Justine Mettraux / Dongfeng Race Team

gender Female
Sailing fast on starboard. Washing machine shots from behind the helm. Ship passes them going the other way. Another ship passes them. Sunset. Justine in the cockpit.Crew lying down below: Fabien, Justine (maybe?). Hard to tell in their gear. Maneuver on deck (sail change?); working in the pit. Chalres on the helm. Land to starboard. Jack, below: As standard as we thought it was going to be, it's close and stressful. Brunel was quite a bit back in the morning, and they've been quite fast and they've come back into us. I think MAPFRE's about 2 miles ahead and Brunel's about 1 mile ahead. Pretty close, pretty stressful. We're around the north end of the course and on to Gothenburg. Coming around the island all the boats had a different sail setup... think Brunel has done the best. Long night ahead. Spreader cam and mast cam shots of pounding on a close reach, shifting the stack.Drone shot of dophins swimming with land in the background, then drone turns to show Dongfeng triple heading in light wind. Kevin on the helm; his left hand is wrapped with a bandage. Justine trimming. Jack: It's a nice spot to be in... After the start got some good current and passed the fleet. Next transition is the south of Ireland. Do everything we can to work through that. Don't think about it and just move forward. Charles climbs the mast to look ahead and to starboard (looking for wind, I assume). Justine grinds. Charles and Fabien look at wind. Stacking forward. Daryl clips into a halyard, explains he's going up to look at the wind. Talks about the land formations ahead of them and the anticipated wind drop. Kevin grins in the pit; they hoist him up. Drone shot of Daryl at the hounds. He calls to the deck. Drone pulls back to show land beyond dthem. Justine and Carolijn talking in the cockpit. Tacking close to shore. Other boats visible on the horizon behind them as they tack. Carolijn: Nice pressure here. Land. Low altitude drone shot.Rain pounds down with light winds. Carolijn in the rain. Franck, and everyone else, looks off to port. Franck talks in French. Camera pans forward to show a rainstorm; ahead of it is a competitor several miles away (probably AkzoNobel, but possibly Vestas). They tack the MH0. More rain. Shifting the stack in the rain. Sailing on port tack with the MH0 after the rain has stopped. Horace, on the bow with no wind, gives a recap. [Interesting that no headsail is visible forward of him. J1 is on deck, and the sail on the bowsprit appears to be furled. Are they bare-headed? using the J2 or J3 as a windseeker? Oh; I bet that's the MH0 on the bowsprit, and it's partially furled to make it a little windseeker, with the unfurled part invisible above him, out of the frame.] At one point a competitor is visible, out of focus, behind him. Again, probably AkzoNobel. Justine, on the bow, recaps the strategic situation. Closer to AkzoNobel, but Vestas, sadly, is a little further ahead. Shot of AkzoNobel. Sailing at 8 knots with dolphins under the bow. Then, flopping again. Franck, in the companionway, talks about strategy in the doldrums; picking the right side of the cloud, getting the wind. Now wind is down, but he's hoping to get into the tradewinds tomorrow morning. Carolijn steering at sunset. Jack sleeping in the bow. Dusk. Horace asks about Vestas' wind in the latest sched, the other competitors; Franck explains.Frank on the helm at sunrise. Justine trims. Doldrums. Franck, on the bow, talks about how the doldrums is a very large area compared to the Atlantic, and the course is set requiring them to go through it. Now there's a weird wind from the southwest, which is impossible according to the model. Just have to push the boat and use the wind you have and be very concentrated on tuning. Remember is it's a game, and the finish line is very far away. We were in front of the fleet a long time, but the important part of the race is now. And the first boat to catch the wind, and then 1,000 miles to race. The goal is to stay with the fleet, not take too much risk, and we have the good speed to be in the front when the wind is stable. Don't be stressed. Shot of AkzoNobel ahead of them, then next to them. A whale surfaces near them. Has a small dorsal - sei whale? Horace talks on the bow about the heat, and having patience when trimming. Talks about having passed AkzoNobel. "Next target: Vestas. Let's go. There. Not too far." We see Vestas ahead and to port. They sail faster in a bit of a puff. Concentrating. Looks like all hands on deck. Then: drifting again. From below, Horace calls out the latest sched. Jack, the sunset behind him: "Day of snakes and ladders... This afternoon was quite nice. Had a big cloud come. Had more than 10 knots of wind for the first time in 3 days, which was a real pleasure. Made a bit forward, but it wasn't very long. So there's still a lot of work to do." Amazing low-altitude drone shot, overtaking them from astern with the sunset and AkzoNobel (left) and MAPFRE (right) to port of them. Then another drone shot from the opposite angle showing Vestas closer to them, to starboard. Favorting this one, too, mostly (again) for the drone work. Nice job by Martin.Night shots: looking up from the stern at the full moon behind clouds. Wake. Jérémie's hands on the wheel; him steering. Charles, standing forward of the wheel, talks in French. Looking up the mast at stars. Then, in the daytime, we see rain falling to weather. Franck and Jérémie look that way. Horace looks through binoculars. To weather we see three competitors. From left to right: AkzoNobel, MAPFRE, and Vestas. Justine explains: They were leading, hit a squall, the boats to weather stayed in more pressure and now they're all in a line again. "It's a bit disappointing but it happens sometimes." Jérémie jokes about how he was on watch and lost 10 miles. Daryl jokes with him; Charles steers. Crew works in the cockpit (sail change?). Charles: Not sure they're already in the doldrums. But for sure is a new start. And after leading the race most of the time from the start of the leg, all the boats are in the same line now: Akzo, MAPFRE. Now they'll have two or three days in light winds, and maybe will determine the race who escapes from it first and gets the new wind. Shot of AkzoNobel close to leeward. Horace: "Not easy, not what we want, but this is the Volvo Ocean Race. No one knows what will happen at the end." Talks about how it's too hot, and he wants to take off his "everything."Justine trims. "Main on." Jérémie grinds. We see a series of closeups: The chain drive in the pedestal turning. The drive linkages and drive shafts. The winch drum. The drum turning. The sheet coils on the drum. The mainsheet block. The mainsail, looking up. Time-lapse view of the instruments on the mast. Fom top to bottom: Boatspeed, True Wind Direction, Relative Wind Angle, True Wind Speed, Heading (degrees True). Speed gradually builds during the time lapse from 16.3 to 18.9. Shot shifts to slomo as spray comes over the bow. Shot of the keel bulb under water to weather. Kevin working the bow in spray. Crew in the cockpit: Carolijn on the helm, Horace trimming, Daryl on the pedestal, Franck standing to leeward. A small ship is several miles away to leeward, approaching on a collision course. Kevin looks at them through binoculars. Charles talks to them in French on a handheld VHF. Kevin explains that Charles talked to them, and they said they were happy to bear away a bit so as not to cross in front of them. Kevin: "Charles told them that was very nice, but that if they can also grab AkzoNobel to leeward of us that's perfect as well." Martin asks if they could be pirates. Carolijn laughs: "Very friendly pirates." Kevin explains they are laying cable or a military vessel or something like that. Carolijn makes a lanyard-pulling motion (like "honk your horn!"), then waves to the ship, which is approaching them a half mile away on their leeward quarter. She gives a thumbs up. Carolijn: "Looks like something military. They are French-speaking, so I'm guessing something to do with New Caledonia." Slomo shots: Carolijn and Justine grinding on the aft pedestal, someone trimming, Franck on the helm, spray, Carolijn taking coils off a winch, Horace giving a thumbs-up from the clew of the J3, Carolijn spraying her face from a water bottle.Slomo spray, washing machine. Clear sky with low sun behind them. Shot of MAPFRE crossing ahead of them under cloudy skies. Dongfeng gybes from port to starboard. Justine grimaces as she grinds on the pedestal. Shots of MAPFRE ahead of them on port gybe; Vestas farther ahead of them on (I think) starboard gybe. Sunny washing machine shot of cockpit. Closeup of compass. Sunset spray. Charles at nav station, talks about the last 26 hours. "A bit fight against all the opponents. Speed, clouds, very interesting, very complicated. Lots of shifts. I think we are all exhausted. Now there is a big split." Three boats going offshore, rest going inshore. Sunset wake shot.