Libby Greenhalgh / Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag

gender Female
Grinding in the sunrise. Libby, below: We just peeled from our MH0 to the J1. Now wobbling along the northwest edge of Europe. Three boats have taken this route... Surprised to see the leaders split like that. Map screen showing the split. She talks about the western group. After a shot in the cabin hatch, the same clip of Libby is repeated. Libby calls up fleet positions from the nav station. "Struggling a bit with our speed... Hats off to Turn the Tide. They've got some good moding. A few peels to go; we seem to be better at peels, we gain a bit when we do that. So it's never over till it's over."Ben and Trystan go through food packs by the galley. Libby tells them 10 minutes to the virtual mark. Witty asks how far. Libby: 4.7 miles. Fleet compressed; at one point everyone was within 6 or 7 miles; now they've spread out again. Might be able to get past Turn the Tide. Will see in 40 minutes. Boats around the "mark" are going slower than boats still going upwind, so wind is light. Witty calls to be ready for a tack. "Hopefully get across Plastics." They tack. Owner on the grinder. Drone shots of them converging with TTToP, both sailing very slowly.Drone shot of Scallywag triple-heading. Libby: I'd be pretty keen to split the stack now, so we have options. TTToP a few boatlenghts behind. Libby: We didn't do to well coming in. Turning in a marina which is always pretty exciting to watch. Close rounding, bit of a frenzy. Passing lighthouse. Rounding the turning mark. Libby: A3 up as soon as you can. Libby: No rest, lots of corners, lots of sail changes. We're just trying to get to the Hague. Witty: I haven't been in Denmark for 20 years. There you go; that was in and out. Done.Trystan and Ben go thorugh the food stores in the galley. Trystan: Baby food. Libby at the nav station. They ask her how long on this gybe. Ben: Lots and lots of gybing. Lots of short gybing. Not much sleeping. Slomo washing machine on deck. Ben: Looking back on it in a couple of weeks time sitting on the couch watching Netflix you'll be going you know what, it would be pretty cool to go back out there and send it. Slomo on deck. Gybing in about 25 minutes. Hopefully enough time to have some freeze dry. Slomo on deck. Alex: Whoever gives up earliest. Gotta do what you've gotta do. Slomo washing machine. Since yesterday afternoon it's been nonstop. Slomo washing machine in the pit. Alex: Look fondly on these memories in the future.Tack in the semi-darkness. Mark rounding. Someone (Annemieke?) counts down to the mark. Someone else shouts "deploy, deploy, deploy..." TTToP behind them. Libby: We're just off the coast of Norway. Half a boatlength between us and Turn the Tide. But we did a better peel inside them, so we got better distance on them. Witty gives the owner instructions on the helm. TTToP a few boatlengths astern of them.Libby looks at her tablet. Witty: I've told you many times over the last 12 months: Nothing good comes from a cloud... Not in great shape, but the boat we need to keep ahead of [TTToP] is back there [points behind them]. MAPFRE went from miles behind to leading... gutsy move. TTToP sailing below them. Sunset. Ben: Always nice to get a good result, a podium. Need to stay ahead of Turn the Tide to avoid the wooden spoon.Trystan passes up "toasties". Lightweight frying pan, ham and cheese. Annemieke jokes about being far down the queue. Annemieke: End of an era. Scallywag in the Volvo. Trystan cleans dishes. Gives Annemieke a toasty. Trystan: Everyone's talking about how much we're going to miss the sailing. All the spectator boats. It's a great race, and I'm for sure looking forward to doing the next one. That's my goal. Libby eats her toasty, talks to Trystan about her favorite version. "Next race."Dockout. Witty: Feeling pretty good. We've been sailing well. Haven't been getting the result, so we're due for one. Got the boss driving... [Seng Huang Lee, I guess?] The minute you start trying not to run last, you run last. We're not having that conversation. Libby: Bit of a battle on, you realize that an epic journey is coming to an end. Does play on your mind a bit. But ultimately it's gonna be a fast and furious two and a bit days. Alex previews the leg. Sounds excited. Parko: The non-sleeping Olympics. We'll get to Norway around midnight, and next mark a couple of hours after that. Start. Owner actually is driving the boat, though he's not mentioned in the official site's Crew page. Witty tells him where to point the boat. Parko: These legs are pretty special. Finishing the race for Fish, that's pretty special in itself. Might be the last time we get to sail with the same crew. These are the moments in our sport that don't come around too often. Shots of the owner on the helm. TTToP to port. Dongfeng ahead nad to leeward of them. Trystan and Ben on the foredeck. Owner is gripping the wheel like someone's trying to steal it. Owner: It's very exciting. I haven't sailed in two years, so it's good fun. Always good to spend time with the crew. I'm a little bit of the monotony after ten legs. Looking foward to spending a few days with everyone. [Now I'm wondering if he had to go through the certification all the other racers did. Sounds like he didn't.]Jack on the helm. Jack, below: I am enjoying it. The conditions that we've got; 25 knots at about 90 true. So broad reaching. Plenty of water over the deck. Reefs in reefs out... Really nice conditions, chewing up lots of miles. But it's very wet. [chuckles] Really wet. Washing machine shots. Jack: We're still pushing really hard. Coming into the team new, I can see how much the team has improved. They're really sailing well. Tough incident at the start, losing 100 miles, but still in great spirits. Montage of crew showing high spirits in the cockpit: Mugging for the camera. Parko. Annemieke. Antonio. Trystan. Libby at the nav station: Went from being flat out on our MH0, came around the corner and it got lighter. Tricky for that reason. Crew work on the foredeck. Libby: We gained 15 miles on the leader, are 27 miles from the next boat. I expect that will close a bit more, which will be good. Slomo washing machine shot. Libby: Still a couple of peels and sail changes, and if someone makes a mistake in that they can drop a couple of miles... We'll see. Slomo washing machine. Libby: Pretty strong conditions coming up. Not that you wish for anyone to break anything. But it's a strange angle, one we haven't done much in sailing around the world. We could find a good mode. It's definitely a good opportunity. Slomo washing machine.Jack gets his heavy weather foulies on below. Jack: Like a newborn man! [He laughs.] Crash cam footage of cockpit washing machine Libby calls out the predictions for more wind. Ben in the cockpit getting dressed: We're just going around the Hebrides, and we're getting ready to peel from the MH0 to something else. Breeze has built since we went off watch. 30 knots at the moment. Shots on deck of whitecaps. Slomo washing machine.Slomo grinding. Annemieke easing the mainsheet. Witty on helm. Witty at the nav station: Just gybed, heading toward the top of Scotland. Everyone's gybed at the same time. Others are about 25, 30 miles to the west of us. It's anyone's match. In tennis terms it's 2 all, end of the fifth, and started to rain. So the best player with the best wet-weather footwear will win. Slomo grinding. Witty at the nav station: If the meterologist next to me has gybed at the right time we'll win. If she's gybed at the wrong time we'll come last for the third leg in a row. So really it's all on her shoulders. How does that sound? Libby: Bring it on. Witty: Bring it on. See? Scallywag, bring it on, never give up. All good; be positive. Breeze will fill, breeze will head. Scallywag will be first at the top of Scotland and reach into Gothenburg. Slomo shots on deck.Drone shot of Scallywag sailing in light conditions. Annemieke: In a transition zone... It's really light; super tricky. Parko on the helm. High drone shot of the boat passing just under the drone in glassy conditions. Bowsprit. MH0 flopping. Witty on the bow: This leg far from over. As we say, we never give up. Last sched we were only 13 miles behind. I think it's 100% changed me. More good than bad. But changed me in a bad way too. The good stuff is I'm more tolerant and definitely more patient. When you can be part of the development of someone like Nipper, or you go through the loss of like Fish and that's like circumstances or other things that have happened... if you're 5 minutes late to work you get caught in traffic or... your priorities change. My priorities have changed a hell of a lot. You realize you can't control anything. You can prepare better than you have in the past, but you can't control anything. Libby at the nav station gets the sched: We're third. I don't really understand the sched. We made a 3-mile gain on the fleet. they're in very light winds. We were the fastest boat by half a knot. As they flop, Libby: At the moment we're smashing the [bleep] out of it!Drone shot of Scallywag passing behind an oil platform. Jack (new face!): It's just like riding a bike with team Scallywag. Never a dull moment. It was actually pleasant sailing yesterday, sailing down the river, but just ran out of wind. I've sailed with them for a number of years, with Nipper. Ben: Went through a cloud, a transition, 25 knots to 8 knots. Hopefully the other boats are going slower than this. Jack: We copped a heavy punishment for a little mistake... Put the bow down thinking we were in the new pressure, and we weren't, and fell off the cliff. Drone shot of them triple heading. Ben below asks Libby re: the latest sched. How did we do. Libby: 40 mile gain... Dongfeng is in 1 knot of wind... At the moment we're still gaining. And they have some tide against them. Parko, below: We made a mistake, and we paid dearly for it. Trying to fight back. Fell a hundred miles behind, and we've taken a big chunk of that back. Drone shot of Scallywag surfing with oil platform in the back. Parko: That was about as brutal as it gets.Ben, below, says the breeze has built to 18 knots. Just peeled to the J0, and are trying to chase down the fleet. Ben: Hopefully they're in less breeze than we are now, so regain some miles back and hopefully rejoin the fleet. Slomo grinding. Libby: We're averaging 20 knots, so in theory we're gaining quite a lot. Leaders coming into the lee of Ireland, so we're gaining back. But last sched we lost another 50 miles, so we're 104 miles behind, which is quite a lot to be in less than 24 hours. Wouldn't have thought that was necessarily possible. Cockpit shots. Libby: Hopefully by the top of Scotland we'll be 20 miles behind. And then anything can happen in theory. Slomo of Alex in the pit. Libby: Have to keep doing all those things to try to gain.Knotmeter reads 1.0. Libby at nav station: We're going backwards. We're building the anchor. And the rest of the fleet is still going forward at 10 knots. It's not exactly how you want to start a leg off. Assembling the anchor in red headlamps. Libby: it all happened very quickly. Never really managed to get back into the same wind as them. Anchor assembly. Libby: Nearest boat is 13 miles. She talks about the tide. It's kind of a double-whammy. As my friend says, if you're not winning your learning. Whole pot of learning going on right now. Anchor goes over. Ben, in the dark: We've just dropped the anchor. Waiting for the breeze to build or the tide to change direction. Knotmeter reading 0.0. Ben: I think the tide will probably change first before the breeze fills in. We see the anchor chain with tidal current flowing past it. Ben: You're definitely not going anywhere. So time to hit the rack I think.Drone shot of them sailing in glass conditions. Trying to stay in the pressure. Sunset. Witty points out other boats. Witty: Considering the terrible start I had, we're in pretty good shape. Witty: Dee's just lifted massively. Libby: Gotta get into that. Witty: Where's the keel? Helmsman: Center. Alex on the bow talks about how they've dropped out of the pressure and everyone else is in it. Tacking. Witty cursing. Ben: We've run out of every bit of pressure we had. It's like we put the handbrake on. Did some tacking back and forth because there was no breeze. We're now 6 miles behind when we were 6 miles in front of some boats. But hey; that's yachting. Trystan: We can't be behind Turn the Tide. He curses. Trystan: Trying to stay focused, not get too dishearted. Drone shot with sunset.Witty sits despondent. Libby talks about the penalty at the start. Slow and no wind at the start. Doing different directions... heading out to some pressure out here. Think there'll be some anchor-building. Ben on the bow talks about lack of wind. Looks like there's more pressure where they're heading. Witty: Shitty light air.Trystan, in the prestart, talks abut the glorious weather. Trystan: We know we have the ability. Libby talks in the cockpit about the upcoming conditions. Trystan: Once they clear the southwest tip of Ireland should start to build. Try to stir the leaderboard up a bit, salvage a bit of self respect. And prove to everyone we still can do it. Libby and Witty at the start. Witty: Probably the most magnificent day I've ever seen in the UK. Alex at the start. Judges flag them with a penalty. Witty gestures: "what?" They spin; Parko grinding.Scallywag flopping in the sunrise. Slomo flopping. Annemike: I see not so much wind at the moment. Hopefully some breeze later on. Not really what we expected. Rolling up the MH0 as a windseeker. Radio forecast with light variable winds forecast. Libby: Right now we're somewhere off the southwest tip of Ireland, not far from Fastnet Rock. Alex is excited about rounding it. Leaders are finishing; we're about a day behind. Unfortunately with these shorter legs you can get behind and not have a chance to catch back up. Later: There's Ireland! Sunset. Dolphins. Alex: Sun's going down, plenty of dolphins on the bow. Just need Fastnet Rock over there. Just two more nights and we'll be in. Nice afternoon sail. Fun. (He nods to himself.) We see the light on Fastnet Rock (I guess?) blinking.Sign taped to the aft side of the doghouse: "National Wine Day". Has wind forecast for each various times throughout the day. DTF 670. Libby: It is. It's National Wine Day. Libby at the nav station with Witty. Witty reads out the gains on the other boats due to the comression. Peter on the helm. Drone shots in light conditions. Foredeck. Slomo telltales. Antonio: 600 miles from the finish. Having to cross the light conditions. Libby and Witty at the nav station. Libby yawns. Flopping with the MH0. Slomo flopping. Antonio talks about the ETA. Flopping. Antonio: Still a bit far behind to talk about catching someone. If it were windy it would be harder, so it's good to have these conditions now. Peter shakes the main to try to pop the batten. Sunset.Libby, below: Sailing into some light winds, so probably about to peel to the MH0. Fleet will compress and we'll probably come out in slightly better position than we are now. Front two guys have a solid lead. The rest of them are still in touch. She talks about how they dropped off the front of the fleet and then it's hard to get back in touch. Parko and Annemieke grind on deck as they peel to the MH0. They roll up and lower the J0. Peter, similing on the cabin, talks about laundry day now that the rough conditions have passed. Clothes laid out to dry on the cabin. Libby: Announces the sched. "Good one for us, yay! Gained 35 miles on the leaders." Muted enthusiasm... Peter: Shame that we've dropped back so far. Want to go into Cardiff with a good position.Parko in the cockpit. Crew on the foredeck making a sail change. Peter on the helm. Sunny, with lighter winds. Witty on the helm. They talk about setting the J3. Libby, from the nav station, reads the sched on the PA. Second-fastest boat. Everyone looks similar wnid strength and direction. Trystan tidies lines in the pit. Spray in the slot. Slomo spray. Annemieke in spray works on a jib lead. Crew on the bow; hoisting the FR0, maybe? Grinding. Wrestling sails on the foredeck, bagging and stacking. Peter, below, talks about his snack: This is regressing to be like a five year old. You need a tub of Nutella, and a carrier. The carrier is the wrap. And you shove it in your mouth. My girls would be proud of me.Libby talks about the big unknown: When to gybe. Turn the Tide looks like they're in bad shape, but they could actually do better. Dongfeng and MAPFRE; we chose a longer route, but better pressure all the way. But generally you don't know. Sunset, clouds, washing machine on deck. Slomo water running along the deck. We see the gybe at night from the stern camera. "Big grind guys."Witty and Trystan at the nav station. They talk about the sched due in a half hour. Witty reads the sched over the PA. Annemieke and Ben grinding in the cockpit. Spreader cam view of washing machine. Nav station with boat tracks. Libby: Quite a big split in the fleet for quite long, which is quite unusual. She talks about holding onto the frontal system longer than they thought they should. The cowboy in me would have gybed at 8 this morning, but I resisted. But I'll probably gybe in the next hour. And it will be interesting to see how everyone manages to wiggle through the area of light winds.Windward-leeward after the start. Mark roundings. Grinding. Slomo grinding. Spetactor boat going through a wave. TTToP behind them in the fog. Vestas Behind them in the fog. Working in the cockpit. Crash cam footage of them folding the J1. Spreader cam of folding the J1. Parko: Full frenzy. Seventh combination, and we've been out here an hour. Witty on the helm. Spray on the bow. Triple heading. Forever Fish logo on the reefed main. Satellite dome on the stern. Antonio helming. Witty: Who's that on the bow? Libby: Vestas. Libby: Came out of there in pretty good shape. Then the fog. Peeled to the right sail, got to the FR0, and pulled up into third for a bit. But then held the FR0 for a little too long. But fleet's all within about 5 miles of each other. And can't see two boatlenghts. Front will come through tonight. Will probably see a bit further tomorrow.Parade. Dee hugs Trystan; they joke about the race of the Welshmen (Bleddyn and Trystan). Witty's goodbye kisses. Dockout. Ben talks about the fog. Trystan talks about coming from Wales, a stopover in Cardiff. Was always in his mind to do this leg. He talks about Bleddyn, and how there's a rivalry between the two. Libby: First few days is about wriggling throgh exclusion zones. All the boats in a line. Then building breeze over the next few days. Libby with her tablet in the cockpit. Witty: Really really cold, and really really cold, and really really cold. Just stay patient and stay with the fleet and grind it away. You won't see the Scallywags doing anything different this time. He grabs the wheel. Start. Antonio on the rail with the boats lined up for the start.Libby and Witty at the nav station. Peter watches. Sched. People smiling. Everyone is looking forward to the leg being over, it looks like. Ben: Expecting the pressure to build. 30 plus knots. We'll be reaching into Newport in the early hours of the 8th. Slomo washing machine with crew smiling at the back of the boat. Sunrise with crepuscular ray.Parko sees Bermuda: "Land ho!" We see Bermuda as they pass to weather of it. Libby uses a sextant: "Plan B." Stacking below. Libby: Yeah; FR0's the next sail. Gybing. Ben: Lost 20 miles to a couple of boats because they gybed earlier. Still gotta stay positive. We all have the same reason to do the race. It's an awesome team to be a part of. Just like going yachting with your mates, really.Grinding. Slomo washing spray with Witty on the helm. Libby below: 3 or 4 days to the finish. But a lot's going to happen. Heading toward the high pressure. Going to have to gybe. Leaders will go into lighter breeze, so we'll gain. As much of a realist I am, I think it's going to be hard to overtake anyone, but we'll get back in touch with the fleet. You can never say never. Antonio bailing. Spray on deck. Bagging garbage. Washing machine shot of the hatch from inside.Mast cam, spreader cam: sailing fast with lots of spray. Washing machine. Slomo washing machine. Slomo of Ben grinding. Ben, below: Certainly wet out there. 20-25 knots of wind. Doing 20-25 knots of wind. 20-25 degrees of water temperature. Great sailing. Ben towels his head off in the hatchway. Trystan: Gained 20, 25 miles on the front of the fleet. Libby reads the sched: We are a small 171 miles behind. Trystan: Hopefully at the end we'll have a shot of beating someone. In theory we'll be finishing 2 and a half hours behind the leader. So there's still all to play for.Blast reaching with a reefed main. Washing machine shots from the stern. Peter, trimming the main on the stern, talks about it. We do that for 4 hour lots in the day, and at night - here we go, here is a crack (as a wave washes over) - we only do 3 hours at night. Witty, at the nav station, reads a sched over the PA: We are consistent. We lost 12 miles to everybody... Keep up the good work. Peter scowling in his bunk. Libby explains that they were faster, but weren't in the lifted pressure. Starting with the next sched should start gaining on the fleet.Libby continues explaining how she conveys sched info. There are people who want to know, so you can't not tell them. And it kind of breaks the day up. It's kind of the "news of the day". Peter: Happy birthday, we're the fastest boat in the fleet now. Computer screen. Libby and Bessie at the nav station.Libby at the nav station, reads the sched over the PA. Something about asking them to do fewer "wind checks"? Computer screen. Weather software. Libby explains the every-six-hours sched. Managing expectations, and how you share the information. I'm looking at the routings, so I always know what's coming. But the rest of the crew doesn't know that, and so if they take a loss they wonder have we been sailing badly?Peter jokes that the leg is for his 39th birthday. Bessie figures out that yesterday was his birthday. He laughs. Bessie on the pedestal. Sailing fast. Washing machine. Parko on the helm. Weed on the lifelines. Bessie getting her gear on (or off?) below. Outrigger. Libby, at the nav station, wishes Pete a happy birthday. About 7 days from the finish. About 210 miles behind the fleet, which is quite a lot. To be honest I think it's going to be hard to get another boat. It doesn't stop you pushing and trying to find those miles.Doldurms. Libby: Tomorrow we'll definitely be on the (something). Less than 24 hours of this rubbish. Instruments: 0.8 knots. Libby explains that the leaders will get into the new wind earlier, and will get away, but wait until May 7, and the bungee will come into action. They cross the equator, announced by Libby over the PA. Sunset. Trimming. Alex in the dusk: We crossed the equator just after lunchtime. Not that much has changed. Should be around 150 miles until we get into the tradewinds, and then we should be making pretty good speed to the finish line.Libby explains that pushing north early was a bad call; punishing them now. David and her as the decision-makers can make a mistake and it's a big loss. The crew can make a mistake with a bad peel, and lose a few miles, but this is more frustrating. Struggling to find the answers to get back in the race. Nav station. Flopping mainsail. Libby explains her idea: tactical motoring. Everyone has a fixed amount of fuel, and they can choose when to motor. Trystan and Ben talk about how non-fun it is to have no wind. Stacking forward.Reefing in a squall. Rain. Parko in the rain in slomo. Parko eating below. Clouds. Parko: Each morning it's a rollcall. We get smacked by a fresh cloud, sail change... Trying to balance that so the boat's on course with not too much or too little sail. Near the equator at sunrise and sunset there's a lot of clouds. When they rain they're pushing or sucking air. In the light conditions have large sails up, and then it's easy to be caught out. Slomo foredeck work. Stacking. Libby on the helm. Annemieke grinding. More stacking. Shot of spray washing off hte foot of the headsail. A skua flying overhead.Witty, on the helm, talks about strategy with the exclusion zone. Tacking now to cover the boats behind. A high percentage play. Not what he really wants to do. Tacking the MH0. Slomo grinding. Slomo stacking. Lowering the J1. Libby and Witty at the nav station. Witty: "Vestas is 1.7 miles behind the leader. That would mean the fucking Scallywags are leading... Well done all." Peter, on deck, explains that they've gone north and the rest of the fleet has gone east. It's a bit risky. Parko, on the helm: It's nice to be taking the lead after a shaky start. A couple of new faces on board, and took us a while to find our feet. But there's two different breezees right now and it's anyone's game. We've only just started. Sunset. Sailing as darkness falls.Drone shots: High overhead, overtaking to weather, circling the bow. Another boat (MAPFRE?) astern and to weather, and another boat astern and to leeward. Shot of a red boat (MAPFRE?) crossing their bow. Witty, on the helm, points out the other boats all around them. Witty: "Let's get the sails over guys." (In preparation for tacking.) We see the tack onto port. Trystan explains the Brazil exclusion zone. Dongfeng ahead, MAPFRE to leeward. Our position with the fleet is quite good. Stacking.Rain in the cockpit. Witty in the hatch jokes that the boat should have been designed longer and higher, so it would be more comfortable. Libby talks about tacking. We see the tack. Annemieke: "There's another breeze coming." Slomo stacking. Stacking below. Another tack on deck. Libby at the nav station talks on the PA: "Yeah, that's Akzo on the bow." Ben below: Another tack? J1 going up, with Ben then hauling on the furling line to furl the MH0 (or J0). Parko, below: That was a four-hour frenzy. Plenty of tacks. Plenty of MH0 to J1, and moving all the equjpment. We can see almost everyone in the fleet, so pretty much restarting. Libby: This is racing like people race at their club. Nip and tuck. And we're doing that for 20 odd days at sea. Sunset with clouds.Witty: If the support we got is any indication we should win by a week. It's a little strange for me; this is the first time in 12 years I've sailed a yacht race without Fish. Libby: It's been a bit of an emotional thing for me; I've struggled quite a lot. Pretty hard.Pre start. Libby calls time. Brunel close astern. Witty: We're gonna go under Vestas. They tack right after the start, head to the right side. Trystan calls wind. Close tack under Brunel. Close duck of AkzoNobel. Lowering the J1 with four boats ahead of them. Ben: Always a bit of a frenzy the first lap before going offshore. It's a bit lighter out here than what it was inshore. Just peeled from the J1 to the MH0. Next stop: Newport. Stacking forward. Light conditions.Parade. Witty kisses his wife (girlfriend?) goodbye. Dockout to Beautiful Day. Trystan, in full-face sunscreen, talks about how emotional the turnaround and departure has been. "Forever Fish" arm band. Alex says this is the first time they'll be hoisting the main and all the sails; just going to try to finish as best they can. Closeup of the Forever Fish logo as the main goes up. Libby has a tablet on her waist.Washing machine shot. Witty, below: It's difficult at the moment because everyone's in a straight line. Drag race; same sails. Just boatspeed. Sunset. It will be pretty technical after the Horn; Libby will need to pull a few rabbits out of the hat. Drone shots of them sailing fast on a sunny day. Libby: Champagne sailing, except that the temperature drops steadily. Hopefully they'll get some compression. In 3 days time in 40-45 knots. It's gonna be pretty cold, and I remember from last time when we had 50-55 knots, the waves were just going flat and the wind was firing the top of the waves into your face. We've got the helmets this time which will help. Trystan: Going to get pretty windy, 50/60 knots. Mentally preparing for that. Survival mode I think. Drone shot. Alex, eating: when it's that windy you can't push the boat that hard; just trying not to crash. When it gets shiftier after the Horn, that's when the gains and losses can be made. Drone flyby at masthead height. Alex, eating by the companionway: It's getting colder. Favorited for that last drone shot. I'm a sucker for those.Antonio: Finally, with the sunset the wind is here. Last 70 miles will be fast. A bit afraid because Dongfeng and MAPFRE are catching up very fast. They're now 6 miles behind. Stacking aft below. Crew in the moonlight. Lights on shore. Marcus: If we can keep this up, a few more hours of downwind sailing. Maybe slide past the guys in front. Got a jump on the guys behind us. Still gunning for that top spot at the moment. Witty on the helm in the moonlight. Near broach. "Ease, ease, ease! Mainsheet! Mainsheet!" Sailing fast. Fish recaps: Cloud line came through earlier; Akzo got it first and extended a little. They've managed to hold off TTToP, MAPFRE, and Dongfeng. Just trying to challenge Akzo for the win. Libby at the nav station. "It's all action here. 30 miles to the finish. It's all on in the last miles."They sail in light wind very close to some rocks. Alex, trimming: "I think we should get closer to these rocks." Talks about how the whole fleet is right here. Trying to eke out any advanage. Marcus, on the helm, points out possible new breeze line. Witty from the foredeck: "085, mate; 085!" Marcus jokes about needing to avoid having the rock named after them. Witty: "Can't believe Donfeng and MAPFRE are here. No justice in that." Libby and Trystan talk about 5 boats being within a few miles of each other. Great shots of the land. Trystan talks about the boats around them: TTToP, Brunel, MAPFRE, Dongfeng. Witty does play-by-play commentary. "Got some breeze back." 1 mile behind Akzo, 100 miles to go. It's been a tough day. "More than happy to take a second and then run away and hide." Ben on the helm; Witty on the PA: "We have gained one tenth of a mile." Ben talks about how intense it is.Antonio looks through binoculars at AkzoNobel, sailing in light air a quarter-mile ahead of them. AkzoNobel a quarter-mile to leeward. Witty calls for crew to get out of the forepeak and right on the bow. At the nav station: Witty says "238 miles of this rubbish... Wait for the right opportunity. Patience..." Sailing alongsisde Akzo. Alex trimming. Witty: "Just press in the puff." Trystan: "Full on, isn't it? We'll keep changing watch; keep the fresh people going... They just got nudged ahead." Libby, looking at her tablet, calls the angle on the other tack. Tacking the MH0; AkzoNobel three-quarters of a mile ahead of them. Antonio: Tight to the end. Libby looking through binoculars: "Pretty patchy out where Dee is." Libby explains that they got too focused on Akzo, maybe, and didn't pay enough attention to TTToP. Marcus discusses whether they'll be able to stay ahead of TTToP. 100 miles to go. "Not having a meltdown just yet." Shot of TTToP on the horizon.Marcus, on the helm, talks about going into stealth mode. Hasn't really paid off. Libby at the nav station: Akzo's always been in better pressure, so they've been okay. Marcus: Next passing lane's the top of Auckland. Akzo is arriving an hour before them, tide against them and lighter wind. So a chance to catch them there. Antonio: All well-rested. A lot of peeling, sail changes, at the end of the leg. Alex will be full-on. Alex: We'll have Akzo on our bow and Turn the Tide on our stern. Trystan: It's gonna be carnage, I think. Witty: Seriously, I don't really care any more. I just want to get in. Horrible... Boring... leg. Wonder what they're doing on Brunel. Measuring their fingernails. Let's just get to the finish. Hopefully we can pull a rabbit out of our hat, a lizard out of the drain, a dolphin out of the sea, and get ahead of AkzoNobel. Annamieke, trimming, waves to the camera as Witty grinds the runner.Libby grinds the runner. Crew working on the foredeck. Alex on the bowsprit. Ben: Got a Hobart to go. Final push. Nav software. Annemieke grinding - still in those goggles. Alex talks about pressure, how you just race the race you're in. Always expect it to be tight at the end. Witty, below: Next to Akzo since Taiwan. Roll the dice. (He sounds exhausted.) Sail change. Coiling. Wake. Alex: Everyone's keen to get in. Sail change will hopefully help. Witty annouces a sched on the PA. Trystan talks about how they're ahead by a mile in the latest sched. Witty and Libby at the nav station talk about stealth mode. Witty: "We're still in front." Fish, on the helm in the sunset, talks about stealth mode. Witty talks about the benefits of them going into stealth mode.Crew goofing: "Ooooh! Let's go sailing." Sailing on port in stronger wind. Outrigger. Alex, Marcus smiling. Libby at the nav station. Pressure to the south. The more they can hook into that, the better. Trystan puts on foulies; talks about it being nice that they're dry again. Slomo shots of them sailing fast. Spray. Libby talks about trying to pass Akzo. Trystan lies in his bunk. Four days to go. Alex, above him, says it's three. "Last day doesn't count." Annemieke steers in goggles. Slomo spray coming over the bow.Witty on the helm in stronger wind. Ben gives the shaka sign. Washing machine. Witty at the nav station: Very good 24 hours for the Scallywags. Have left the fleet 232 miles behind them. Witty: Just dumb luck. "Point and shoot." A little bit early days for the two red boats to think they've got it locked up. But time will tell. Washing machine. Sailing fast on starboard gybe. Libby: "There's very little you can say about the weather that's fact." Witty: "That's coming from a meteorologist." Libby talks about how this wind they're in was something they were planning for for a long time. But it then fizzled away as they were heading toward it. (But now it's here.) Washing machine. Antonio on the helm, then below: "It's great. We put all our cards on this one, and it paid off." Still a long race to go. Still the other doldrums to pass. Obviously it's good to have a 200 mile lead. But you never know. Slomo spray.They sail on starboard toward a rainstorm in light conditions. Drone shot circling them with the MH0 up. Trystan explains what the doldrums are with rainstorms on the horizon behind them. Alex: "It's a shitshow." Rain. Witty: "Roll the dice time." Cloud management. Can't really worry too much about what the other guys are doing. Rain on the horizon. Sped up drone shot circling the boat. Light conditions. Fisheye lens. Libby on the helm; Annemieke wearing goggles (why the goggles?).WItty and Libby at the nav station look at a sched (I think?). Witty: "When was the last time we had this much separation in a Volvo race?" He annouces the update via the PA. "Akzo did pretty well." Night shot on deck. Antonio doing something near the clew in the red light. Instruments show them going 11.4 knots.Trystan on the helm (might have been mixing him up with Marcus; would be nice if the Volvo site team page had photos for either of them). Drone shot of Scallywag sailing toward the sunrise on port gybe. Witty and Libby laughing at the nav station. Witty: "You're starting to come around!" They seem happy about how they're doing on the other boats. Witty talks to Ben about how it's a balance; they've got "fugazi" (pointing to Libby) and "non-fugazi" (himself) and it works out pretty good. Witty: "We have just absolutely smashed them." He laughs. "All these other guys do the fugazi, and listen to the computer, and we sort of point where we want to go, and it seems to be working quite nicely." In the background, Libby is rocking back and forth, laughing silently. Witty: "It's only yachting mate, it's not science, it's not that hard... Libby Greenhalgh, she's done it again! We should have shares in Libby Greenhalgh!" Libby reads the sched on the intercom: MAPFRE doing 6 knots. (Meanwhile, they're sailing at 20.) Alex, on deck: "I heard a little rumor going round that we've actually done well. Apparently we're in front. We've got a better line down here... Long way to go. Fingers crossed we can keep on gaining... Still gotta go through the doldrums." Shot of sunrise. Drone shot of them shifting the stack on the bow. Sunrise drone shots.Circling drone shot in 20 knot winds showing Scallywag sailing fast on port gybe. Looks like they're double-heading with the J0 and J3? Witty, at the nav station, points to a weather screen on the computer. "This is a grid file." Shows them as the southernmost boat pushing along with the front. "But really, the whole thing is smoke and mirrors. Navigators make it up so they can charge me money. Really it's just a bunch of pretty pictures, and whatever happens happens. It's all bullshit. All I know is we're now pointing at New Zealand instead of pointing at Japan." Shot of routing software; Witty lounging at nav station. High drone shot of them sailing fast. Fisher in the pit. "Just another day in the life of Team Scallywag." Pressure down a bit, so less firehose. Cleaning up. Keep with the plan. Ben works his way aft in the cockpit. Below, Alex watches a movie on a phone in his bunk. Ben eats, says the food isn't that bad. "Got a hybrid; mix a couple of freeze-drieds together, get a hot sauce... It's quite good." Witty at the nav station: "Go to bed, get up, steer 110." Cockpit shot; drone shot. Ben on the forward pedestal Libby at the nav station points out the current strategic situation, and how they have an opportunity to stay with the breeze a bit longer than the leaders. "Watch this space; 12 hours." Drone shot.Washing machine shot of cockpit. Slomo spray. Marcus, below, talks about how wet the boat is. "I've never seen boats like this. They are just So. Wet. It's epic. It's good fun though. Nonstop spray in your face; no reprieve." Fish, below, talks about fast sailing. Slomo spray on deck. More spray. Annemieke talks about holding on, it's pretty bumpy. Slomo spray washing over Annemieke. Alex at the nav station, with Libby behind him, makes a wrap with a tortilla and something in it. "It's almost like normal food." To Libby: "Cutting the corner again." Witty talks about food, mangoes. Libby talks about how the northern group will get into some lighter winds and they'll be able to close some distance. Shots of nav software. Fish: "It's all to play for. Like we saw in the last leg going the other way." The nav team is pretty happy with where they are and where they're going, and he has every confidence in them.High drone shot of Scallywag and AkzoNobel sailing a quarter mile apart on starboard gybe. Low-altitutde drone shot of the same. Ben talks about the leg win being a confidence boost, but now they need to back that up. Pressure to do well coming into Auckland. Marcus on the helm. John talks about wanting to win a leg, but the competition is too good to just expect to do it. "If we have the opportunity again we will do. We'll try and take it." More shots of AkzoNobel, drone shots. Witty: "Yeah, we regret it. Grid file is a little different than we thought. Grid files said that the other guys would fall into a big hole, and then once we made the decision to go up, the grid file changed... It's fugazi, fugazi... It's not real." Drone shot of AkzoNobel. Fish-eye lens view. Scary-looking clouds. Witty: "Meteorologists get very excited about this stuff. This is weather." Antonio talks about the wind change, being near Japan, needing to head for New Zealand. Libby talks about the weather: Not quite salvation, but this is the front they've been waiting for. They got caught in light winds and the others didn't. But they'll probably all converge in 7 days anyway. Witty puts on his foulies in the cockpit. We see a gybe from the cockpit with Witty on the helm. Annemieke working in the pit. Stronger wind, washing machine as they sail on port gybe.Crew comes back from the foredeck as they flop in light wind and chop (maybe they just hoisted the MH0, and had to be on the foredeck to lower the J1?). Or maybe they were forward for weight, but are now having to come back for a maneuver. A container ship is visible behind them. We see them tacking (gybing?) the MH0 onto starboard tack. Alex talks about how they've split to the north. Drone shot from high overhead as they flop with no wind. Instruments on mast showing boatspeed of 4, windspeed of 5. Rain. Antonio talks about how for the last two hours their max speed is 7 knots. Drone shot circlnig them with the partially rolled-up MH0 as a windseeker. Drone shot of Scallywag in the distance with a dolphin (I think? or small whale?) surfaces in the foreground. Shot of chart software. Libby at the nav station talks about their having split to the north. Shot of chart software showing them and another boat (AkzoNobel) having diverged to the north after passing Taiwan. Libby looks at an Expedition screen. Crew in the cockpit in the rain; light winds. Trystan on the helm: "It's good now... Good to have some breeze again." AkzoNobel is sneaking up on them. Shot of the bow showing clouds, light winds, with swell behind them.Drone shots of Scallywag sailing upwind on port tack under cloudy skies. Someone on the helm; think that must be Marcus. Antonio, below, talks about being almost in second place. Lost some gauge when clouds passed. But still in the fight. Ben at the mast during a reef. Marcus on the helm. Witty on the helm. Witty and Libby at the nav station. Witty talks about how they're doing fairly well. Libby is talking in the headset (to the cockpit, I assume) giving real-time updates on how they're doing vs. a competitor on AIS (I think). Drone shot circling them with a competitor in the distance. Drone shot overtaking Scallywag from astern with MAPFRE and Dongfeng a half mile ahead and only a few boatlenghts apart. Shot from on deck of Dongfeng and MAPFRE dueling ahead of them. Trystan, sitting on the stack forward in light, sloppy conditions, talks about the wind changes and trying to use the boats ahead of them to figure out what to do to gain in the transition. Shot of instruments as they sail in stronger wind. Shot of John Fisher grinding with Brunel to leeward of them. Circling drone shot showing MAPFRE to leeward of them.Libby at the nav station. She talks about winning the start, and heading toward Taiwan. On the wind for the next 24 hours. After Taiwan, bizarrely, turning north, for expected frontal system in four days' time. Shot of crew in the cockpit: Annemieke, Witty steering.Libby, wearing a GoPro (that really is a Garmin) in the prestart: "20 to burn; 1:10 to go." Witty, on the helm on the final approach to the line: "Deploy the MH0 guys! When you're ready deploy the MH0. Go, go!" Libby: "No burn time." We see the MH0 deploy. Libby: "No burn time; we're late." Close action as they're tacking out. Witty: "Nice to wn the start in our home town." Tacking out with other boats close. Slomo grinding. New crewmember Marcus talks excitedly about the good start. Marcus, grinding: "I"m still feeling it. Didn't get much sleep on the plane, so I'll be looking forward to getting a bit of sleep tonight. I doubt it though." He laughs. Libby on the LIbby-cam: "J1 on the next tack." António smiles in slomo. Witty steers.Drone shot of Scallywag bouncing while triple-heading on starboard. Nav station shot of nav software with clouds. Libby talks about the wind dropping to 7 knots, but they know there is a line of wind ahead. High drone shot of Scallywag running in lighter conditions under cloudy skies; possible rain in the distance. Libby: "It's all good, because we were getting a little bit twitched about no breeze; there was a little bit of drama. [She mimes: 'Aaaaahhhh!'] But... it's here." View from the stern of spray, washing machine. Witty, below, talks about if they can do 3 more scheds today without a loss... Talks about the bad seaway, pushing hard with up to 35 knots. "One sched down, got three to go. If we can get through the next three scheds without a loss, there won't be enough runway left for them to catch us." Talks about sending it - but not breaking it. Drone shot of bad seaway. Luke: "You pick your times to push, and we pushed pretty hard last night." Annemieke: "It's so nice to have four people on deck, because we can really send it now." Compares it to the Southern Ocean, with only three people on deck. "The retrieval of Alex was one of the highlights. I'm so proud of how quickly we got him back." Morale is really high. "I think we're a pretty happy team at the moment."Sunrise shot of the stern. Below, Witty and Libby are at the nav station. Libby: "As much as we had the cloud of doom three or four days ago, in hindsight it probably turns out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise. Because it gave us a more westerly approach to the following clouds; it gave us this lane." Grant sits next to her, holds up three fingers: "Only three Sidney-Hobart races to go to the finish." On deck, Luke steers with the sunrise behind him. "Every sched that they don't gain it makes it harder for them to catch us... It's all up to everyone on board now to execute as a group." Below, Trystan eats with Luke behind him also eating. Trystan talks about how they can't relax, because everyone is so quick behind, still a lot of choices to be made. Grant, on the helm: "Cha-ching!" He explains that Witty (standing behind him) has a deal where when they can hit 20 knots of boatspeed on course, they get a payout, $100. "Problem is the steering's a little too accurate lately, it's gonna cost him a fortune." Witty talks about how they've had emails from supporters and sponsors, and expectations are super high. Talks about the level of stress with 1,400 miles to go. Not wanting to let down the people who put them there.John talks about their comeback. "It is more positive not being off the back, for sure. But it can change." "Hong Kong is hometown for the skipper. It's also the hometown for a major backer... So for us to get a good result... it would be everything." Drong shot. Shot of routing software on the computer. Grant says the leaderboard shows them dropping back from first into second, but it's only by .6 mile, and the guys they're looking at are 70 miles north of them. "So they're only ahead on paper." Shot of Libby and Witty looking at the computer. Grant: "Thing that helped us a bit more is the model wasn't quite reality." Being north was not as big an advantage as it was supposed to. Couple of islands they have to miss, but in pretty good shape. "Pretty happy to be here. Better this end of the fleet than the other."In the morning light, Ben stands on the boom to look through binoculars ahead of them. Ben: "We've seen a sailing boat with a square-topped mainsail and a masthead sail, so we think it might be one of the other Volvos." Have been following them in the sched, and now have seen them in real life. Below, Libby calls out the latest sched. Sounds pretty happy. "Spotted Brunel about 40 minutes ago off our windward bow." Crew eats breakfast on the bow, talking about it. Witty: "One or two days ago we were a hundred miles behind the leaders." Ben: "We had to fucking work pretty hard the last two days." John talks about how they've worked hard, so to get where they can actually see and identify a yacht is cool. Witty talks about not giving up, keeping trying. "It's a really important leg for us. It would be catastrophic to come in last." Night shots of lightning. Witty on a PA tells the crew about Brunel being 9 miles away on AIS. "We're winning the sched for the first time, so well done lads." Talks about a rain cloud. "We've got this rain cloud which looks [BLEEP] horrendous." Beautiful shot of the waning gibbous moon rising through clouds behind the helmsman, silhouetting him. Next day, Witty talks on deck sounding despondent about getting stuck in the rain cloud with no wind. We see Libby at the nav station with Grant looking at Expedition's "Strip Chart" display. Libby: "True wind angle's at 120 here." Grant [pointing]: "So all this is starboard gybe..." Witty talks about losing 50 miles when they got stuck in the cloud and the other boats didn't. "probably lost 10 of the 30 miles there, and then we lost 20 of the 30 miles sailing 170 degrees off course... "We just did one of the stupidest things ever and now we're 30 miles behind running last again... We're the ones letting ourselves down. It's not bad luck; we're just being idiots. And we deserve to be here at the moment. And I'm just concerned that you don't get too many chances in this quality fleet to go from 30 miles behind or 100 miles behind to back in the lead. Somehow we've got 3,000 miles to figure out how we're going to do it. Again." He and Grant sit on the bow discussing it.Mostly dark sky. Drone shots of Scallywag sailing in the doldrums. Alex below. Libby and Witty below at the nav station, checking a sched. Libby: "Made gains on the fleet. Fastest boat; going a whole 4 knots." Drone shot of sunrise. Witty: "We're worried about finding a passing lane between here and Hong Kong. Because we can't finish here into Hong Kong." Libby talks about another 250 miles of light stuff. Annemieke in the bow: "Boring!" Annemieke in the bow. Alex talks about his messy roommate, Bessie. Talks about the heat, difficulty sleeping. Shot of crew sleeping on the bow. Annemieke talks about the difference when they're moving vs. when they're not. She feels like they're doing well.Grant, on the helm, makes the shaka sign. "Beautiful day. Tasman Sea at its finest." Drone shot of Scallywag from high overhead. Libby sits at the nav station looking at routing. "Pretty good sched for us." She talks about how for the next few days they should see a gain (due to compression). Shot of Parko on the helm with the sunset behind him. Liz at the nav station talks about letting the crew know what to expect, so they know when to expect a lot of effort and gybes, vs. when to expect straight-line sailing. Annemieke grinds on the pedestal. Pretty sunset shot. Witty at the nav station waits for the sched. Pretty drone shots of Scallywag with a squall in the distance. Drone shot. Witty: "We've gained, but not a lot." On the helm, Grant takes his hands off the wheel and lets the boat sail itself for a few seconds. Sunrise drone shot wth rain.Drone shot as Scallywag sails on starboard gybe with the Australian coast visible beyond them. At the nav station Libby explains that there's a big split, with 3 boats offshore, Brunel in the middle, and them inshore. Teams offshore have had more pressure and have made a bit of a gain. Shot of Scallywag sailing upwind from slightly outboard; Konrad must have the camera on a pole. Low elevation shot alongside the boat; wave hits the camera. Below, Libby talks to Witty at the nav station. Libby tells Konrad that it's been helpful to have Witty and Grant, who have lots of experience in these waters, to go with the weather model information. Libby talks about how impressive it is that new team members have been integrated so effectively. More pole shots of spray alongside. Below, Witty eats while talking to LIbby: "I'm making a point of not making you feel like I'm looking over your shoulder. Is it working?" [Libby laughs.] Witty explains that they don't have big egos. Everyone is part of the team. Washing machine shot of the cockpit. Witty talks about picking good people. Says Libby's fitting in well. He jokes that she's gotta get in front of her brother (on MAPFRE) before she gets a Scallywag tattoo (I think he said? Before she's fully accepted, I assume he's saying.) Drone shot of Scallywag with Austrailian coast in the background.Dockout as "Beautiful Day" plays. Witty on the helm. As they motor out Witty explains that Antonio broke his arm, so they got Trystan Seal to come in. Worked for the boatyard as part of the refit. Young UK guuy. We see him grinding a winch. Then he talks about how excited he is to be on the boat. He looks about 17. "You never know if you're going to like it or hate it until you do it. It should be good." In the background Libby is talking to Witty. Witty explains that Tom Clout "got quite sick", so he had to "call on an old mate, Grant Wharington, a bit of a yachting legend." We see Grant steering. Grant: "I'm really happy to have got a call up from David. He's an old mate of mine." We see Grant on the helm. Witty explains that Libby will help them be at full strength rather than being a person short. Shots of start with Witty on the helm and Libby talking to him. After the start, Witty talks about it. There was a 20-degree pin bias and they tried to do a port-tack start, which was tough. But it's all good. He jokes about getting rid of the jumper, who we then see jump off.