Richard Edwards (OBR)

Tanker on the horizon; Dee talks about watching it to see if it changes direction. Dee gets her hat on and goes up. Slomo steering. Francesca, below: It's a real tough leg, it's short, but a lot of corners, different sails peeling, different conditions, full Volvo style, 30 knots, now we are sailing in 18 knots, so it's quite changeable waeather. It's quite nice. We were able to put more distance between us and Scallywag, and we can see Dongfeng in front, so everyone is really close. Bianca grinding on deck. Dee trimming. Slomo grinding by Liz. Scallywag behind them. Francesca: We have to beat Scallywag and put a boat between us and them. We'll try to catch the people in front. Maybe not in our hands; if someone wants to finish behind us it's perfect. Liz, on deck, talks about trying to keep the staysail happy. Nicolas at the nav station. Bianca and Dee in slomo.Washing machine shot from inside the cabin. Martin driving. Stern cam of spray coming over the cockpit. Dee on the helm. Slomo washing machine past sthe cockpit winches. Martin grinding.Spreader cam of the cockpit. Mast cam of spray on the bow. Stern cam of major washing machine. Liz: This is definitely one of the things I'm going to miss about the race. It's pretty cool to spend the last 24 hours like this. It's a good way to end the race. Washing machine in the pit. Stacking. Bagging a sail (?) on the floor of the cockpit. Liz: Gaining on Scallywag the last 2 hours, and everyone's pretty geared up to stay in front of them. So the fight is on. Lowering the J1 on the foredeck.Bernardo on the rail lashes the stack. Scallywag is visible a half mile behind and to weather. A coastline is visible behind them and to starboard; is that Norway? A German or Dutch island? Keel shot. Rudder shot. Nicolas: We are going offshore; in a few hours will have 30 knots (yeah, this is off Norway). Bleddyn works on the outrigger. Dee steers. Dee grinding. Reefing the main. Stronger conditions; washing machine. Liz, below: Pretty gnarly. We're sending it across the North Sea from Norway down to Denmark. 32 knots of breeze, pretty bouncy sea state, and we're sitting on speeds of between 24 and 27 knots. Really really fun.Slomo of Dee grinding. Liz on the helm. Slomo. Tacking the MH0. Drifting conditions. Scallywag bare-headed flops on the horizon. Nicolas looks at his tablet. "It's a flapping sail." Stacking. Dee and Bernardo. Bianca. "We have passed the mark." Everyone cheers. Sitting forward. Francesca: How many miles to the Hague? Bernardo: 400. Bianca: 400 miles to the finish line. Francesca: 6 days. 10 days. We don't have enough food. Dee: But it's not just the finish line, Franky. It's the ultimate finish line. Francesca: The extreme finish line. Life at the extreme. Bianca: Look at us we're blasting along now. Furling the MH0 for a gybe. Scallywag a half mile away. Dee and Francesca talking on the rail. Dee explains that they've just rounded the virtual mark, and expect to finish Sunday evening... It's felt so far like the longest in-port race ever.Knotmeter on mast reads 5.7. Stacking amidships. Francesca: Of course it's a mix of emotions. You want to push, because it's the last leg, and you want to gain a position on the leaderboard. But in a week and a half it's over, and you need to work out your work plans, dream plans... it's a bit weird for everyone. I think we did some good legs during the race. Maybe we deserve something more than to finish last in the race. This leg seems quite open. MAPFRE and Dongfeng had a big lead yesterday, and they lost everything in this light patch. Every thing is open to the finish line. Everyone is quite tired. But the other boats are in the same position as us. Cannot complain, and just do what we know to do in the few hours we still have of this Volvo Ocean Race. Bernardo: I think we didn't sleep one straight hour... Lucas: My eyes are bleeding. Slomo of Bernardo, Bianca, Bernardo and Lucas eating below. Grinding.Flopping at sunrise/sunset. Nicolas looking for wind. Mast instruments showing 0.7 knot. J1 flopping throug the foretriangle with the (furled) MH0 next to it. Crew sleeping on the bow. Lucas: Bit tired this morning. Been a couple of restless days. But now we've gone into a parking lot with the whole fleet. Dongfeng and MAPFRE are both within our sights now. Dee on the helm. Clew of the sail. Lucas: NO, we're not moving. Going backwards. Flappy flappy flappy. Francesca on the bow: Pretty tired. Two days of no sleep. Lot of maneuvers. Don't have time for eating, for sleep. Short leg but it's quite hard. Crew lowering the J1 in the morning light. Paolo Mirpuri helps pull it down.In the semi-dark, sailing with Scallywag a half mile behind them. Passing a buoy with two boats ahead of them. Martin, on the helm: Got Scallywag behind us, and have Brunel and Vestas just ahead. Sunrise silhouetting Vestas and Brunel ahead of them. Wind is dropping a lot. Have to change the mode quite a bit on the boat, probably change the sail as well. A lot of work for us. (Sounds super tired.) Boatspeed: 10.3. Folding a furled sail on the foredeck. Competitor on the horizon ahead.Someone (Martin?) sleeping below. Sailing past land in lighter conditions. Nicolas and Bernardo look at Nicolas's tablet. Stacking below. Tacking in the cockpit. Bernardo and Bleddyn on the forward pedestal. Scallywag 100 yards ahead of them. Entering Aarhus. Nicolas looks at his tablet. Nicolas: We are going to go inside the harbor. Winds are very tricky. We are fighting with Scallywag. Three boatlenghts. Have to be ready to do everything. Spectator sailboat motors alongside with Danish flag. Tacking. Nicolas: We are almost layline now. We have to tack guys. Bleddyn, on the helm, calls the tack. Scallywag crosses ahead on port. Sailing past a 12 meter in the harbor. Repeat of earlier Nicolas clip explaining the upcoming harbor transit. Passing the lighthouse. Scallywag exiting above them. Spectators along quay. Tacking around the buoy. Exiting past the crowds. Annalise: A little bit tight in there; wind was a little funky. Had a few messups with our Masthead Zero. Nearly heading to the finish. One more mark by Norway. Loads of people there, which was really cool... I think everyone's pretty tired on the boat. We're now on the home stretch... Sleep when we get to the Hague. Gybe. Scallwag to port. Lumpy furl of the MH0. Liz: Have to drop it. Wrestling with the badly furled sail on the foredeck. Scallwag gybes ahead of them. Lucas fiddles with the sail. Lowering the J1.Liz steers as Scallywag sails a quarter mile to leeward. Scallywag in front of the wind farm. Francesca grinding in front of Scallywag and the wind farm. Scallywag a hundred hards on their port quarter. Slomo of Scallywag behind them with Dee scowling in the foreground. Liz: Not a lot of ocean going on in the Volvo Ocean Race at the moment. Have to sail into a harbor, sail back out, sail back up to Norway. Not much sleep. Have been dueling with Witty the whole race. [Re: beating Scallywag]: I ould not describe it. It would be perfect. Slomo foredeck, grinding. They look exhausted. Bleddyn, Bianca grinding. Liz stacking with Scallywag behind. Clew of the MH0. Scallywag 100 yards ahead and to weather. Rolling up the J3.Scallywag on their starboard quarter. Grinding. Slomo gybe, steering, stacking. Annalise triming, not even paynig attention to the low-level washing machine. Bianca grinding. Martin: A tight race with Scallywag. Got closer and closer on the downwind leg. Heading over to Denmark. Bleddyn: The main thing for us this leg is not only to defeat Scallywag but get a boat between us. We're ahead of them; try to catch AkzoNobel or Brunel, in front of us, over the next day. Haven't had much sleep. Can sleep after we get to the Hague. Scallywag to starboard. Bianca yawning. Gybe. Stacking.Dee explains that they got to the mark close to Scallywag and had a bad mark rounding. Martin in the pit as they round the Norway turning mark. Scallywag next to them inside, then ahead of them as Liz pulls down the J1 on the bow. Dee on the helm: Know the order everyone is in, and sadly we are at the back. Lowering the J1, motorboat following them, Scallywag to leeward and ahead. Sunrise. Dee: A little tour of Scandinavia. She talks about sleep, and people forgoing it, and their positivity. Nicolas talks to Dee about gybing around the TSS. Stacking. Scallywag behind them, a little.Sailing toward the sunset and clouds. Grinding. Bernardo points out whitecaps coming down. Tack. Stacking below and on deck. Scallywag to port. Sailing into the sunset. We see the blown covering tack by Scallywag from TTToP's perspective. Bernardo: We are sailing upwind with 22 knots. Put us back on the fleet again. Game is on; we have Scallywag really close to us. Time to get our heads up and fight for our position. The game is on. They want to do it the hard way; it's not going to pay off. Shots of Scallywag on their weather quarter. Sunset.Bianca, below: I think as a team we've grown massively. Talks about their needing to develop a playbook. Unfortunate that we're getting to the end of the just as they're getting to that level. Talks about trying to get a boat between them and Scallwag. Bernardo talks about the tactics of the start. Believes there will be three boats fighting for the committee boat end. They plan to start clear of that and farther down the line. Bleddyn on the helm at the start. Dee: Last chance. Last chance to stand and deliver. Keeping my everything crossed at the moment. Not where we are in 24 hours, but where we are in 72 hours when we cross the line. Want to give them their moment of glory and moment to shine. Bleddyn on helm with Bernardo calling tactics. Bernardo: Max left... meas we can lay our gate from the pin. Nicolas calls time. Start. Bleddyn looking nervous on the helm. Francisco: We're racing, full speed guys. Liz calls about the runner. Sailing upwind. MAPFRE behind them. Lucas: That's not good. MAPFRE closing behind them. Bernardo: Wind shadow starting in the next minute. Passing a lighthouse. MAPFRE below them. MAPFRE above them. Ah, I see what Pablo was upset about. He tried to stick their bow up to weather of TTToP when rounding that mark, but they didn't give him room and made him go to leeward of them. Helicopter. Martin easing a sheet. Martin below: Very even I think. Behind on the reach, but we've caught up quite a lot, and are fighting to be first boat to the north. I think it's going to be very tight. Don't have to go too close to the Swedish rocks. Quite well-known for crashing boats. Liz, on deck: a couple of hours since the leaving mark. Talks about the other boats. Waiting for a header so they can all tack. Martin climbs into his bunk below. Dee on the helm. Bianca in the pit. Nicolas comes up and gives an update from AIS on how the other boats are doing relative to them.Pre-dockout mingling and parade. Henry in the tent. Lucas pushes Bianca playfully. Dee brings up the rear. Slomo parade. LIz, Martin, Annalise, Dee, Nicolas. Martin does an interview as he's walking. Dee says goodbye to well-wishers; gets a kiss from a child. Annalise talks with Stacey Jackson about waffles. Dee and Stacey shake hands. Dee: I'll buy you waffles.... Winner buys. Bleddyn hugs someone. Lucas: Final time to dock out for an offshore leg. Their goal: To put a boat between them and Scallywag to move up from last place in the standingss. Martin interview: Fantastic week in Gothenburg. Very emotional send off now. Handshakes in a line as they thank well-wishers. Francesca dances. Lucas does an interview. Dockout. Bleddyn waves. Wisdom steers the boat (courtesy of Liz). Interesting that I thought I saw Henry Bomby hanging out in crew gear, but then he's not on the official site's "Onboard" crew list?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.We look into the hot chocolate with protein powder cup. Peter: "It's kind of summing up the last day." Started out with so much promise when you get handed a coffee mug. And now I"m just left wiht a very confused cup. Is it a protein drink? Is it hot chocolate? Do you want it?" Richard: No. Peter: Here's to Neptune. (He tosses it over the side.) Changing sails on the foredeck. Trystan: Yesterday was a pretty dark camp aboard Scallywag. High pressure ridge; last to enter it. Hoping for a bit more compression. Got 10 knots of breeze, and moving nicely. Having just come on watch it's a happier place than it was 6 hours ago, that's for sure. Stacking below. Stacking on deck.Sunrise. Witty at the nav station. "214 miles behind. Imagine what the next sched's gonna be like." They flop. Peter, on the helm. Latest sched just in. (shakes his head) Leg over. Everyone else is doing 20 knots. We're doing 3 knots. Not even pointing at the finish. Unbelievable. Shots of empty milk jar below. Parko: We don't have any milk. We packed protein powder instead of milk powder. The shocker! We all make mistakes. Peter, on the helm. I packed protein. My name's Pete, and I packed protein. Laughs. Annemieke: I put protein powder instead of milk powder in the hot chocolate. I think It's pretty nice. Peter tries it. "Oh [bleep]." Laughs. "You did that on purpose?" Annemieke: No, no, no.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.Stern cam footage of washing machine. Cockpit washing machine shots. Pole shot outside the rail. Trystan, below: It's good, it's wet. Averaging 23, 24 knots. And current, so doing 25 knots over the ground. Alex, below: It's like getting a firehose in your face for 3 hours. And then going back down to go to sleep for 3 hours and then doing it again. Slomo washing machine in the pit. Toweling off below. Getting in a bunk. Spreader cam shot of major whitewater in the cockpit. Trystan: Pretty relentless. Just takes it out of you. Pretty energy sapping. But conditions are pretty stable, not gybing a lot. Not too bad. But relentless. Cockpit washing machine. Slomo. Alex: It's probably the last long leg where we have long periods of just sending it as hard as we can.Mounted camera on the starboard rail by the helm as they surf fast on starboard gybe. Washing machine.Witty and Parko talking below about making the sail change. Fixed-camera shots of making the change. Stacking aft. Heh. Richard is going nowhere near any of this (not that I blame him). Annemieke coming below. Parko, below: We've put a bigger sail up. We're a bit lifted. Going 2 knots faster. Which is good, but means we should have done it earlier... It's super frustrating when you realize we could have been on a different sail sooner by an hour and a half. Probably lost 3 or 4 miles just on sail selection.Spreader cam view of the cockpit with crew huddled on the stern. Washin gmachine. Bow cam. Stern cam. Survival mode in the cockpit. Witty on the PA from the nav station. "We were 23 behind Turn the Tide; we're 9 behind now." Still last. He talks with Luke and Libby. Luke: Talks about following the fleet. In two days we're going to run into a ridge and just stop... Trying to decide which sail to run with. It's difficult to change, because we have to slow down to limit the water over the boat. Have to choose which is quicker: Slowing down to be able to make the change, or staying with what you have?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.Sailing fast under cloudy skies with a reefed main. Trystan gets buried in the washing machine. Below, Alex takes his foulies off. Talks about the wild ride on deck from going through the Gulf Stream. But making good progress toward cardiff. Stern cam footage of washing machine. Foredeck view fro mmast cam. Cockpit view from spreader cam. Alex: AkzoNobel 2 and a half miles behind, us on our stern. And Turn the Tide another six miles. And in front of us just to leeward, Vestas, and Brunel, nine miles ahead. Witty: Terrible. Gulf Stream. What a [bleep]. Trystan, below: Still in the fight with the pack. Decision now is when to gybe. 25-30 knots of breeze. 25 knots of boatspeed. Making some miles.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.Drone shots of Scallywag triple heading. Antonio on the helm in the sunrise. Parko tidying lines. Wake. Peter: About 75 miles south of Bermuda. A few more hours on this gybe. Last few days have been pretty hard. Now we've got the same shift as everyone else. You gotta keep believing you can get into that leading pack. Have to keep sailing as if we're leading, sailing 100%. Witty: 48 hours ago were 235 miles behind. Now 130 miles behind. As we say on Scallywag, never surrender, never give up. Alex: What time is it? Talks witih Ben about how they've been on starboard for 8 days.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.Sail change, with Parko in the pit. Slomo shot of Parko's face. Spray. Parko on the helm. Parko getting doused. Parko: Challenge is being out there by yourself. Scheds are hard. Like all endurance sports, it's easy to pack it in. But the highly competitive group here, we won't give up. Couple of thousand miles left. Gotta put ourselves in position to take them whe they arise.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.Sailing fast. Slomo weed going past the keel. Parko on the helm. Various angles of sailing fast. Alex, eating below: Yeah, not a lot of change going on. Windspeed's the same, wind angle's the same. This is what the Volvo's all about. Blast reaching for 4 or 5 days. They've been losing miles in the scheds for the last several days because they haven't had the wind. It's frustrating, for sure. We planted a seed a little earlier in the leg, and it didn't pay off... That's ocean racing sometimes.Sargasso weed. Someone checks the keel with the endoscope. Keel, rudder shots. Sailing fast through weed. Slomo. Closeup of weed. Alex, below, explains about weed on the foils. Nipper and Trystan can look to see what's on the foils. Tricky when it's dark. The boat hook is handy as well. You can half wipe out, and it will get the weed off. At the moment it's all over the bow. It smells a bit downstairs. Not sure if it's Nipper or the weed. Nipper asks a riddle: Why do starfish cry? Because of the seaweed. (blank emoji)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.Trystan jury rigs a freshwater pump. Talks about needing to fix things. Parko looks throgh binoculars. Stack forward. J3 clew (think theyr'e triple-heading). Alex working in the pit. Alex, on the bow, talks about how even if you're down you don't want to let it affect the others in the crew. Important to keep pushing along, and be positive. Antonio smiles. Trystan on the helm: This sucks; I hate it. It's slow and hot... I'm just over it.Evening drone shots of them drifting in light winds with rain on the horizon. Parko, on the helm: This part of the world is known for a relatively easy crossing. The land breeze helps. Clouds. Peter brushes his teeth. Ben mixes up something in the galley. Bird on ddeck (black tern?) Ben looks at clouds. Trystan says Libby has a good point that looking at the scheds for the next few days will be pretty depressing. But there will be a compression coming into Newport, and that will make or break the leg.Drone shot with container ship in the horizon ahead of them as they sail in light winds. More drone shots of them sailing under the MH0. Pole shots. Trystan, below, explains that they're coming to the northeastern point of Brazil. Obviously not overly pleased with where we're lying. But opportunity ahead with the doldrums and the equator to cross. Guys ahead are easing up, so a chance to catch up. Shifting the stack forward. Stacking below. Peter explains forward stacking below. Bessie stacking below.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.Ben explains that they broke the stopper on the daggerboard, so they thought they'd have some afts and crafts in the afternoon and fix it. Witty reads the sched: We were 70 miles behind the leader; now we're 24. Peter: It's been light overall. J0 to the MH0. Frustrating really. Started the day badly, got hit by a lot of squalls. Hard for everyone last night. Stemmed the daage, but frustratingly light. Witty explains the situation. We don't want to go left, because left pressure left, more pressure right. Flopping. Night shots of them working the foredeck and cockpit.Wrestling the J0 on the foredeck; stacking it. Pole shots: outboard, rudder, bow, keel. Crewmembers tired, sleeping. Parko: So, over the last two scheds we've been the most western boat. The other boats are pushing down over the top. Clouds... Tough night, quite a few sail changes. It's been a rough one. We've lost quite a few miles. Lost the strong position we were in. Fighting to work east a little bit, to get back in a position where we can tack again. Witty reads a sched from below. Repairs to the top of the daggerboard (I think). Mixing epoxy, applying it.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.Hoisting the J1 in the sunrise. Antonio at the nav station talks about going through the oil rigs, and need someone at all times watching the AIS. He eats at the nav station. Shot of the burning oil drilling ship. Trystan talks about how they're in last place in the latest sched. Libby talks about picking where to tack onto starboard for the drag race to the equator. Rain on the horizon. Rain astern. Crew working in the cockpit in rain.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.Grinding. Trystan on the foredeck hauling down the J1. Witty on the helm: I can't see how they're lifted and we're not. Peter, below, talks about the clouds. Shot of the cloud ahead of them on deck. Stacking below in prep for a tack. They tack onto starboard. Stacking aft. Witty on the helm. "Well, at least we're going to where Newport is." Trystan talks about how the gauge they've gained has not really helped out. So now we're the first to tack to starboard. Witty at the nav station. Talks about how MAPFRE must have tacked. Sunset, rain clouds.Sunrise. Alex on the helm. Clouds. Alex: Massive header. Ben sleeping against the stack. Witty at the nav station: Not very good. Brunel got a bit of speed and got through to leeward of us. Decision on where to tack today. Computer screen with routing software. Parko looking through binoculars. Annemieke: We have our moments when we do well; other times we struggle. Difficult conditions. Very choppy sea state, and the windspeed is up and down. You see it in the whole fleet. Rain showers to windward. Peter on the helm. Witty talks to Parko about what the boats to leeward are doing. "We might not get over all of them but we'll get at least some." Ben wrestles the MH0 (I asssume) aloft on the bow.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.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?Simeon talks about how they're in a good position. Everyone is coming into their trail. Nicolai, below: Only 3 days to go. Starting to see a good result. But reminding yourself it's not over until you cross the finish line. Can put in 22 days of hard work and lose it in the last day. Simeon at the nav station looks at routing software. Everyone is trying to get west; but they're already there. Relief that we went into the light air in first, and are coming out first as well. Luke, on the rail: Re-taken the lead. Tough struggle with Scallywag, it's paid off. Brunel in stealth mode now. Cecile: Nice to get moving. Most pressure we've seen in 3 or 4 days. Luke: Rather be on this boat than any of the others, but it is yacht racing. Pole cam shots over the side of them sailing faster. Chart software showing them west of New Caledonia. Brad eating. Closeups: Helm, winches. Martine on the helm. Simeon trimming. Stacking below. Brad grinding.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.Brad, at the base of the mast: "I'm going up the rig." And he does. I think this is probably early morning. Crew grinding in the cockpit. He points to the wind. Jules, on deck: Can you see Scallywag? Brad: Yeah, he's out there. Looks lighter than us.Martine, on deck, talks in Portuguese about the doldrums, the heat. Simeon, sitting on the lowered J1 on the bow, talks in Dutch about the islands they're passing as the MH0 flops behind him.Nicolai: Good-looking morning. "Cloud porn." You shouldn't be looking at me; you should be looking at the clouds. Cloud shots. Nicho on the helm silhouetted by the sunrise. Crepuscular rays. Simeon: The heat is just unbearable. 45 degrees downstairs. Luke: Big hat, balaclava. Down below it's incredibly hot, hard to sleep during the day. Brad: Water on your skin. Martine: It's hard when you don't have shade. Fan below. Wetting a cloth in the galley. Nicolai drinking. Martine spritzing herself. Nicolai gives a thumbs-down from his bunk. Grinding in the heat on deck. Sunscreen. Flopping in no wind. Justin: Clouds are the only source of wind. We're hopping from cloud to cloud. Light winds. Justin: That one's sucking. Cecile: Talks about the competition. Who's ahead. For sure they've caught up. Game on. Simeon talks about the competition. Jules talks about strategy. Simeon: Challenge for me is still to win a leg in the Volvo Ocean Race. I've come in second quite a few times. Sunset as they're moving again.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.Brad, up the mast wearing a GoPro (realize it's a Garmin), looks for wind, calls down to the deck. View from deck level as they flop. Knotmeter: 1.6. Hoisting the J1. Luke stands by the MH0 clew. Luke: Brad's just up the mast to pop the battens. GoPro shot of Brad doing that. Luke: 2/3 of the distance through the leg, Scallywag just 4 miles away. Simeon: Brunel, Scallywag, and ourselves. Cecile: Hopefully the guys behind us get stuck in the same stuff. Shot of another boat on the horizon. Martine takes a bearing. Jules talks about "going over there to get in that breeze. Luke looks through the binoculars. Simeon talks down into the cabin: "Need to get more snacks. Keep up the motivation. Luke lies below. Nicolai eats. Simeon: All short-term plans. Luke: Sea state is calm. Going to get flatter as well. Winch closeup. 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."Justin looks at clouds. Talks about the wind. Simeon on the helm looks tired. Rainbow to leeward. Justin: Basically have been bouncing from cloud to cloud. Playing snakes and ladders with the other boats. Puffs that last for 30 seconds to a minute. Brad on the bow as they hoist the J1 and furl the MH0. Justin on the helm. Rain. Stacking below. Jules looks at the computer. "Until we find some wind out of the westerly quadrant we won't make any gains." Sailing into the doldrums now. Guys behind have all seen them slow and have turned left (east), taking a lot of miles out of them. Luke: Jules and Chris and Simeon have spent a lot of time over the last week deciding where to cross the doldrums. Jules at the mast. Nicolai and Martine lower the MH0 after hoisting the J1. Lowering the J1, Justin gathers it in on the foredeck. Jules emerges from below to annouce the sched: Brunel is closest to the finish now. Brad in the sunset. Justin on the helm after sunset: Dismal couple of days. Who knows what's next.Brad and Martine on the foredeck peeling from J1 to J0? FR0? Stacking. Luke in the pit. Luke bailing below. Filling up water in the galley. Brad: Nine days in. Not the easiest 9 days. Blast reaching, throwing the boat around. When they get to the doldrums they'll want to get this again. "As long as you keep your gear dry." Richard asks, "Is your gear dry?" Brad shakes his head and smiles. "Soaked all the way through." He eats. Jules talks about their lead over Scallywag and MAPFRE. They'll lose some of that as they lead into the first doldrums area. He talks about strategy with someone. Shots of the conditions lightening on deck. Nicolai talks about light winds coming. Frustrating, but they knew it was coming. Ready for hard work. Unfurling a bigger sail (MH0?). Jules talks about strategy. Simeon scans the horizon for wind. Squall with rain and wind. Grinding. Winch drum. Jules talks about the nearby boats. Luke in the cockpit. Jules, in the companionway, talks about the clouds, and strategy.Simeon talks below. Fantastic to lead. Long way to go. Have to have confidence. Upcoming doldrums. Jules at the nav station talks to Simeon. Computer screen shows weather. Simeon: Pressure of being in the front and making choices that everyone else sees. A bit of a vulnerable spot. Justin, below: A lot of hurdles to get through. Maybe first into the doldrums, first out of the doldrums. Everyone working well. Good feeling. Cecille: Nothing's set in stone. Far from it. Washing machine shot of the cockpit from the cabin. Slomo spray from the cockpit. Nicolai getting drenched. Waterline pole shot. Slomo of cockpit. Pole shots from outboard. Nicho on the helm in rain and squally conditions. Simeon grinding. Looking up the slot with major firehose action. Martine and Jules grinding on one pedestal. Cecile: "It's wet! But fast." Nicolai, below, talks about blowing out a Cunningham ram. Losing oil for the Navtec system. Nicolai and Simeon working on the hydraulics below. Nicolai explains that the bigger problem is that the cunningham uses the same oil as the other systems. If they run out of oil it will affect other sail control systems. More shots of repairs as they bounce around.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?Approaching a front. Jules a the nav station. Martine on the bow as they flop. "This feels wrong, very wrong. We're going the wrong way." Jules: tacked a little too early in hindsight. Very light. Very disappointed. Made the decision to tack too quickly. For the first sched it was okay, second sched not very good. Martine and Brad working on the foredeck. Knotmeter shows less than a knot. Drifting, slatting. Rolling up the MH0. Looking at the chart.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.Dockout. Brad clasps hands with people on the dock as they pull out. Simeon waves from the wheel. Prestart as they unfurl the MH0. Unzipping the J1 bag. Jules calling time to the start. "Racing with a header." Nicolai, on the wheel: "Racing." Dongfeng astern of them, Brunel (with Scallywag unfurling their MH0 visible beyond) sails down from above and behind them; TTToP and MAPFRE visible beyond them. Brad, looking to weather, calls wind: "Max pressure in 10." Pinching up to lee-bow Scallywag. Furling the MH0 to tack. Simeon in the pit, grinding with Cécille. Cécille with her Kiwi-accented English: "Light patch in 2. Building again in 5." She recaps their good start. Martine bagging the MH0 on the foredeck. Simeon, on the rail, talks about the building wind they'll likely see. He's happy to be leading, but points out they have 6,200 miles to go. Clip cuts off in mid-sentence.Kyle, in the cockpit, looks at the teaser images of the new America's Cup foiling monohulls. "It looks like a catamaran, but it's a monohull. I think it's cool. That's what the Amerca's Cup should be. Cutting edge, and the fastest monohull out there."Slomo shot of disembodied Bouwe head on a black background.Slomo shot of Kyle on the stern.Carlo, below, talks about being in the southern ocean conditions the last few days. "There's definitely times we're on deck that I'd rather be anywehre else than on this boat, and I just hate it. But there's a lot of times when I just love it." Annie, eating below, talks about the wind ligtening. Capey talks about how the pecking order may be already established, but they're doing their best to see if they can change that. Abby, on deck in the dusk, says they think they're deserving of a podium finish. "I think it will be disappointing if we're not on the podium." Capey, at the nav station: "It's a rich-get-richer situation." Annie: "It doesn't really matter where we were a week ago; it's where we finish." Shot of crew working on the bow for a sail change as spray comes over the bow. Peeling to a ligher-wind headsail (MH0?). Bouwe on the helm. Annie eating below. Abby bailing out the engine compartment. Clew of the headsail. Closeups of instruments below, and at the mast. Stacking below. Night shots of maneuvers in the cockpit. Day shot of coiling lines in the cockpit. Someone with a meal pack below.Kyle gets dressed below in the full-on gasketed foulies. Talks about the competition. Peter, below, talks about opportunities when it goes light again. Bouwe, below, talks about their choosing a more northern line. Peter and Kyle talk about how bad the conditions are on deck. Slomo washing machine footage of cockpit, shifting the stack. Annie: "Don't go to the death zone. Also known as the bow." Stack. Coiling line. Slomo winch. Abby rubs water from her face. Bouwe on the helm. Slomo washing machine in the cockpit, grinding.Annie, in the galley, talks about washing the mugs. She pours some hot chocolate. "You're giving away my special recipe here. Top secret stuff." Richard: "At what point does it become dangerous, Annie?" Annie [laughing]: "You'll see in a minute when I start pouring the boiling water." She pours in hot water, mixes the mug. Annie: "I think we're 25 to 30 degrees of heel, and it's quite choppy, being thrown forwards and backwards... It's taking me about 20 minutes to make 4 drinks." With her foulies on, she carries the four drinks up. Someone on deck: "Coffee time!" Annie: "Coffee time!" Shot of spray coming over the bow.Kyle sleeps in his bunk. Carlo touches his shoulder to wake him up. Kyle: "Fuck." Kyle talks to Bouwe, off camera, about Dongfeng's location. Bouwe: "No, no. They're 40 miles away." Kyle, to Carlo: "Wet hands." Carlo: "It's so wet outside." Kyle: "Yeah, it looks it." (Wonder if this is referring to the same fog from the 09:12:27 MAPFRE video.) Dishing food, eating. Annie eats in the background. Kyle: "Having lunch, which is rice slop, with tomato, I think. Which is very similar to every other meal we eat." Carlo walks by. Kyle: "He likes to wake you up with wet hands, which is very uncomfortable." Carlo: "C'mon, seagull; you like it." Capey, at the nav station, explains their situation. Kyle puts on his foulies. Goes on deck (yeah; looks heavily overcast at least, if not foggy), takes the wheel. Slomo shots of passing water. Shot of the "Team Brunel" branding on the foulies hanging below.Maciel jokes about how they're sailing in all kinds of weird directions in this leg. (They're sailing on starboard gybe and from the light it appears to be afternoon. I'm guessing this is from the afternoon of 2017-11-18, when they were sailing southwest, away from Cape Town.) Alberto, on the helm, agrees. Alberto: "We go west, and then we go south, and then we go north to go to Cape Town."Slomo of spray coming over the bow. Below, Capey talks to Bouwe in red light at the nav station. Bouwe announces below: "Gybing." mast cam view looking down, pit cam view looking aft, as Brunel gybes from starboard to port at sunset. We also catch a glimpse in the pit cam view of Richard (OBR) on the stern with a camera, then see his footage of Kyle grinding. Bouwe, in the cockpit, talks about the strategy of when they gybed, hope to cross Vestas. Below, Abby stacks. Sunset.Below, Bouwe talks in Dutch.Sunrise. Kyle coils a line while silhouetted against the sunrise. Below, Bouwe tells the crew they're gybing. On deck, we see the gybe from port to starboard. On the helm, Bouwe says it will be interesting to see if Vestas continues on the old gybe. Maciel points out Vestas. Telephoto shot of Vestas. Capey and Annie looking through binoculars. Stacking below. Abby, on deck: "We're on opposite gybes; looks like Vestas is just crossing in front." We see Vestas, on port gybe, cross a few hundred meters ahead of Brunel. Per the tracker, this cross was at 2017-11-17 1118 UTC. Slomo of cross. Peter on the helm with Vestas in the background. Carlo, in the cockpit: "I've never been racing so long, and still within a couple of minutes of each other." Capey at the nav station. Slomo of Carlo.Below, Capey is at the nav station. Off camera, Bouwe asks, "When do we start cutting the corner? Tomorrow? Or the day after?" Capey: "80, I think's, the true wind direction where we've gotta start. Around that, yeah." We see an instrument display showing TWD of 085. Kyle, on deck, talks about how AkzoNobel is to the east, having "cut the corner" earlier, but at the risk of missing the good part of the front that Brunel is hoping to hook into in a day or so. Maciel, looking through binoculars to starboard: "Yeah; Copacabana." Then, pointing: "Yeah, there they are." He lowers the binoculars, hands them to Kyle. Maciel: "Vestas. On top of the wheel." Annie, at the galley, talks about smelly boots and wet foulies getting dried out. Kyle, on the wheel, points out his "cigarette legs... very powerful legs as well." Row of boots hanging along he weather rail. Spreading a sail out to dry on the cabin. Kyle, on the helm, jokes with Bouwe and does a Crocodile Dundee impression: "That's not a knife."Sunrise. (That's the fourth OBR who has started a video with the 2017-11-15 sunrise.) A crewmember looks to leeward through bright orange binoculars. Below, someone (I think Alberto?) talks below, in shadow, about having a really good 24 hours and passing Vestas. Someone (I think Peter?) wipes his face with a cloth. Capey and Bouwe sit at the nav station. Capey: "Not bad." He laughs. In the cockpit, Bouwe asks Maciel how far he thinks they are from Vestas. Maciel: "Ten?" Bouwe: "Sixteen and a half." Maciel, to someone asking him from out of frame: "Three eighteen, sixteen and a half." He points to the starboard quarter. Thinking this must have been the 2017-11-15 1900 sched? Tracker doesn't show them quite that far apart, but it's close. Below, Abby takes off her foulies. In her bunk, she talks about having MAPFRE in their sights next. Carlo works the bow for a sail change, including slomo footage. Peeling J1 to FR0, I think. Slomo of bagging the old sail. Stacking, tightening straps on the stack. Carlo below, eating. Pully with line. Slomo of Kyle on the clew. Capey talking about the clouds. Carlo, below: "It's the best job I've ever had, mate." Winches.Bouwe, on deck, talks about passing the equator and heading south in the tradewinds. Below, at the nav station, Capey talks about strategy for the south Atlantic portion of the leg: Getting south as quick as they can now, then hooking into a front. Capey: "Last couple of hundred miles will be the decider. So that's what you've got to get in position for." Closeup of instruments. Hands holding a sheet. Slomo shot of Vestas a mile or two ahead of them. Slomo shot of Alberto on the low side, squinting up into the slot. Carlo working on the foredeck. Spray on the clew of a headsail. Closeup of winch turning, easing. Kyle talks about speed gains of 0.1 knot being quite significant. Artsy slomo closeups: Winch, Alberto. Below, Richard asks Capey about Vestas: "Do we follow or do we do our own thing?" Capey: "We do our own thing." Sunset.Shot over the side as Brunel reaches on port. Annie, below, tells a disgusting story about having peed in the head, and going to pump it and having sewage fly out over her. Annie: "I've just had to clean the head and shower at the same time. It's the cleanest it's been. So I guess that's the silver lining." Carlo shows his bowl of food: "It looks something like this." Various shots of the head.Time-lapse shot that circles the horizon at sunset.Kyle and Peter get their equator-crossing initiation. I think maybe Capey is playing Neptune? Not full-on cosplay, though. Shot of the three inductees on the bow in the spray.Peter, Kyle showering, shirtless, in a rain squall. Carlo working the bow.Alberto talks in Italian.Carlo talks in Dutch.Peter talks about rain, showers, equator crossing, doldrums, competition.Below, Bouwe talks about competition, winds, minimal doldrum crossing, possibility of a restart in the last 100 miles into Capetown due to the high pressure there. Shots of wheel, compass, Annie talking on rail, horizon.Peter sits to leeward and calls sail trim. Beyond him we see AkzoNobel to leeward. Kyle, on the helm, talks about boats visible ahead of them. Kyle: "Two of them. Must be MAPFRE and Vestas." We see a distant shot of the two boats ahead of them, the boat to starboard (which I think is Vestas) more visible than the one to port (which I think is MAPFRE). Maciel stands in the forward hatch talking about the nearby competitors. Carlo, on the bow, talks about how they have the best sailor in the world (Peter) on the helm to try to catch them. Shot of Peter on the helm. Clouds ahead of them.Kyle, in the cockpit: "This winch is back-winding." Kyle disassembles a which. Kyle explains: "Just have some broken springs in the which, which started to back-wind under load, which could be very dangerous. If you've got a lot of load on the sheet, and the winch starts spinning backwards then the handles will spin and if it hits you and the thing's unloading you can break your wrist." Kyle, on the low side working on the winch, is wet from spray. He asks Annie, on the helm: "A little less heel, please, Annie." Close up of the broken spring. Below, Abby calls up: "Still got longer to come down." (Maybe she's securing the backing plate as the winch is reassembled?) Below, Kyle wipes his face with a towelette. Talks about being 40 minutes late to go off-watch. Realizes that there's a sail change to do, which will take him back on deck. Carlo, on the bow, pulls a new sail forward. Kyle grinds a winch. Kyle goes below. Shot of Kyle sleeping in his bunk with earbuds in.Alberto sits in the cockpit laughing quietly. Off-camera, Abby asks him something. He points at the camera.Carlo, below, talks about needing to replace the end-fitting on the outrigger. He shows the fitting, and talks about the outrigger. He and Abby work on it. Then Carlo talks about Peter working on it, and we see Peter doing that. Abby talks to Richard, showing the sheared threaded piece that had been left in, that Peter apparently extracted. More shots of the repair. On deck, Bouwe offers praise: "Nice job! Twenty-four hours!"On deck during a rain shower (with sun and blue sky in the background) Kyle, shirtless, showers in the water dripping from the main. Alberto steers in light airs. Bow shot with the stack forward in about 5 knots of wind. Below, Peter works on a metal part held by vice grips. (Update: Per Bouwe's text update today, believe this was Peter repairing the broken end of the outrigger.) Abby below in the bow, laundry hanging below. On deck, shot of the runner blocks with clothes hanging from the stern lifeline. Maciel stands in the pit. POV GoPro shot of someone (not sure who) up the mast checking the rigging.Below, by the galley, Bouwe talks in Dutch. Alberto talks in Italian about the fleet and the leg.Bouwe calls for the stack to be shifted forward as the wind lightens. Closeup of a winch turning. Bouwe, on the mainsheet, talks about the breeze having dropped from 18 knots to 6 knots. He talks about a big cloud, with rain, that has "sucked all the wind up." Below, shifting the stack forward. Maciel, eating as the sails flop, talks about the light conditions. Shot looking up at what I'm guesing might be the J0 partly rolled up as a windseeker, flopping in the foretriangle.Kyle, below, talks about Peter's winning the World Sailor of the Year award (twice). How it's a little hard for him, being on the "receiving end." Annie, below, talks about what an accomplishment it is to get to the Olympics and to win, and then to get the America's Cup. She says the goal onboard now is to get him the Volvo, so he'll have won all three. Capey: "Shows the character of the guy, he's got 6 months off, so he comes to do the Volvo... Having Pete Burling in your crew is like having Mick Jagger in your garage band."We see the following message on a phone: "Subject: mail to Peter Burling / Huge congrats mate, World sailor of the year! Well-deserved. Love you heaps. Hope all going well for you. Mum and Dad" Abby, below in foulies with a headlamp on: "We've got some great news that's just come in from Peter Burling's parents. It was World Sailor of the Year last night, and Peter has won the award. He doesn't know yet, so we're gonna go and give him the news." On deck in the early morning, Peter is trimming the mainsheet. Abby hands him the phone. Abby: "Read this." Peter does, chuckles, looks around. Abby gives him a thumbs up and a clap on the shoulder, shakes his hand. Abby: "Nice one." Shot of Kyle on the helm with the sunrise behind him. Peter talks about the people who helped him, how he's stoked. Abby leaves. Peter: "Part of Team New Zealand, just a small part of a 90-person team." Keeps trimming. Not gonna get much of a reaction from him. Kyle (of Team Oracle), from the helm: "I'm absoluetely thrilled for him. Couldn't be happier." People laugh.Capey, at nav station at night, refers to chart and talks to someone off camera (I don't think he's talking to Richard, though): "We could always just go down the coast, if we wanted to kick our ass." (?) Annie, below in daylight: "There was a point last night where I sort of thought it would be really nice if there was a bit less wind and it could be really dry. But I'd regret thinking that in a couple of days when we're in the doldrums and it's hot and no wind. So we should enjoy it right now... The America's Cup boys they do a good job, yeah. Driving hard. They may not like the lack of sleep, but none of us do. Yeah; sending it." Slomo shot of Peter on the helm. Epic washing machine shots. Bouwe, below, talks about the weather patterns and winds. "The more you're getting down to the equator, the breeze will go further to the east. If you go too early you never can make westing anymore. So the more westing you make, it looks very horrible, the more cheap it is in the end." Annie: "We've got some miles to make up now; the others got a better shift, Dongfeng and MAPFRE. Just trying to chase them down again now." Shots on deck: Kyle on the helm looking dour. Peter, Alberto, and Kyle shifting the stack in preparation for a gybe. Slomo spray on the foredeck.Maciel, below in his foulies, talks about their position in the race, first in Italian, then in Spanish.Kyle, shirtless in his bunk, laughing: "I was pretty broken this morning. Haven't had a lot of sleep, so I'm looking forward to getting a few hours now before we gybe back. I'm pretty broken, but this is just the beginning, so it's only going to get worse." Richard: "Is this what you expected?" Kyle: "Yeah; we've done a bit of training, and this is what we've trained for. Still very inexperienced, still have a lot to learn. We haven't had consecutive days downwind, which is what we're going to have now. So I think the next few days are gonna be tough."Abby works the pit in the washing machine. Annie, below, out of breath: "Classic Portuguese coast weather. Quite breezy, and the wave state is pretty big right now. Fun downwind sailing, big waves, lots of water coming over the bow." Abby, below: "We knew it was coming. You've got it in your mind that you know what you're going into... But I think when it happens, it's always, yeah, that first night, it's a baptism of fire, like going straight into the deep end. [She looks out the hatch.] It's daylight now, so it makes it a little bit easier to see the waves." Maciel, below, eating: "A windy night. Wet. [He gestures at his bowl.] First meal from Lisbon. Trying to get some rest, and back on deck in three hours." Abby digging through the stack below. Capey crawling around and shifting the navigation panel to the port-side configuration. Abby putting her gasketed foulies on. Shots of winches, Maciel in the cockpit washing machine, Peter stacking on deck and then on the helm.Charles talking below (in French). Anyone have a translation?Sunrise. Carolijn: "We have come from very far. We have fought really hard to get where we are. So I think we should be happy with a third place. It's a little early to say; it's not over till it's over." Horace: "We still working hard to catch MAPFRE and Vestas." Jack: "We've been at the very bad bit. Hopefully we can stay here or get further ahead." Sunrise. Charles talks below about wishing the race committee would shorten the course to avoid having to sail in the very light conditions at the end. Someone (Horace?) working on the outrigger. Jérémie on the helm.Horace talks with Richard on deck in the morning. Richard: "At this point, how much would third place mean to you?" Horace: "Third place?" Richard: "Yeah." Horace (smiling): "We're not finished." Richard (laughs): "Good answer." Horace: "So... anything will be happening at the finish line. So we'll be, maybe, we'll finish by first, no?"Carolijn: "We're a bit like pirates, a like spies. We keep a check on each other." Carolijn looks through binoculars at AkzoNobel in the distance, then Pascal does the same.Below, in the galley, Horace talks in Mandarin. The only thing I catch is "AIS". He seems excited, though, and finishes with a thumbs up.Shot out the companionway as Dongfeng goes to weather on starboard in 15 knots of wind. Carolijn on the helm; Jack leans on the grinder pedestal. Charles, at the nav station, gives a position report (I think?) over a microphone to the cockpit. Horace, getting his foulies on below: "It's getting exciting. We are getting closer to the top three boats, and AkzoNobel is visible in the AIS area... We still have 20 hours until we are arriving in Lisbon. So... we are working hard." Above, Horace stands on the outrigger rigged at the shrouds, doing something to the clew of the J2 (?). Richard: "Smile!" Horace makes the "shaka" gesture. Jérémie on the helm, talks to Charles in French via the intercom, while Stu listens from the grinder handles. Horace works on the stack.Horace, below at the galley: "I like it when we're arriving at the pontoon, at the shore, we have the fresh food. It's much better than this one." Marie: "Yes. Of course... It's food, so it's good for the body..." Horace: "Let me ask you a question: When you are arriving on the pontoon, what's the first thing you want to do?" Marie: "A big steak, with french fries!" Horace: "You don't want to shower?" Marie: "No... after." Horace: "We will have our beer, on the pontoon." Marie: "Celebrate our victory with all the team." Horace: "Victory!" Marie: "Yeah!" They laugh. Horace, to Richard: "You see?"A single drone shot in light winds as Dongfeng sails under Masthead 0 (I think) and staysail. Camera approaches from the port quarter at about 50 feet altitude, then rises and passes over the mastead and continues, showing an empty horizon.Charles, at the nav station, talks in French (about their position relative to the other boats? No idea, really. Need a french-speaking obsessive to help out with translation).Jérémie on the helm, silhouetted against the sunrise, with two competitors visible behind them (per the tracker, TTToP on the left and Brunel on the right). Another shot, this time of Pascal looking at the other two boats. Clew of the Masthead 0. Later in the morning, Stu talks in the cockpit: "Battling it out for fourth through seventh here at the moment." Stu asks Pascal, below, if he has information from the 0700 position report. Pascal responds that he does, and starts reading it out. Stu winces. Stu: "A lot of work to do here." Carolijn cranking a winch; Horace stacking below.Horace, below, looking at instruments: "For now 1 knot. We are 1.7." He continues in voiceover as we see several shots of Dongfeng flopping in light winds: "It's a very, very light wind. We are sailing very slow, just a 2 or 3 knot boatspeed. It's quite boring. We got Scallywag, Turn the Tide, but now we are four boats sailing around this last-boats area, and when the wind comes in we want to be the first boat to catch the new pressure."Jérémie, shirtless, talks on the bow in French as Dongfeng flops in no wind. He switches to English: "It's very obvious we're in no wind, but when you're in it you don't feel comfortable." Talks about strategy and the competition. Shots of them flopping; distant shot of Brunel behind them.Horace, below, talks at length in Mandarin. I've got nothing. Shanghai Sailor? Translation help?Jérémie, below: "I have a special message today. It's the 24th of October, and my son Jack is now 10 years old, so I want to say to you, joyeux anniversaire, happy birthday, and I can't wait to see you in Lisbon."Night shot of the young moon over the heads of the crew in the cockpit. Stu, below, talks about the night. It was hectic, it got dark, they entered the Strait of Gibraltar, forecast was for winds over 30 knots especially on the exit. They first reefed with the Masthead 0, then peeled to the Fractional 0. "It's far too early in the race to be risking anything. Nice short sea state; wind against tide. So we've got plenty on at the moment. The wet-weather gear is getting a good working. Just have to survive for the next few hours and the breeze should drop off again." Crew in the cockpit; Pascal at the nav station. Stacking below. Night vision shots of crew in the cockpit gybing reefed main, washing machine, foredeck.Beautiful shot of sunset behind the clouds as they pass Gibraltar. Pascal says he doesn't know how to say it in English, but in French you'd say the clouds are lenticular (which is the same in English). Pascal: "In one hour we are going to catch more wind, perhaps quite a strong wind." He talks about how on the first night they "catch something on the boat", and as a result they have been slow compared to the other boats. "Also we sail very bad... But we are going to fight very hard until the arrival, and finger crossed." More sunset shots; Pascal looking to leeward as the light fades.Shots of crew sleeping, working the grinders. Pascal, below, rubs his eyes. Jack eating. Mood seems somber. Jack talks about them approaching the Strait of Gibralter, where they'll have at least 30 knots of wind and a narrow passage that will require lots of gybing.Drone shots of Dongfeng reaching on port tack in light wind with the Masthead 0 (I think?) and J3 as a staysail.Abby, below, is getting diving gear (a mask?) out of a locker and handing it up on deck. She explains to Richard that they're going to do a quick back-down because they think they have something on the keel. Abby: "Kyle's ready to jump over the side." On deck they furl, then turn into the wind. Kyle in shorts and a swim mask, puts a GoPro camera on his head. Maciel stands by with a coil of line tied to Kyle's arm. We see his view as he dives in and checks the appendages, then see a view of it again from the deck. He surfaces. Kyle: "Clear! I'll check aft!" He swims to the stern, then we see him being helped from the water. (When did he pass the GoPro back?) Kyle explains that there was nothing on the keel when he got down there, but that they were already going backwards so whatever it was may have fallen off on its own.Stu: "Clear sky on that side of the cloud." Charles: "But it looks more windy here than here, no?" Someone off camera (Charles? Pascal?): "Starboard is going to be a nightmare." Carolijn: "Painful." Stu (disgusted): "Fuck." Horace moving the stack forward. Carolijn: "The wind's just gone ligher on us... Could be an option to gybe out and split from the fleet. But at the same time the wind's very right at the moment. We've decided we're going to stick with the fleet and see what the pressure's going to do ahead of us." Sounds like maybe Stu was advocating for gybing onto starboard, but Charles overruled. (Per tracker, most of the fleet did end up gybing onto starboard while Dongfeng and Mapfre continued longer on port. Those that gybed earlier did better, leading to Dongfeng entering the Strait of Gibralter in last place.)At sunrise running in a good breeze through the Med. Bouwe: "It's very nice sailing. We've got 15-18K of breeze, downwind, so that's always good. But you think back to yesterday, and we got a penalty in the first inshore lap. I think was not correct, because we MAPFRE was to weather of us. But we had to do a penalty turn... And then we had a huge wrap in our spinnaker, which was quite expensive... About a half an hour before we got it unwrapped." Kyle on the helm.Pascal, at nav station, is not happy. "We lost a lot to the fleet, so not really a good choice." Night shots of crew gybing, grinding. Shifting the nav station below, stacking below. Pascal and Charles at the nav station, looking concerned.