesca splayed out in the bow, sleeping. Liz, in her bunk: "I just like helping other people out." She talks about how to deal with the heat in her bunk. Shots of Annalise on the foredeck, stacking in the bow. Francesca taking her hands off the wheel. Martin, sitting to leeward, talks about how they're closing up with the leaders. Drone shot from astern. Annalise in the bow stacks forward and talks about closing on the leaders. Slomo shot of Frederico on the helm.High drone shots of TTToP. Sweeping drone shot of them double-heading with the MH0 and J3.Night. We see lightning flashes miles away. Martin describes what we're seeing. Someone (Elodie?) gasps. "That was a beautiful one!" Someone else (Bernardo?) responds: "A very beautiful one."Liz, at the masthead, waves to the drone. (On Twitter I wrote that I was interpreting this as a Wisdom dream sequence. "Look Liz! I'm flying! I'm really flying!")Brian and Dee stand in the cockpit looking at cloud activity. Brian: "That cloud is getting a lot bigger." Brian and Martin talk about the ideal wind scenario. Dee explains that the hard bit is trying to get north. Brian: clouds are always bad; sometimes very, very bad. "If you can stay just in front of it, that's okay. But if you get enmeshed in the back of them, you can be stuck there until it decides to release you from its grip." Shot of the nav station with weather displayed. Dee, on deck, talks about how the forecasts aren't very good in this region. Martin: "We need to be on our toes."Spreader cam view of Liz working the clew. Shot looking forward at outrigger lashed to the lifelines next to the stack. Liz, on the helm: "Spend long enough next to the good guys and it's bound to rub off." They're up at the front of the fleet. "We might have been called the rookies, but we've got a lot of skill and talent on board." Bleddyn takes the helm from Liz: "Nice to see that we're back in the game." Frederico on the pedestal talks about their improvement. Annalise: "I think we're getting better at figuring out modes. That's what the other teams have on us; they've just got so much experience." Slomo closeup of Bleddyn's hands on the wheel.Spreader cam shot of the deck as TTToP sails on starboard gybe. Then we see stern cam footage as Liz calls out information about... something. They seem kind of concerned; I think maybe there's a funnel cloud/waterspout ahead of them? Not super clear from the shot, but Liz's comment at the end about it "going away from us" would seem to make sense with that. Wonder if something was mentioned in one of the other media sources (Twitter, Daily Live...). I'm just watching the videos at this point while I try to catch up, so I don't actually know.Bleddyn trims. Beyond him, Vestas is a few miles to leeward and slightly ahead. Bleddyn: "Earlier, MAPFRE sailed past us as if we were anchored, which was a bit frustrating." Now Vestas is doing well against them too. Trying to match speeds with them, which will drag them to Hong Kong with the leaders. "That's the aim. It's frustrating, but it's good. We're pushing ourselves hard." Closeup of Bleddyn's hands. "I'm like a snake; I'm just peeling my skin." Closeup of the eye lead of the J3 (I think?) as crew shifts stack forward in the background. Dee talks to a crewmember about a competitor: "The header we're expecting, they've just sailed loads of extra miles for no reason." Dee calls the chant as they shift the stack forward. Closeup of tightening the stack ratchet. Slomo of someone (Francesca?) looking through a hand-bearing compass at a competitor. Martin, on the helm in his max foulies, talks about a squall with a twister that they just managed to avoid. "The waterspout was to leeward and we had the top of it to weather. We went straight under it."Dee is at the nav station; Brian [Thompson] sits behind her. Dee talks about how she's lucky because she's sailed with Brian a lot, so they know how each other works. "And after all he is pretty much the fastest man on water, holds more speed records than anyone knows existed, so why wouldn't I have him on my boat with me?" Brian [Carlin] asks various crewmembers if they know how many speed records Brian [Thompson] has set. Elodie guesses 6. Liz, sleepy in her bunk: "I have no idea." Bernardo just wiggles his eyebrows in closeup. Frederico guesses 10. Bleddyn guesses 5. Martin, on the helm: 20. Annalise: "22. Actually I'm just making that up off the top of my head. But I know he has at least one with my mom and dad." Below, Brian answers: "I've set about 45 records, and I hold about 15." Bleddyn, on deck: "I feel terrible. Oh god. I won't be able to look him with a straight face. I hope he's asleep now, didn't hear all that." Martin: "He's gonna see the video, mate." Bleddyn: "He will, yeah."TTToP sails at night with the full moon behind the sails. MAPFRE sails a few hudred yards away, below and slightly ahead of them. MAPFRE appears to be sailing slightly higher; they discuss that they might end up in their bad air. In the dark, Brian (Thompson), who's on the pedestal, explains the current situation to Brian (Carlin): In the middle of the Coral Sea, slightly north of Lord Howe Island, in a match race with MAPFRE and Vestas. He explains that it's helping them tune up and sail faster to be sailing next to the two boats. Liz, on the helm, talks about how it's pretty intense sailing close to the two boats. "Brian's down there calling relatives and we're just trying to match them." Dee, at the nav station: "Intense but exciting." Elodie, on the rail with binoculars, looks ahead and to port. "They look really loose on everything, that boat." She talks about how interesting it is that MAPFRE is sailing relatively high, while Vestas is managing to soak down without losing too much speed. "We're a bit the cheese in the sandwich here." Martin, looking to starboard with binoculars: "They've got sails in front and behind the shrouds as well." (Think he's talking about the stack.) Bernardo, trimming: "I'm smiling becuase I'm enjoying it. I don't have any reason not to smile." Dee, at the nav station: "I'm so proud to see these guys develop before your eyes... I'm a proud mum." Drone shots of TTToP sailing at sunrise on port gybe. Crew is shifting the stack. MAPFRE is visible ahead and to starboard.Dee sits at the nav station talking to Brian. Liz looks on from behind. The screen shows routing, and then a table (sched?). Dee, talking to Brian, claps her hands and grins. "We've got a yacht race! And we're in the middle of it, which is so nice." She talks about how they're maintaining longer than they have in other legs. Latest sched shows them ahead of MAPFRE and Vestas. Shot of her and Brian talking at the nav station. Slomo shot of Bernardo in the cockpit as spray flies from the outrigger. Annalise, below: "Gybing there ahead of Vestas and MAPFRE. It's always nice to see other boats around as well." Bleddyn, on deck, grins as he talks about seeing Vestas come into view in front of them and not being sure if it was a boat in their fleet, but then the sched came out and they knew it was Vestas.Sunset washing machine shot of the cockpit from the cabin. Slomo sunset shot. Dee and Liz at the nav station wave at Brian, shooting them from the media station. Slomo of Bleddyn spraying fresh water on his face and grimacing. Elodie, below, talks about the conditions: 20-25 knots; the sea state makes things difficult. Had a not-very-good sched; not as fast as Dongfeng and AkzoNobel. Slomo sunset shot of Bernardo on the aft pedestal in spray. Below, Bernardo says: "It's kind of like living in a washing machine. No, it's kind of, having a house by the water, and you can listen to the waves every night. But then you go for a swim every half an hour... Not that bad. Can't complain."Dim moonlight shot from the cabin of the cockpit as TTToP sails on starboard gybe. On deck, we see the crew stacking with the new-risen full moon ahead of them. Working on the stack, Bernardo talks about how with the moonlight it's helpful; almost need sunglasses. They can see what they're doing, see the swells for surfing. Shot of stars (planets?) low to the horizon to starboard. Shots of the moon. Bernardo: "Let's see for how many days we have this lucky and beautiful moon."Awesome drone shot circling TTToP under (I think) A3 and J3 on starboard gybe. A headland with a lighthouse is behind them. From the Tracker that looks like Green Cape lighthouse, with Disaster Bay in the background, at 2018-01-03 0420 just after TTToP gybed to starboard. Drone shot following them on their starboard quarter as TTToP surfs.Slomo shot of washing machine cockpit with Brunel to leeward. Francesca, on the stern, with Brunel now behnid them to leeward. "If we have made some gains it is perfect. We will have time to sleep in the coming days. I think we need to push as hard as possible now." Slomo of Brunel just ahead of them and to windward. Dee, sitting behind Liz on the helm, talks about the competition. Dee: "The fact that they are that close, but more importantly that we can see all of the others makes it very exciting." Bleddyn leans out to run a line through the stern-rigged outrigger while someone else holds him by the waist; Brunel is visible to leeward. Brian T., leaning against the stack: "It's going well. We're within sight of every boat. Which is great after 24 hours of sailing... Everything you see on the video about how wet they are is totally true, Brian. They are soaking wet. But really nice, really strong boats. Really incredible sailing with the crew." Dee talks about the upcoming day. "When the other boats are this close nobody really cares about how tired they are about gybing."At the nav station, Dee talks about deciding whether or not to gybe. Most of the boats have headed offshore. Brian [Thompson] has gone on deck to look at how things are. We see Brian talking to Dee through the companionway. "It's just silly to go this way." Dee wakes up people below: "Time to gybe." Liz: "I love the gybing what do you mean I don't like the gybing I love the gybing." Dee, at the nav station, talks about how it's harder to be with everybody rather than sailing on their own. But it's good; morning two and they're with the whole fleet.Night shot of the cockpit. Crew on the pedestal grinding with red headlamps on while the full moon illuminates clouds and the ocean behind them. Another boat can be seen a hundred yards away on their port side; TTToP gybes. Looks like the gybe they made around 1445 on 2018-01-02, which would mean that's Scallywag next to them. We see Scallywag sailing in the moonlight on their port side. On their starboard quarter we see what I think is South West Island with a light on it (FL 4 sec?).Internal stacking. Liz explains they had to sail upwind to Mornington, and now have to sail out of Port Phillip Bay. Slomo spray. Decided to peel to the J2, but then decided to stay with the J1. Had a big sea state against the tide ocming out the entrance. "It's been like a washing machine." She talks about Scallywag and AkzoNobel behind them to weather, and points out "Straya".Dee, motoring out on the helm, talks about how their problem is they start well, then lose out, then maintain. So they just need to eliminate that part where they lose out. Brian [Thompson, navigator], referring to handwritten notes, talks to the crew in the cockpit about the start of the leg. Sailing past other boats in the prestart. Sailing upwind after the start. On the rail, Annalise recaps the start: at the committee boat, a little conservative, but other boats messed up, so pretty nice. "So far so good! [makes a thumbs up] A long way to go, though." Elodie, with a scopolamine patch behind her ear, talks about the start, their current situation. Dongfeng sailing close to them. Francesca trims, talks about Brunel.