Chris Nicholson / Vestas 11th Hour Racing

gender Male
Nicolai on the helm. MAPFRE and Brunel in their wake. Nicho: You're in the lead, but they're so close it's not really. Gotta sail as fast as we can, mode the boat, hopefully that will be enough. But it's going to be on, all day; here we go. Hasn't' been much sleep the last few days. Carlo talks to Jules below: Where's the Dongers? Jules explains how they went inside. "Could pay off for them; could not. Models aren't particularly clear." Nav screen shows them entering the little gap in the exclusion zone. He stands in the hatch and shows Simeon the route on a tablet. Simeon: Pretty good. [He sounds half asleep.] "Good feeling to be in home waters." Shots of Brunel and MAPFRE behind them. Nicho: Stress. You can cut it with a knife back there between those two boats. Still have Dongfeng... not as strong a position tactically, but can't tell. He talks about the exciting day ahead.HIgh drone shot in low-light conditions. Nicolai stacking below. Jules in the cockpit talking about wind with Nicolai and Nicho. Jules: Got a little complicated there. Models had a big shift. Trying to time that, and dealing wiht the TSS. High drone shot of Akzo with Brunel a quarter mile behind them. Emily stacking uphill below. Jules at the nav station talking to Nicho. Nicolai getting his gear on below, talking to Jules about the upcoming wind. Nicho talks about changing to the J0; confirms with Nicolai that the outrigger is already set up for it. Nicolai to Nicho: Set up J1, J3, outrigger? Slomo washing machine on deck. Brunel behind them. Drone shot of both boats. Nicolai below, his face covered in freshly-applied sunscreen: Day 2? Day 3. Rounded the virtual mark off Norway. Transitions... Talks about the stress on the three boats with a chance to win the race. "Stress is on them. We just want to sail as fast as we can and win the leg."Nicolai gets out of his bunk: "That was 20 minutes. That was good." Martine: I don't count time anymore. I don't count hours and minutes. Nicolai, agreeing: No. Grinding on deck. Jules calling course changes while looking at his tablet. Nicho talks about winds ahead. They talk about which way to take the exclusion zone. Nicho talks about rounding the virtual mark. Now we can see the guys in front of us. Need another compression and parkup. Have a reasonable lead over Scallywag and Turn the Tide, but need to get into the guys in front. Another boat in the distance ahead of them (Vestas?).High drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing past the wind farm. Nicho talks to Brad about getting rid of the J3 and bring the J2 in a bit. Brad does that. Jules: Not doing too well at the moment. Didn't have too good a run from the buoy up at Norway. Brad hoists the MH0. Simeon, with binoculars: Pretty disappointed. Off the pace; out of sync. Peel. Simeon: Still a long way to go. Everyone's working hard. Getting a little bit of rest now. I don't think anyone slept longer than 40 minutes. This afternoon we'll get into Aarhus, then back up north again. Drone shot with wind farm.Drone shot of Brunel to weather and astern, then AkzoNobel in the foreground. Shot with Nicho driving and Brunel behind them. Slomo Martine in the sunset. Martine: It's a pretty cool sight. Today's the longest day of the year. Which means we'll have the longest night. Was forecast 35 knots, upwind and cloud. It's actually quite nice. A bit slower. It did change quite a bit in the beginning. Now on a big line with that group there, Dongfeng and MAPFRE, our group here, us and Brunel, and those down below. Drone shot with AkzoNobel silhouetted by the setting sun.Doing a sail change in the cockpit; furling line gets a knot in it (?). They scramble to fix it. Deploying the MH0. Nicolai takes the sail bag forward to bag up the J0 (I think?) Brad fiddles with the halyard. Simeon looks to starboard. Jules: He's only gonna go if Brunel goes. Nicho and Jules talk about when to tack over to port.Slomo parade. Simeon, Nicolai, Luke, Martine, Emily, Jules, Justin (carrying a small child). Dockout. Simeon: This is where I learned sailing. It's going to be good fun. Nicolai on the helm in the prestart talking about their approach. Simeon: "3:20!" On the line, Brunel, Dongfeng, TTToP nearby. Jules calling nav on the upwind with his tablet. Other boats: MAPFRE. Dongfeng just behind. Nicho: Just be a blocker for the next 3 days. Good start by Nicolai. Now get up the coast and probably match these guys a little bit. Good start; just keep trying to put the best foot forward. Jules: Going better now, Nicolai. Nicolai on the helm.Early in the leg, Jules looks at a tablet. Nicho calls "main on". Boats behind them: Dongfeng, TTToP, Scallywag. Pan across the cockpit showing crew sailing the boat upwind: Nicolai on the helm, Martine and Emily (I think) grinding. Justin trimming the J1. Simeon in the pit. Luke sitting just forward of James (the OBR).Stern cam / crash cam of AkzoNobel reaching in strong conditions. Nicolai, on the helm, calls out, "Big wave. Hang on." and a big wave slaps off the side of the boat, sending spray in the air. Martine getting geared up below. "This is what they call summer. I can't believe it. We need winter gloves in summertime. Although we're only two or three miles away from everybody it's very bad visibility, very bad weather." Nicho comes below, talks to Jules: Consensus on deck is J1. Jules talks with him about the course. What's the best compromise? Nicho to Brad in his bunk: Bradley. You know how it's your off watch? We're gonna go to J1 now. Is that funny? Brad: Eh, not that funny. Nicho: I actually think it's reasonably funny. Brad (half asleep): You just doing this for fun? Brad talks about his lucky (red) socks. Kiwis... Nicho, below: We thought we had a terrible watch, not on our numbers, but Brunel was the only one that gained on us. We have the wrong sail up, so probably everyone has the wrong sail up. So we're gonna change the sail. Slomo spray on deck. Jules looks at an actual paper chart. [I love real charts.] Jules: Just about picking your right sail... Barometer's rising now, so the wind's going to shift right and drop at the same time. Exclusion zones... And get around the Skaggerak, which is the top of Denmark. Thread the boat at the fastest speed through a narrow straight line, which should be quite simple, but it's always easy to make complicated.Drone shot of AkzoNobel triple-heading with the J0. Jules through the hatch: Think Turn the Tide might have gone to the J1. Shot of chart screen. Jules and Nicho talk about wind, sail selection. "Just starting to build a bit now, into J1 country." Martine looks through binoculars. Crew discusses other boats and their sail selection: Vestas, Dongfeng. Sail change. Nicho: Just changed from the J0 to the J1. Not an easy change, becaue the bowman has to hank on the new sail forward; he usually complains about that a bit. Don't know why. Goes on to talk about competion. "Slightly smaller sail, go a bit higher. Slightly smaller sail, but it gets us where we need to be. Next question is, if it's too windy for this sail when we get to the corner, we'll have to do another heinous sail change, and he'll probably change again. [He asks Luke on the helm if he thinks the bowman will complain; Luke agrees.] Nicho: That's why once in a blue moon you go up there with him so then he can't complain... Won't be doing that again. Slomo pole cam footage from outboard of Nicho on the bow with someone (presumably Brad) hooking up and hoisting the J1.Drone shot of Akzo flopping with the J1 as a windseeker. Jules, standing on the mast: Best breeze is through there. Nicho, with binoculars: They're all on port with zeroes. Other boats on the horizon. Nicolai on the helm talks to Simeon about the wind. Nicho: Fastest we've been for about half an hour. Crew sleeping in the bow. Luke: talks about broken sleep because of maneuvers. Going to plug in some music and zone out. Low-alttitude drone shot of Akzo in drifting conditions. Nicho talks to Jules about best heading. Justin: Gotta get out to that line, don't we? Nicho responds about the ridge. Flopping with MH0. Jules: Might be our turn now. Simeon: You wanna come down on this? Other boat (MAPFRE) to starboard. Justin: Just catch it before it dies. Nicho: That way (points ahead) 20 miles there's good southerlies. Talks about MAPFRE next to them; different scenarios as the breeze fills in. High drone shot of the two boats.MAPFRE sails on their weather quarter. Martine stacks below. Competitor on the horizon to port. Nicho: Most of the boats are pretty much in a line southeast to northwest, coming into the ridge. Hoping things will be better for us crossing the ridge to the right, to the north. I don't think anyone really knows where they need to be. But this is the plan we've had, so we're happy. Talking now about how we change sails crossing the ridge to the finish. That's going to be key: Will have to change sails, but doing it fast and getting back up to speed as soon as we can. Jules talking about competition; talking about Dongfeng's (I think?) strategy. How they're the fastest reaching. Luke, from the helm: Not the fastest Volvo boat ever though. (Referring to Akzo's speed record from leg 9.) He grins.Drone shot alongside as AkzoNobel sails in 15 knots of wind. Looks like they have a J0 and J3 up; MH0 and J2 (maybe?) are up but furled. Maybe shifting gears in expectation of falling wind? Brad goes out to the MH0 clew to take the lazy sheet off. Nicho talks about them expecting lighter winds as they approach the Irish coast. Beautiful drone shot with grassy hillside in the foreground and AkzoNobel and two other competitors (TTToP and Vestas, I think, from the tracker) behind them approaching the coast. Jules talks strategy in the cockpit. Jules: It's pretty rugged, and the water's pretty fresh and clean, and there's lots of granite that's been weathered by lots of storms, so there's lots of caves and arches. Drone shot flying through a sea cave (!) with AkzoNobel visible beyond. Then another shot of a small opening in the rock with a red-sailed boat (MAPFRE?) beyond. Jules: Pretty green because it rains a lot. And there's lots of good pubs. That's why I like it. He talks about the fleet, and compression; first 6 boats all within 3-5 miles of each other. Emily: Quite cool to see the geography of Ireland. Usually the wather's bad so you don't see it that much. Justin on the bow with Fastnet rock behind him. Drone shot with ridge and AkzoNobel beyone. Nicho: third or fourth at the moment; same as we are overall. Way forward for us to score as high up as possible, but certainly conditions ahead could have boats doing damage. We need a little of that to help us get on the podium overall. Just keep pushing the boat and sailing as quick as we can.There's a glitch with the video; it's listed as 3:44 in length, but stops at 1:40. Not sure what's up with that. (Ah. it's a duplicate of the subsequent, corrected video.)Slomo parade with kids waving flags. Slomo dockout with Simeon waving from the wheel. Luke: just coming out of the Cardiff lock, just coming down to sea level... Exciting toward the end; "thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening." Start sequence in drifting conditions. Jules and Nicho talking about a competitor getting a helicopter puff. Jules: Trying to make use of the turning tide here. Sailing offshore into the middle of the channel. Sailing with better wind.Drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing in misty conditions. Brunel on their starboard beam. Jules talks about how it was unlucky we went into 7 knots of wind... Justin interrupts: It's not unlucky it's just [bleep] light. Simeon looks at Brunel through binoculars and talks about their sail combination. Jules: Trying to defend our lead, which is very slim at the moment. Slomo crew work: Grinding, foredeck, steering, stacking. Jules: Still with 350 miles to go you don't wanna get too involved in a straight match race. You don't want to give them free reins to sail past. Staying with him, minimizing the risk, but also sailing the plan to get there as quickly as possible. Slomo crew work: Hoisting a sail. Drone shot.Nicolai below: Still battling with Brunel; never-ending story. Simeon at the nav station: Gaining a bit, losing a bit, different pressure. Trying to get the best sail setup. Trying to cover and hold on. Same old same old. Drone shot with sunset of them peeling to the J0 in strengthening wind. Triple-heading. Bagging the MH0 on the foredeck. Nicho, below: We've lost a little in the last 24 hours to them. We've coughed up a little; that's part of the game in trying to put yourself between the other boat and the mark. Looking like a long match race to the finish. We're in a good position; just need to consolidate it a little in these next few hours. Drone shot circling AkzoNobel under cloudy skies.Nicho, below: I would have bet the house you couldn't do 600 miles in one of these boats. Everything has to align perfectly to bust a record at this level, to break it the amount that we have (shakes his head). You know it can be broken again, but I think it will stay for a while. Probably more than what you drive your car in a day. What an effort. I'm so happy for the whole team. Good work everyone.Brad, at the nav station, grins and gives a thumbs up. "Beauty! Just got the 24 hour record Just got the confirmation from the boss." Simeon, in his bunk: Let's see if we can get over the 600. Brad talks to Nicho in the cockpit about beating Ericcson's record. "You gotta give me a fist for that." He holds out his fist. Nicho pulls his fist away and they laugh. Nicolai in his bunk: This is what it's about. It's hard and exhausting, and you're tired but it's why you want to do the race. Go as fast as you can for days and days, there's no limits... She's a fast boat, this purple bus. She's got some pace to her. I like it. She's a good boat. It's pretty cool; I didn't know that. It's good news to wake up to. Our main focus is still the leg. Gotta keep ourselves in line for the podium. Helmsperson raises his fist, make a peace sign, then a thumbs up. Martine laughs on the pedestal.Washing machine from the hatch. Jules looks out. He talks to the sailors in the cockpit about the routing, strategy with respect to other boats. He talks to Brad below. They're discussing when to gybe onto starboard. He looks at a sched. Brad explains: We're gybing. Vestas is heading north, for the shift, so we want to do the same thing. So it's a rush gybe. We see the gybe through the hatch. Jules at the nav station talks strategy while Nicolai and Martine stack below. Nicho: We'd been on about a 250 wind direction now for a day. But beyond that, we want to stick with Vestas and Brunel. Pretty sure all of us are pretty comfortable on this gybe. Should head down, and then tack over, get set up for some more breeze in a couple of days. Washing machine. Nicho: Going to be a couple days of decent breeze and fast running. Both Vestas and Brunel are very good at that. Brunel maybe the best in the fleet at J0 reaching. And then light air at the end; it's going to be quite a problem.Drone shots of AkzoNobel triple-heading. Martine: Today is a beautiful day, with boats in sight. Shot of another boat to starboard. Martine: And we are expecting a gybe for the last 2 days. More wind, so we're going faster than expected. Drone shot. Martine: We're going to have quite a bit of breeze two days from now. So still have to keep our eyes open. And then reaching the UK. So I guess we're gonna have to enjoy this. It's not gonna last too long. Nicho: Should have good breeze for a while longer, then gybe. Have been thinking we'll gybe for a day now, but the breeze hasn't shifted. Drone shot. Nicho: Had a pretty honest debrief after the last leg. And then a bad in-port race, and another debrief. We've needed it for some time. It's a challenge: Step up or get left behind. Drone shot with clouds.Drone shot of AzkoNobel triple-heading under gray skies. Slomo washing machine in the cockpit. Martine gets doused at the pedestal. Below, Nicho, Jules, and Simeon look at weather models on the computer. Jules: Mixed bag performance wise. Had some good spells and some not so good spells. Crossed a bit of the Gulf Stream. Radar, AIS; he was short on sleep all night. Drone shot. Spray by the shrouds. Simeon getting greared up below. Some good moments, some difficult moments. Keep the hammer on. Nicho takes slomo spray. Major whitewater near the mast looking aft. This is when the boats are most powerful. Jules at the nav station looks at routing. "Still a long way to go, changing conditions. The forecasts not really lining up." More slomo washing machine, drone shot of AkzoNobel surfing.Jules, from below, tells the helmsman what course to steer. (Sounds like they're skirting the exclusion zone in the fog.) Sail change in spray on the foredeck. Foggy wake. Dark below. Nav station, the sound of the hydraulic pump. Luke talks about the sun coming up. Still foggy, but not as thick. Probably 4th. Target is to try to win the leg and win maximum points. Nicho: Not quite in touch with the leaders as we needed to be at this stage. The two red boats have got some fast modes. Brad talks about Brunel. Nicho: Low coming with wind up to 40 knots... We're in the front of B grade at the moment. We need to step it up and get to A grade again.Parade. Simeon holding a little girl. Justin kissing a young child he's holding. Dockout. Nicho: Double pointer, only 8 days. People think it's short, but if you push it hard you feel it. Start. Brad: "Good breeze here." Other boats behind them. TTToP crossing astern at mark rounding. (Think that's the port-starboard between Vestas and TTToP behind them.) leeward mark rounding. Vestas astern. Nicolai on the helm going downwind under the bridge with MAPFRE and Dongfeng (and Brunel, invisible) ahead of them. Vestas 3 boatlengths to starboard. Simeon: Thinks they did well, except at the top mark. Felt my heart beating in my throat there. Now out of the bay into the fog. MAPFRE behind them. Jules: third place at the moment. Just trynig to wriggle our way around the exclusion zone. Discussion of J0 vs. J1.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.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.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.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.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.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.Jules, at the nav station, talks about the wind and confused sea state. Spreader cam views of washing machine on deck. Crash cam view of Nicho (based on his foulies lettering) getting washed off the helm by a wave. Below, Brad talks to Nicolai about his nose; Nicolai says he's broken it before, then pushes it back into place. Nicolai, below, talks about getting beaten up by the waves. He broke his nose last night. But nothing too serious. Jules and Simeon at the nav station talk about strategy. Nicho: Got washed off the wheel. First one I've had. Held on tight. I had two tethers on, just got washed back on my ass on the boat. Crash cam footage of the washing off again. Jules: We've also slowed down a bit. TTToP slowed down a bit due to rig issues, and Vestas has just been dismasted in this same area. Standing by... Simeon: Especially for Vestas, a tough time for those guys. Jules: At the moment hard to go max speed because of the sea state, and fear of breaking the boat. Talks about the upcoming route. A bit of a tradeoff; trying to get north as quickly as they can but also as safely as they can.AkzoNobel closes in on Cape Horn. As they leave it behind, Simeon talks about how it's good to get past it. Have to give everything now and try to catc up with the guys in the lead. Slomo of Cape Horn with the binnacle in the foreground. Nicolai: Happy to be here in one piece. Hard to get to. Nicho, on the pedestal: Used to see this stuff as a kid in books, early explorers. Never imagined doing it himself. But now he has 5 times. It's why he has all the gray hair. Closeup of Cape Horn.Nicho, below, talks about the loss of John Fisher. A good man. Deeply affected; offer our thoughts to his family and friends. Slomo on deck; albatrosses flying past Southen Ocean waves. Nicho: From their own boat's point of view, has been full-on Southern Ocean conditions. Coldest one he can remember in quite a while. Has given them a bit of a beating. The place is beautiful and ferocious at the same time. "I'll be glad to get out of here."Drone shots of AkzoNobel surfing big waves in the sun. Slomo of wake peaking up into a geyser of whitewater. Nicho on the helm as they surf fast in big wind. Wake shot with big waves overtaking. Slomo of stuffing the bow and whitewater coming aft over the cockpit; Justin ducks. Slomo big-wave shots. Slomo of crew stacking aft. Nicolai on the helm with big waves behind him.Drone shots of AkzoNobel surfing big waves in the sun. On deck with Nicho on the helm, we see a squall coming. Nicolai: We've got a bit of hail coming. In a squall usually it's rain, but in the Southern Ocean it's hail. Hurts when it hits you in the head. Slomo shots of hail/snow. Martine (I think?) shakes her hands. "My hands are freezing. It hurts." Nicolai talks about easing the sheet, keeping the wind at 75 apparent. More drone shots of them surfing. Below, Martine squeezes water from her pigtails. "For a Brazilian this is very cold. I've never sialed in this cold before. I was freezing my hands outside. It was pretty cool; we had a pretty cool watch." Nicho, below, talks about gaining bearing. How it's funny that if they sail fast it's safer. If you have a breakage and slow down it's more dangerous, as they found in leg 3. [Favoriting for the epic drone shots and squall/snow.]Drone shots of AkzoNobel surfing big waves in the sun. On deck with Nicho on the helm, we see a squall coming. Nicolai: We've got a bit of hail coming. In a squall usually it's rain, but in the Southern Ocean it's hail. Hurts when it hits you in the head. Slomo shots of hail/snow. Martine (I think?) shakes her hands. "My hands are freezing. It hurts." Nicolai talks about easing the sheet, keeping the wind at 75 apparent. More drone shots of them surfing. Below, Martine squeezes water from her pigtails. "For a Brazilian this is very cold. I've never sialed in this cold before. I was freezing my hands outside. It was pretty cool; we had a pretty cool watch." Nicho, below, talks about gaining bearing. How it's funny that if they sail fast it's safer. If you have a breakage and slow down it's more dangerous, as they found in leg 3. [Favoriting for the epic drone shots and squall/snow.]Spreader cam view of AkzoNobel triple-heading. Bow cam view looking aft. Someone (Martine?) looking forward through binoculars, presumably at a competitor. Shot forward from behind the wheel of washing machine and a competitor crossing ahead of them (Dongfeng). Nicolai, standing on the stern trimming the main, talks about Dongfeng and (unfortunately) MAPFRE crossing them. Last night they were behind us; now they've crossed us. Not the best morning. But still 15 mornings to go. Shot of the other boat to port. Stern cam footage of them sailing on starboard. Jules and Nicho sit at the nav station talking strategy. Nicho, eating: "No shortage of breeze." Martine below. She guesses she got the most sleep, but not anymore. Going to be gybing. Luke: With the two gybes in his off-watch he got about an hour of sleep during his four off. Jules talks about having lost a lot of distance to the boats nearby. Did some good gybes, got a couple of hundred meters behind Brunel. But now they've coughed up some distance. Spreader cam view of shifting the stack aft.Nicho, below in semi-darkness: Right now just coming into all that breeze and grief, probably not the smartest thing you could ever do. Slomo spray. Nicolai, trimming, talks about how this is the sailing you do the race for. The cold is not that bad. The breeze is a different story. Justin, on the aft pedestal: We're in the middle of a good old-fanshioned boat race. Pretty much all the boats lined up on an easterly line. (He runs through the list of nearby competitors.) Four or five days of gybing coming up in breeze, so that's going to sort out positions pretty quickly. Somebody's gonna have one. Not our turn. Not our turn. Nicho, below: At the end of the day it's just so difficult to get across unscathed, without something happening. That's certainly our aim here. But it's a big ask, with at least a week in 30, 40 knots in the Southern Ocean. It's just a massive, massive effort.Cool low-altitude drone shot that pulls up to reveal AkzoNobel sailing toward the drone. Drone shot above and astern, tracking with them. Simeon, bundled, talks about being in first position. Getting colder, good sailing conditions. Every watch you can feel the temperature drop. Jules, below in the dark, talks with Nicho about the wind and models. Nicho in his bunk, talking to Jules at the nav station. Jules: Crossed the dateline. In a different hemisphere. Fleet pretty close together, within a few miles, bar one boat (Scallywag). In 12 hours some big winds, 30 - 40 knots, and then for the next week. So pretty big stuff coming up. Favorited mostly for that really nice drone sequence at the beginning.Nicolai handles a sheet, takes spray. He talks about J0 vs. MH0. Talks about how it's good getting south; he doesn't mind the cold. "Must be close to Dongfeng though?" Slomo spray. Surfing fast with Nicho on the helm. "A week of pretty full on with 30 to 40 knots, maybe gybing along the ice gate. Need a bit of gybing practice anyway I reckon. Be all right this time. I was doing plenty of gybes coming into Auckland with everything up. Won't be doing that bit of drama again, guaranteed. Slomo washing machine. Martine below getting her foulies on, stretches her neck. "It's already pretty wet, and we haven't even got there... It's not going to be easy, but looking forward to the highway that takes us all the way to South America." Slomo of her taking spray. Favorite mainly because of that brief interview with Nicho talking about gybing.Luke, below: First night at sea seemed long, bashing upwind, tacking, not a lot of sleep. But East Cape in a few hours and then downwind and an end to tacking. Someone calls from the companionway to the cockpit: "We should be crossing them". Nicho on deck with two boats to leeward. Chipping away; not sure if we're any faster. Brunel crosses behind them. Luke, Emily, and Brad getting dressed below. Luke: About to go around East Cape, in joint third position with Brunel. Looking forward to a few days on port tack heading south toward the Southern Ocean. Brad eating. Had an hour and half of good sleep. Emily: Nah, had a full 12 hours of beauty sleep. You can tell by the hair, and always so charming. Brunel and TTToP sailing to leeward.Luke, below: First night at sea seemed long, bashing upwind, tacking, not a lot of sleep. But East Cape in a few hours and then downwind and an end to tacking. Someone calls from the companionway to the cockpit: "We should be crossing them". Nicho on deck with two boats to leeward. Chipping away; not sure if we're any faster. Brunel crosses behind them. Luke, Emily, and Brad getting dressed below. Luke: About to go around East Cape, in joint third position with Brunel. Looking forward to a few days on port tack heading south toward the Southern Ocean. Brad eating. Had an hour and half of good sleep. Emily: Nah, had a full 12 hours of beauty sleep. You can tell by the hair, and always so charming. Brunel and TTToP sailing to leeward.Simeon talks about the latest sched with Jules at the nav station. Close to North Cape of New Zealand. Everyone lining up behind them. Scallywag still in stealth mode. They'll probably use their stealth mode card in the next sched. Some light air expected at north end of New Zealand. Jules, on deck, says technically they're leading. Pretty evenly matched with Scallywag. Brad: Having the lead for most of the last two weeks has been pressure. As Kiwis want to win the leg into Auckland. Cecile: Auckland is my second home. It would mean the world to me to win in Auckland. Shots of crew sleeping, the instruments, sunset. Jules, Simeon, and Nicho at the nav station talking strategy. Nicho: 18 miles in the lead; pretty much point and shoot now. Trying to get around the corner while the tide is good. Then a parkup on the other side. On deck in the sunset, Brad talks about the upcoming situation. Shot of islands in the fading light (the "Three Kings", maybe?). Sunset sky.Nicho on the helm at sunrise. Simeon: Basically the plan is working out, which is nice. Heading more and more to New Zealand. A little more pressure. Coming from underneath, which was alwyas the plan. Sailing more miles, but doing them quicker. Shots of them triple-heading on port gybe. Simeon: In a strong position now; wouldn't want to trade with anyone else. In good shape heading toward New Zealnd, and then the last 400 miles in are very light. Cecile coils. Justin, below, talks about how it's been a long slog. Timing the approach; time and tide. Fingers crossed; keep pushing. Brad, Nicolai in the cockpit. Stacking the sails aft. Grinding. Nicho with his penguin balaclava. Nicho below: staring the weather to death on the computer, so we're prepared. To be in a position to win a leg is a very special thing. It's a rare, rare, rare occurrence... Enjoy every moment you can, because you may not have another. Simeon looks at the latest sched; talks about Scallywag being in stealth mode. 25 (miles?) more than Brunel, 24 more than Dongfeng. Jules and Simeon talk at the nav station. Sunset through the companionway silhouetting a crewmember.Sailing south fast. Pole shots of the crew in the cockpit. Simeon on the helm. Double-heading with J0/J3? Cecile grinding. Simeon at the nav station reads a sched (or AIS?) of Scallywag's position. Jules: just passing the southern end of New Caledonia. Sailing a little further to avoid light air. Still heading south. Brad pulls a sail out from below. Sail change on the foredeck. Slomo washing machine. Simeon: Gained some bearing. Luke, below: Weather could allow Dongfeng and MAPFRE to cut the corner. Still anyone's race. Brad and Luke rock out, sharing a pair of earbuds. Jules and Simeon at the nav station. Jules talks about using the J0 now to give up some distance. Nicho talks about how they can do some things with Scallywag, but not with Dongfeng and MAPFRE because they're too far away. Can't get caught up in that. Pole shot of stacking the A3?Early morning. Jules talks about how they can see Scallywag now. They've taken about 10 miles from them in an hour and a half. Bow with stack on it. Nicho looks toward Scallywag. Jules, at the nav station, talks about 1400 miles (to go in the leg?). About 1500 miles of sailing. Jules talking strategy. Cecile talking about how she's glad she picked this boat to be on because they're in a good spot. Still a ways to go. Until you get to North Cape with a decent lead, I won't think about anything. Jules and Simeon at the nav station look at the latest sched. Nicolai in the companionway talks about the competion. Luke talks about how they had a great sched. Talks about New Caledonia, how the other boats are picking different lines. Cecile with a hand-bearing compass. Nicolai, below: Four miles to Scallywag. Three weeks of work behind it, and can lose it in one cloud... Coming together more. Speed, experience, teamwork. Adds up. Jules, Simeon, and Nicho talking around a tablet. Sailing south in light conditions.Scallywag sails a half mile away to leeward (port) of them in the sunrise. Simeon jokes about it. Nicolai eats: Next 48 hours really important. Whoever gets through the best will do best. Each time they've been next to Scallywag in this leg they've beaten them. Nicho: It's good to have a boat next to you. Easy to lose from here; will be difficult to win. But have a good chance at it. Which is more than you can ask for in this race. Shot of Scallywag astern. Jules talks strategy below. Nicho: Had good breeze throughout the sched. But the disadvantage of two boats side by side is you stick together. Crew drinking. Nicho: "I'm from Australia, it's not a problem. The guy from Denmark, he really struggles." He wakes up Nicolai. Nicolai talks about the sun and heat. Simeon, below. Jules: "We're not doing anything at the moment. We're not in the wind, we're losing to him, we're not sailing to our plan, and we're sailing slowly." Hoisting the J1; lowering the MH0. Cecile talks about losing the lead to Scallywag. Simeon in the red light of the sunset: Very expensive. Nothing you can do about it now. Knew west was best in both models. Try to keep west... Try to put yourself in a good position... Should have been more aggressive. Learned a lesson today. Sunset.Gybing at sunrise. Jules: Still unresolved on how to get through the band of doldrums. Depends on what you'll find on the other side, but that's still 10 days away. "Pretty random really." Sunrise. Nicho on the helm talks strategy with Jules and Simeon. Luke washes in a rain squall. Martine and Brad shower in the rain. Brad: Three showers so far today. Looks like number four shower. Rolling up the J3. Light winds. Martine: Still going through a lot of clouds. Everybody can catch up with us. You just deal with it. Hoisting the J1. Simeon: Hope we end up well. To win the race you need to win legs. That pressure is bigger for us than for any of the others. Jules talks from the cabin to Nicho on the helm. Cecile puts on a shirt below. Nicolai pulls down the J1. Nicolai: Just had a sched, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad. This was a bad one. Lost 25 miles on the fleet. Knew that was coming; they're sailing into lighter conditions. Luke, in the cockpit: "A lot of snakes and ladders in this game." Sunset as they sail in light winds. Red-lit instruments show them sailing at 0.6 knots.Wrestling sails on the foredeck. Pole shot of waves off the side. Lowering and gathering in the J1. Stacking. Looking up the slot while double-heading with a reefed main. Below, Simeon, Jules, and Nicho talk strategy at the nav station. Nicho isn't talking much. Cecile eating. Simeon: Basically leading the fleet. But have to make a decision between two different models for how to round Fiji. Go 800 miles more? A bit of a situation. The weather has been different from the models. Nicho: Have the option of bailing out if they need to. Simeon: As the lead boat have to make a crucial decision. Nicho: Have a reasonable lead, but you can never have enough lead when entering the doldrums. Simeon eases a sheet. Justin on the helm. Luke on the helm as dusk falls, the wind lighter. Beautiful red sunset clouds. "End of the world."Luke sings (I guess?). Laughter as Nicolai steers. Cécille laughs. Jules on the helm. Closeup of lines. Brad laughing. Richard (OBR) asks Luke what position they're currently in. Luke: "This can be answered by the expression on Jules' face. I think we're currently leading the yacht race." They laugh about Jules smilng. Cécille: "Yeah, leading. Which is nice. Another good sched." More discussion of Jules smiling. Simeon, below: "Hopefully we ca maintain the lead we have. But in the last leg we had a 100-mile lead on Brunel, and they came within" a few miles of their stern. Sunset, moonrise.Cécille, below, talks about how Jules strategy has paid off and they've picked up 40 miles on the other boats in one sched. Still a massive way to go and doldrums and stuff, but it's cool. Jules, at the nav station, looks at a chart. Jules, in the hatch, talks to Nicho, in the cockpit, about strategy. Nicho: Last two scheds are the two best scheds we've ever had. Now put some miles on Scallywag. And still some concern about Brunel and TTToP, with a little bit of leverage. "Minefield after minefield from here to New Zealand." When they were behind they were looking at these upcoming transitions as the opportunity to get past the leaders. So have to be careful. But still, rather be here than back there. Simeon trimming, Martine on the pedestal. Nicho (I think?) steering; Nicolai trimming.Nicho, below, talks about how cool it was last night pushing in 28 knots of wind. Can't talk on deck; just focus on your job. When the front that they're on breaks down there will hopefully be some compression. Pressure on the team, and has been since they damaged the mast in Leg 3. He thinks they're a better team than where they're sitting overall. Nicolai, below, talks about Simeon getting blown off the wheel, making a big bang. "Only one thing can make a bang that big, and that's him falling off the wheel." He just ran for the wheel and grabbed it. Crash cam footage of the incident. Simeon: "Reminds me of when I fall out of a tree as a young boy." At the nav station, Jules talks to Nicho about Dongfeng doing a peel; maybe that's why they fell back. Nicho: "We're just quick Jules." Jules: "The other two are quicker." Nicho laughs. Washing machine shots on deck, closeup of the rudder. Cool fisheye perspective shots. Stacking, shot from outside the lifelines with a GoPro on a pole. Slomo washing machine. Spray. Brad grinding. Someone (Luke?) gives a thumbs up. "Finally moving!"Simeon looks at Scallywag, sailing a quarter mile astern and to leeward. Simeon talks about sailing north, away from New Zealand. Talks wind and clouds with Nicho on the helm. Nicho looks for shadows of clouds. Martine on the helm. Nicolai on the helm, waving "goodbye" to Scallywag. Justin talks about staying in touch with Scallywag. Jules talks about a front coming. They flop in light conditions Shifting the stack forward. Nav station. Brad on deck as they go slow. Luke on the helm: points out the front behind them; expecting big things in the nxt three or four hours. Martine, Simeon putting on foulies. Sailing in more wind. Simeon in the pit; Cecille on the pedestal. Sail changes as it gets dark. Looks like J1 going up, MH0 coming down?Sailing in light winds, crew on the foredeck for weight. Then hoisting a new sail. Closeup of the knotmeter on the mast. Coiling line in the pit. Simeon: "Normal day at the office. Crew gatehring the J1 bare-headed on the bow. Crash cam footage of big wave washing over the cockpit. Bow cam, mast cam. Spreader cam view of reefing the main. Brad, below, recounts the big breeze, over 30 knots, then died down almost completely. Then relatively quickly straight to the J2, a couple of reefs in the main. Now up to 40 knots. In the space of about 4 hours saw everything. Windward rudder repair; Brad explains that it had become loose. Shot of nav software; Jules explains the situation. A windy, gusty night; some shipping as well. Concerns about islands in their path. Jules talking to Simeon about tacking. Nicho says a big bearing change on Scallywag. "Dongfeng's the one I'm interested in." Night vision stern cam view of crew tacking (?). Jules towels off his head at the nav station.Simeon gives a recap from the nav station. Bouncing upwind, everyone very close. Cat and mouse game; Brunel a little ahead. Lost a few miles during the J1 -> J2 change. That's the hardest change, getting the J1 away. Shot of them sailing upwind. Brunel to weather; three other boats astern. MAPFRE to leeward. Slomo of MAPFRE. Nicho on the helm. Jules at the nav station, talking about changing to the J2 before it gets dark. Red-light shot of the crew grinding. Shot of them going to weather with the J1 up. J1 being hoisted. Brad wresting a sail on the foredeck. Nicolai in the pit, then on the foredeck.Darkness and the sound of flopping sails. On deck at night, Jules is in the foreground, his face illuminated by the light from a tablet. Behind him the railing by the helm is lit by red light. Jules: "The only problem at the moment this way is that no one's actually moving." Nicho: "We can still do our five minutes heading north." Jules: "On starboard." Nicho: "Before running into where MAPFRE is." They discuss that MAPFRE and Dongfeng have stopped. [Guys: I've seen the future. There's a huge windless cloud ahead.] Nicho: "But at least we'll be heading north until we stop." Simeon and Cécile grind on the pedestal. Stars overhead; the main pops over as they tack to starboard. Below, at the nav station, Nicho points out the changed positions on the chart: They've pulled ahead of Dongfeng and MAPFRE, while Vestas further west has made up ground. "Just from one cloud." Another 500, 600 miles of this, he says. Low-altitude drone shot of AkzoNobel drifting on a glassy sea. Martine throws something small down the forward hatch. Crew sits on sails on the bow. Below, Brad says to Nicolai: "Nicolai, you still awake?" Nicolai: "Yeah. Too warm to sleep. Just watching a bit of Netflix." They have a little scripted chitchat. Jules calls down the hatch that they want to do a peel to the J1, and they need some big strong muscle-y men. Shot of the instruments on the mast: Boatspeed: 0.93. High-altitude time-lapse drone shot of AkzoNobel drifting along. Nicho talks about the "good guys" generally doing okay in the doldrums. Nicolai pulls the main. Very-high-altitude drone shot showing them parked. Pretty slomo shot of their branding reflected in the water. Luke, on the helm, talks about the mood: concerned. Need to come out of the doldrums okay so the front bunch gets a jump. Low-altitude drone shot at sunset with another boat beyond them. I think it's probably Vestas.High drone shot showing Dongfeng in the foreground and AkzoNobel in the background. It's a pretty distant shot, and makes me wonder: The OBRs haven't been using this opportunity to get drone closeups of their competitors (which they did, a little, in Leg 2). I bet there was some kind of agreement to limit that, presumably for competitive reasons (i.e., an extension of the "OBR shall not contribute to the racing" concept, such that they shouldn't be potentially helping their crew steal info about setup on the other boats). Anyway, Sam's voice is lapped over the shot: "Nicho, tell me about the art of sailing through the doldrums." We see Nicho, who tells a story about meeting with a meterologist who talked about clouds all day, and he asked him how to tell a good cloud from a bad one. "There is an element of luck... I"m lucky I enjoy it." Luke talks about being stuck in the doldrums, playing cat-and-mouse with Dongfeng. Overlapped with a time-laps of the drone shot of the two boats - which I realize now shows a third boat, Vestas, ahead of them both. Simeon, on the helm, talks about trying to sail from puff to puff. Shot of Dongfeng ahead of them and to leeward. Luke talks about how he thinks Dongfeng is probably tense on board, with their close competitor MAPFRE close by. Shot of a rain cloud. Drone shot from astern as the sun is setting to port with a competitor on the horizon while Brad is hoisted up the mast. Drone shots circling him at the masthead showing rain clouds and the other boats around them. Nicolai talks about them sending Brad up to look for the beeze, having 5 boats in the same area. Simeon, shirtless with the low sun on him, talks about being pretty happy with the situation. "Fighting, you know, every single watch and hour." A shot of them approaching a competitor (I think; unless it's a low-altitude drone shot of their own boat) with the sunset sky behind them. We see the other boat just a few boatlenghts away. Someone says, "There's somebody standing on the prod." [?] Brad (I think) calls out to them: "Who's the monkey on the bowsprit?" We hear the response. Something like, "Go back to Kerikeri, mate", which makes Brad chuckle. [Brad and Blair Tuke are both from Kerikeri, NZ.] I think this must be the super-close approach they had with MAPFRE around 2018.01.10 08:20:10 UTC, so that would make it either Blair or Louis who's answering. Brad, invisible in the dark: "It's nice to talk to somebody from another boat for a change. As much as I love these guys, it's nice to hear a different voice for once. Especially one from Kerikeri." Awesome drone shot passing AkzoNobel at low altitude, flying toward MAPFRE. Lightning-flash illuminated shots of them sailing in the squall that night.AkzoNobel is sailing upwind inside Port Phillip Bay on starboard. Nicho, on the stern, talks about how they couldn't hold their lane on port tack after the start. "Don't know. Not sure what happened. We were slow on port for a long time." Shot of their stern with a Bravo (protest) flag flying; other boats in the distance. Simeon below: "Yeah, we had a bit of a speed issue, yeah." Shots of crew moving the stack. Nicho: "It's not where you want to be... back of the pack... No use grumbling about it." Below, Nicolai and Simeon are looking through the window in the hull, talking about the prop. Maybe it wasn't folding properly? Brad looks through an inspection tool: "It's closed but it's got weed in it... Looks like I'm going over the side. Get a lot of heel on, and rip it off." Sam: "Would this explain the speed?" Brad: "Hopefully." On deck, Brad gets lowered over the weather side in his foulies with lines forward and aft; he goes down near the waterline to inspect. Cécile's back is in the foreground as she relays Brad's words, then helps him back on deck. Brad: "A bit of weed. Not as big as it looked. But it's closed. Nothing underwater slowing us down. So get into it." Later, on the stern, Sam asks Brad: "How's it feel to be in last place coming out of Australia?" Brad: "I hate to say, but we're used to it." Luke: "New Year's resolution? Probably just to win a few legs here." Martine: "I dunno. Just keep positive." Brad: "Not be last out of the next start. And start getting in front of the fleet." Rainbow in the boat's spray to leeward. Luke talks about the frustration of starting off in last or close to last. "People say you're unlucky, but you create your own luck." Talks about teamwork, they're a great group of sailors. Real rainbow to leeward; a competitor below and behind them. Simeon talks about them doing well in the last sched. "Zero to hero." First in the position reports. At the nav station, Jules talks about their performance. Sam: "How'd you manage to check back in with the fleet?" Jules: "Bit of luck, really. Guys have been sailing pretty hard all night. Everyone's been up pretty much most of the night. Gybed on a couple of shifts. Got a nice header for a while..." Talks about disappointment at the start, needing to hang in there. "If we go fast we'll be all right." Rainbow with Vestas, Dongfeng to leeward.Brad, on deck: "Melbourne here we come. Slowly." Shot of them slatting in no wind with land in the distance, Nicho on the helm.Slomo of AkzoNobel sailing upwind, close-hauled on port tack. Nicolai, below, talks about the remaining leg for them. Nicho, at the helm: "Learned the same lessons I think I've been taught before: never to be complacent. I don't think we were complacent, but we had one terrible gybe which I'm more responsible for than anyone, and that cost us the leg. And the usual story, that you make that mistake in the middle of nowhere, and you can pay for it for a long time. So that's what we did this leg." Martine, on deck: "What I've learned on this spedific leg? Probably a lot of patience. And try to find joy, and happiness, in little things every day... Sometimes a bird, or whale-watching, has made my day, a funny joke; anything. Always try to find the thing that makes you happy." Brad sleeping on the foredeck in bare feet. Nicolai, below: "I think this leg's been quite a challenge for many of us. Not so much a normal Volvo leg, physically a challenge, but more mentally and team-wise, it's been a tough one. But it's also been one that we probably needed to have to keep getting better and better, and hopefully learn from it, all of us, and become a stronger team. And I think we are handling quite well the headwinds we have, no issues within the team, it's all head down and keep working whatever we find ourself in and that's quite positive and quite good." Slomo of someone's hands on the wheel.GoPro shot from the masthead. Shot of the instruments on the mast. Looks like they're reaching on port tack in about 10 knots of wind. Nicolai grinds. Clew of the MH0 in the background. Nicolai: explains the strategic situation, how they have to sail upwind. Nicho, on the helm: "Boredom has set in... Question of the watch is how much Nutella gets produced in the world in a year." He's added another question as to annual Vegemite production. Martine and Nicolai discuss Nutella production. Nicolai: "It's been a relatively short leg, but it feels like a long one." Hard because they haven't been near other boats. Nicho says they've learned some things about the boat. Nicolai: Looking forward to land and rest, but mostly to getting a reset to get back with the fleet. Shot of the mainsail looking up.Slomo shots of the crew working in the cockpit. Washing machine. Nicho comes below, takes his gear off, washes his face in the galley. Nicho: "You see when you take certain medication, 'Don't operate this vehicle when tired and drowsy'? Well, everyone's operating this vehicle tired and drowsy." Talks about getting rest, food, makes for better decisions. Martine comes below, takes off her gear. "For me sleep and food go side by side. The less I sleep the more I have to eat to have energy." Martine eats. Nicolai talks below about the balance between sleeping and eating. Brad: People sacrifice a lot to get a couple of minutes extra sleep. People don't brush their teeth to get a couple more minutes of sleep. Don't want to name names." Martine gets in her bunk. Nico, talks about the upcoming stronger conditions. "Plenty of sleep. Just look at me." He grins.Slomo through wheel of the ocean. Slomo water in cockpit, Martine's corn rows. Below, Martine talks about how the double points in the leg are going to really hurt them. "It's a bit disappointing. But it's still a long race to go so the chances are still there." Simeon: "We're up to speed, but yeah, a long way behind the pack. We're doing good polars... fingers crossed there are still some opportunities." Nicho: Talks below about the same thing (double points, finishing at the back)... "One maneuver gone wrong, and before that we were competing nicely. People gotta... draw faith that we can do it. We can match up with these guys. Frustrating part now is we've gotta wait for our next opportunity. We probably won't get another opportunity on this leg. Sadly I think we're done. It's not gonna stop us trying." Simeon: "It makes you realize that one bad gybe can cost you a lot in one day... Yeah, it's a setback, but the race's not over." Martine, chewing and staring into space: "Well. You gotta have the bad ones to realize the good ones. Yeah."Epic slomo shot of a big Southern Ocean wave. Nicho, below, eating: "Batten fouled again and another repair again. Getting there. Main's back up, so it's not slowing us down any." Justin, below, repairs a batten. "This is Frankenbatten. It's now got four different battens in it." He shows his work: The batten with multiple clamps holding the pieces together while glue cures. "We're obviously trying to be tidy Kiwis who use as much [something] as we can, 5200." There are clamps made from vice grips, from channel lock pliers with a big rubber band around the handle squeezing it closed, and a high-tech looking black clamp. Don't tell the media guy, but I've raided his camera box and found a clamp. Which I'm sure he's going to work out when it gets back that it's been used for some sort of repair." Nicho: "We don't mind doing all these running repairs all the time as long as we can go at pretty much full pace. But it wears everyone out. I don't think Brad has had a full off watch for a long time now. [To Brad.] When was your last full off watch?" Brad (sitting near the galley, pulling off bits of tape): "Can't remember my last full off watch." Brad, to James: "Haven't seen land for over a week now. As far away from anything as you can possibly be, more or less. It's not too bad. It's actually quite cool. Really good breeze, good waves. Good sailing." Martine coils lines in the pit, gets washed over by a wave. Below, she talks to Konrad: "Southern Ocean has been pretty cool, going downwind, in these big waves, sailing during the night with big seas. Cold weather as well. Everythying is dripping on the boat, but sailing has been pretty good, besides our breakdown. As long as we have all the sails up, it's all good." Nicho: "You have moments when you wonder what you're doing down here. Other moments quite in awe of the natural bueauty and harshness of the place... How vulnerable you are down here on a little carbon shell in the middle of nowhere. You want the leg to be over, but also how special it is to be here." Slomo of Nicho on the helm, albatross flying by. [Side note: Again, no Simeon. I'm increasingly of the view that Nicho is actually functionally skipper at this point.]Somone (Brad?) works on the masttrack up the mast. Simeon says it's the second attempt, with different glue. "Not a specified curing time like the books. But we hope it's strong enough." Going to hoist the main again, and put a strap around where the batten car is and hpe for the best. Everyone looks at the sail with expressions of concern. Nicho: "It'll work". With the main up they sail faster. Everyone looking up. Nicolai on the stern talks about how they knew after the first one it wouldn't be a good repair, but they knew after this one it would be a good one. "It's holding." Below, Nicho is getting his foulies off. "Been sailing two or three hours, and no problems, so... Hopefully now we can be 100% to Melbourne, catch some miles up." In the background Martine gets her foulies off. Nicho talks about how there could be a weather pattern that would pull the boats together. "We're a long way behind, but no one's giving up." Talks about needing to make the next start, and get the boat fully prepared and operational.Pretty clouds. Crew shifting the stack as AkzoNobel sails downwind with the main lowered. Nicho explains that they've just finished stackign in preparation for hoisting the main. Talks about the repair; difficulty of getting a glue cure in the cold conditions. Maybe having a chance to catch some boats. Main goes up slowly. Nico, on the stern: "Tracks popped straight off. So obviously it couldn't hold in the conditions... Hopefully we'll get it down now, and... try it again. Still 3,000 miles to go." (Side note: It sure seems like Nicho has basically taken over the boat. Is Simeon even in command at this point?) Lowering the main. Martine gets washed off the cabin top by a wave; catches herself. They struggle to lower the main. Jules talks about the fleet being gone, not wanting to get down south and have to beat back, which they can't do. Nicho responds: "Well, we can step it down later in the day. Get a plan for this track. Even if the fleet's gone, get to Melbourne on time... for the next start." Below, Brad takes off his foulies. Looks very discouraged. "Pretty frustrating working two or three days to get it done, it pops off so quickly afterwards." Talks about trying to jury something else up, hope that that works. Slomo albatross. Below, working on the track repair, Nicolai watches Simeon eats in the background. "We've got five tubes of glue left, which means after this we've got one more. So this better work." More repair attempts on the mast. Emily watches from the stern. Nicolai, below, explains that the glue needs 6 to 8 hours to cure. Going to sail some more, and then try to hoist again before sunset.Crash cam footage from stern camera. AkzoNobel is preparing for a gybe in high winds from starboard to port. They gybe happens, but goes too quickly (?), the main slams over, and there's a loud bang that sounds very ungood. We switch to handheld camera on the stern as crew is shifting the stack to port. They send someone aloft, where we can see the main has some major luff-car issues (?). Shot of the helmsman (Nicho?) on the port wheel with a nasty-looking squall beyond him. Awesome shot of him surfing the boat as a wave breaks on their port quarter; shot pans forward to show the crew working around the mast. We see them lowering the main, which has been detached from the mast with lines on the cars to help control its descent. Below, Nicho explains what happened. Had to gybe in 35-40 knots. "Had a bad one. Thought we had a good wave to go down, and as we went down the boat slowed up, stopped; I should have pulled out. We probably would have broached..." But what did happen is they slammed the main into the runner, breaking the battens and pulling the track off the mast. Getting the main down was tricky, with a 50-knot squall happening at the same time. Now just have a jib up, doing 16 knots in 45 knots of wind. Plan is to get the track screwed/glued back on, repair the battens, over the next day or two. But it's going to take time to get to 100%. And they have to be careful.Nicolai, on deck in his neoprene cowl in fairly light air, talks about how they're the most southern boat right now, and have just gybed. Fleet split into two groups; they're wth MAPFRE and Dongfeng. Below, Martine (in cornrows) bails out water. Jules and Nicho, at the nav station, look at routing software. Jules talks about being a bit disappointed in the latest sched, vs. MAPFRE and Dongfeng, Brunel. Nicho: "We coughed it up there last night." Separately, Nicho talks about how each of the boats separated; probably due to breeze. Shot of Simeon on the helm, scowling in his cold-weather cowl. Álex, in the cockpit, talks about how we are here, in the Southern Ocean, but it isn't normal conditions. "Like a pit stop before the next depression comes, with 35, 40 knots, straight to Melbourne." Nicolai talks about how variable the Southern Ocean is. "It's like a spring day in Denmark up north. So I'm enjoying it."Shooting through the cockpit railing under gray skies, we see a bunch of competitors on AzkoNobel's weather quarter. Left to right I think they might be Brunel, Dongfeng, MAPFRE, and more distant maybe Vestas? Then we see a shot of Simeon working on the pit winch with Scallywag ahead of and to leeward of them. Simeon looks up at the slot to check sailtrim. He talks to James about not doing too well at the start: "We need to practice those ones." Talks about being close to the fleet, the wind being up/down/left/right. Justin, on the helm, talks about wind pressure. We see Scallywag, on starboard under the MH0, crossing them while Brad goes to go out on the bowsprit. Nicho, in the cockpit, talks about the contrast during the night of being in almost 40 knots, then getting flat sees and "almost nice sailing again." He talks about the 40 knot conditions being uncomfortable; slamming and worrying about breakage. Martine talks about getting stuck in a hole and passed. Nicolai talks about the first 24 hours being pretty good, intense, hunting and almost back where they want to be. Nicho talks about getting to the new wind and tacking, and then waiting for the front to get there. We see the feet of someone on the helm putting on their boots.Simeon walks along the side of the boat, shaking hands with shore crew standing on the dock. Motoring out, Brad talks about how funny it is to be talking to lots of people on Facebook, on shore, and then leaving and realizing it's just the 10 of you for the next few weeks." Nicho, standing on the stern, talks about leaving. "Not nervous. But quite motivated, to take this thing on. This is a big leg, a double-point leg... It's a high-wind, high-risk, high-speed leg." The start; other boats. Scallywag dives below them from astern. Footage of them going very slowly in light wind. Someone (Nicho?) talks about getting the FR0 stowed. Nicolai on the helm as they sail fast on port tack. Nicho talks about them getting stuck in a light patch and the boats inshore getting away from them. "Long, long way to go yet." Slomo grinding.Drone shot pans up to show AkzoNobel sailing toward the drone. In the cockpit, Martine trims the main. On the helm, Nicho talks about how they've fallen off the front and winds are lighter [hence the drone footage], and it's hurting them in the previous sched and likely the next one. Luke talks about how they're now last on the leaderboard. "Pretty frustrating. Haven't had the best luck with the weather, unfortunately... but also haven't been sailing the boat as well as we possiby can. So we have a lot of work to do in Cape Town." Jules at the nav station looks concerned. Nicolai aggressively brushes his teeth. Simeon, below, talks about the disappointment: "It's always hard to swallow when you see every sched, moving back." Low-altitude drone shot from the port quarter. Peter, grinding: "We're pushing as hard as possible, trying to catch every wave. But we've been losing for a few days." Nicho, on the helm; Simeon, below, talk about needing to stay focused and keep pushing despite the disappointment. Luke, on the stern pedestal: "Sometimes you get the elevator; sometimes you get the shaft." Drone shot.Slomo shot of a dark albatross gliding in their wake. Emily, below, getting out of her bunk: "It's cold." Jules, at the nav station, talks about how they're still riding the front, but have high pressure a few days ahead. Simeon repairs some piece of gear, hands it to someone, and talks about the upcoming winds and strategy. "In general we've been sailing the boat well." Nicho, on the stern: "Number one challenge is how we're gonna get ahead of some of the boats ahead of us." Talks about how boats can get stuck in the approach to Cape Town. Slomo of spray coming into the cockpit.Nicho, on deck as AkzoNobel sails on starboard gybe in 10 knots of wind: "The last sched dropped us from first to fifth... The game is to set ourselves up for the next front." Simeon talks about the next 24-48 hours, and how they've stacked the sails smaller so they can get them further astern. Emily: "I'm expecting it to get a lot windier and a lot colder. So I've got two sets of thermals I've been saving up for the whole trip." Brad, below, says he's been saving thermals. Nicolai, below, also says he's been saving up a new set of thermals he'll be pulling out. Shot up the slot at AkzoNobel triple-heading on starboard.Sunrise (that's three OBRs who opened their clip with this sunrise). On the rail, Nicho explains the watch system, in which they stagger. He, "Martini" (Martine), Brad, and Nicolai have been on; now Luke and Peter are coming up. Martine on the helm, smiling. She really seems to like getting the chance to drive. Drone shot with AkzoNobel silhouetted. Was that shot from this morning? Looks like they're triple-heading, but with a reef (?) in the main? Maybe it's B-roll shot a different day. Martine and Nicho, below, going off watch. Nicho: "It's the simple things, like helping each other with food. Up on deck, it's just working out what each other's strengths and weaknesses are, and learning off each other." Martine: "It's Chris Nicholson's sixth time doing this race, so definitely got some experience." Martine, smiling at Nicho: "You're much more the decision-maker, 'cause you wake me up more." Chris: "Oh, yeah. I've woken her up several times an hour early when I've looked at my watch incorrectly... Better than being an hour late, though." Chris cleans down below. Martine crawls into her bunk. Martine: "It's not so easy getting in and out of this bunk, but it's pretty nice once you're in it." Drone shot with rainbow behind AkzoNobel. Chris gets out of his bunk. Jules reads the latest sched: "We did 114, and the next best was 112 by Plastic." Nicho talks about how he got about 2 hours sleep during his 4 hours off-watch, between checking with Jules before going down, doing some cleanup, and now getting up a bit early to get info on what to do next. Nicho: "Little bit of Groundhog Day. But we made some miles on the last sched. It's been the first for a few days, so it's nice." Low-altitude drone shot from the bow.Beautiful drone shot of AkzoNobel reaching on port at sunrise. Nicolai types at the nav station. He talks about how they just peeled to a fractional sail. Falling a little bit behind the other boats; looking for speed. Mast cam view of the deck. Jules, on deck: "We're struggling a bit with the reaching setup; the guys in front of us stretching away from us." On the stern, Emily washes up. Peter, on a sheet, talks about how they have some nice waves and are trying to catch most of them without getting too low. Luke talks about how it's frustrating that the rich (ahead of them) are getting richer. Brad, below, talks about the frustrations of leaders pulling away without their being close enough to see their sail setup. (Note: He has a raspberry-colored buzz cut from the equator-crossing ceremony, which didn't show up so far in a video.) Nicolai talks about working hard, not panicking, getting faster day by day. Slomo shot of Emily and Nicho working the foredeck.Nicho: Talks below about the competition. "We're kind of still paying the price for mistakes we made several days ago." Continues a pattern of him focusing on the earlier "miscommunication" as a source of their problem. In the background, Martine uses and empties the head. Luke: "For the good of everyone on board you try to stay as level-headed as possible. But it's obviously hard not to get caught up in the emotion of winning and losing... But there are times when you've had a couple of hard watches like we've ahd in the last couple of days where it's pretty hard to keep your emotions in check. But that's sport, isn't it?" Nicho on the helm. Brad, below, shirtless: "I try to keep it even. As much as some guys back there [looks aft] try to wind you up or make your life hard, I just try to get on with it and get the job done. Does take a bit of a toll." Simeon, at the nav station, talks about learning from his former skipper on ABN AMRO 2 to keep emotions at an average level, not too high or low. Nicho, below, talks about hoping for an opportunity later. Sunrise.Nicho, below, discusses that there was a miscommunication that cost them distance. "We coughed up six miles. Should have been second, instead of back in fourth." Brad, below: "We thought we were doing the right thing when we were sailing the boat, but when we woke up apparently it was the wrong thing." Jules, at the nav station: "We've seen a couple of things happen; it might even pay us to be down here and them being up there. We just don't know. But I think I'd rather be up where they are... Bit of a miscommunication between I guess my fault really between me and the watch, to try not to lose too much bearing or separation with the boats that were just to weather of us. But stupid I went and had a lie down for a couple of hours and the boats had sailed off over the horizon." Drone shot of AkzoNobel reaching on port gybe.Slomo shots of Nico on the helm. Nico below: "Got sore arms, I'd have to say. It is funny; all those muscles that haven't been used for a while, driving... Just like riding a bike." Nico steering at dawn. Nico below: "It's interesting tactically; everyone's super super cautious with staying together. Perhaps as the race progresses people will run more risk. We're almost like kids chasing the soccer ball together at the moment; we're sticking close. In general we're sailing the boat pretty fast, we're good on the numbers. Different sail wardrobe, people are working out how to sail the boats quick." Slomo shot of Nico on the helm with sunrise behind him. Slomo shot of the bow.Simeon on the dock before the race with a little girl (presumably his daughter), then side-hugging and kissing a woman (presumably his wife). Simeon, below on AkzoNobel (before the start?). Simeon: "Of course you know it's not that sudden change; you've been plannnig for it all along. But still, it's hard. Twenty-one days, more, twenty-two days, without a call. It's a bit old-school. These days everyone is in contact all around the world 24/7... On the other hand, it's a real comfortable feeling. They're in a good place and they take care of each other. So when everything is good at home it's easy for us to leave." Slomo shot of Luke holding a young child on the dock. Below, as AkzoNobel is bashing under sail, Luke: "It's a bit differnt, you know, family life and then coming into the storm, so to speak. It's great sailing conditions, it's just unfortunate that we've had a tear to our J1. But we'll get it fixed in a few days time when we need it and be back to full power." On deck, looking forward as AkzoNobel surfs toward the sunset, Nico steers. Nicolai gets spray in the face from the washing machine.