Sam Greenfield (OBR)

High drone shot showing the three boats all in a line: AkzoNobel, Brunel, MAPFRE. Peter, below by the hatch as Nina moves coiled lines. Peter: AkzoNobel's proving to be a bit of a roadblock. Drone shot with RIB in the foreground. MAPFRE astern. Bouwe to Capey: Continue? Bouwe: MAPFRE there, and the roadblocker, Akzo, in front of us. And they're not too fast. But that's sailing. Peter in the pit. Low drone shot. Bouwe: Not too tight on the bit sail? Closeup of the chart showing the exclusion zones. Abby talks about how difficult it was to get past Akzo. Gonna be a tense 30 miles. MAPFRE coming up on their weather quarter; Carlo looks forward. Sam: What are you experiencing right now? Carlo: It's pretty tight racing. I'm getting a little annoyed by our Dutch mates on Akzo. I imagine MAPFRE isn't too happy with them either. We're pretty close to being home, so that's good. But it's pretty nerve-wracking. Brunel: MAPFRE gybed, and we still think this is the right way, so lets just cross our fingers that it's the winning move. AkzoNobel crosses in front by 100 yards. Kyle (I think?) calls a tongue-in-cheek "Starboard! Get out of the way." They gybe.Bouwe, trimming the main, talks about doing well over the night where they were the first to change sails from J1 to MH0, and did a good job, and later when AkzoNobel did their change they did it poorly and lost ground. And then they sailed over the top of MAPFRE. He talks about how Dongfeng went east. They're hoping the wind stays the same so they (Brunel) will need to gybe downwind. "Nothing we can do about that; they chose that route we chose this route." Nina: A bit nervous. No idea what Dongfeng is doing. We're just trying to hold MAPFRE now. Bouwe: Had a bit of a tough start. Kyle, on the helm: Not over till it's over. Bouwe, walking below, shows Sam his fingernails are all intact. Capey, below: Que sera, sera. Sam: What's that mean? Capey: What will be will be.Black and white. Night. Abby works the pit. It's super loud as they surf on starboard; some maneuver is going on. Water cascades into the cockpit. Abby coils. Below, Peter, from his bunk, asks Capey about the sched. Capey: It's half and half; could go either way. Looks like they're going inshore. [Talking about MAPFRE and Dongfeng, I assume.] Peter, in his bunk, explains to Sam: Just peeled to the J0. "So we go the J1 off, which is always nice. AkzoNobel seems to be going pretty quick with the J1, Vestas is down to leeward, a little bit behind. We're not very sure if MAPFRE and Dongfeng are going inside or outside; we're obviously going outside. Hope to find some good speed with the J0 and get to Holland."Slomo washing machine from the cockpit. Kyle, below: Just broke the padeye that holds the port outrigger on, lost the forward outrigger, snapped the end off it, and it took a big gouge out of the daggerboard, and had to replace that, which was pretty horrible in 25 knots power reaching. So just spent 45 minutes under water with Carlo trying to replace that. And we did that, and lost quite a bit, unfortunately, about a mile and a half to AkzoNobel and the rest of the guys. Back underway, and hopefully make some gains on those guys soon. Spreader cam shots of Kyle and Carlo working on the broken outrigger. Reefing the main.Drone shot of Carlo working the bow; looks like the end of a peel to the J1 from the MH0 (or J0). Below, Carlo takes off his foulies. Sam: How's it going? Carlo: It was tough. Feels like we've gone through about 20 transitions in the last day. Lot of peeling, and not a lot of sleep. It's a bit frustrating. It's a tough leg. Bouwe, in the hatch: Who has got such unbelievably stinky feet? (Sees Carlo.) Ah, the cloggy! You should wear clogs instead of boots. Carlo: That's what you get when you do hard work on the bow, mate. Bouwe: We've dialed it up quite a bit. We've got leverage on them now. They're probably four miles ahead, so everything to play for. There's always opportunities, so you just have to keep chipping away. Big call will be to take an easterly course, or outside. That's the big choice we have to make. Sam: Anything you want to say to your Brunel fans out there? Bouwe: Talks in Dutch.Capey at the nav station, chin in hand. Peter sitting below, shirtless, eating and scowling. Closeup computer screen showing their positioon and AkzoNobel's AIS symbol just ahead of them. Pans down to show courses diverging around an exclusion zone. Bouwe on deck explains the traffic separation scheme. Breeze shifted so much that they had to sail down to miss the traffic separation zone. And they'll lose Akzo as well, because they tacked well before. Bouwe: "Can't change it."Carlo, below: It's very light. So it's an opportunity to catch up on the two red boats. And on sleep. He gets in his bunk. Peter, on deck: Pretty light. Working our way back up to Norway. Stretching the course, which is good for us... Can see the boats ahead of us, bit of a compression. Kyle, on the helm: Of course the dream is still alive till it's over. Some good gains... Keep plugging away and hopefully catch them in the next 24 hours. AkzoNobel behind them. Dongfeng and MAPFRE heading south. Peter and Capey talk about current and the virtual mark. Peter: Wanna wake everyone up? Two miles? Capey: I think that will do it for me. (Calling layline.) They tack. They come into the virtual mark, with Capey calling the bear away. Abby on the bow talks about them having rounded the mark, and traffic separation scheme coming up. Sam: How is the mood on board right now? Abby: It's good. Still in good spirits. Still a long way to go, gotta keep plugging. As much as we would like to be down there, we just gotta keep trucking. Shot of the two boats ahead of them.Bouwe. Peter: Doesn't look like many of these shifts are going our way at the moment. Carlo's very positive. Once we turn the corner here, Brunel will be like a good racehorse. Vestas in the background. Going into Aarhus with AkzoNobel just behind them. Nina trims during a maneuver, then runs forward. Crowd on the quay. Rounding the turning mark with AkzoNobel just boatlenghts behind them. Sailing fast with the A3. AkzoNobel crossing behind them. High drone shot of the two boats. Low drone shot from in front of the bow. Distant drone shot of the two boats with a lighthouse in the foreground. Go Sam. Carlo trimming with the sun behind his yead. AkzoNobel ahead of them. Kyle: Just went through Aarhus. Didn't do so well; AkzoNobel got ahead of us. Wind farm to starboard as they sail fast with the main reefed. Abby below, eating. Holds up her hand and makes a "meh" gesture. Talks about it being painful to sail past the leaders but sailing in the wrong direction. Can hope we find a passing lane somewhere, or have a bit of a parkup between now and the finish. Sam: Are you remaining optimistic? Abby: I'm trying to... It's going to be hard to pull any positions back. But keep pushing; never give up.Kyle, on the rail: Approaching Aarhus. Got Turn the Tide, AkzoNobel, and Scallywag behind us. Vestas ahead. MAPFRE and Dongfeng are quite a ways ahead; hoping for a parkup. Not the greatest position, probably 13-14 miles short of where we want to be. We're still confident we can come back in this leg. Pushing hard. Hopefully it will swing our way. Peter below lies down in his bunk. "I'm for a nap." Sam: How we gonna get em, Pete? Peter: I don't know. Depends on the opportunities. Had a bit of a peeling frenzy this last hour: Masthead to J0 to Masthead to J1 to J0. We can see Vestas again. Hopefully the leaders are slowing up. Bouwe, below: So far it has been pretty much as predicted. Have done pretty well against Akzo and the boats behind us who have sailed in the same water. Sam: You're behind the red boats. Does that worry you, and how are you going to get them behind you? Bouwe: It worries me *shitless*. Because they have a really good lead, 11 miles dead upwind. If they turn the corner that 11 miles will be 25, 30 miles again. But luckily we go through the virtual waypoint. Chance of a parkup, and hopefully can catch them up. It will be difficult. After we come back past Denmark there's a lot of exclusion zones, traffic separation zones, wind farms; of coruse we're going to try to sail our own course. Might take a little bit of a flyer because we're relatively far behind. High pressure pushing in, so there's a chance for a buffalo girls sail the outside. So let's cross our fingers that's happening.Grinding in the cockpit. Bouwe on the helm. Other boat on their starboard quarter. Grinding. Gybe. Land. Peter talks about approaching Aarhus.Sailing into the twilight. Peter says something about the stack. Hoisting a sail on the bow. Vestas passing them with the moon behind them. Ooh; this is the mark rounding off Norway. A motorboat cruises alongside. TTToP passes them still going upwind. Bouwe: Just passed the mark at Norway. Not the position we wanted to be in, but still a lot of the leg to go. I think the sun is coming up again, even though it's 1:30 or 2:00 at night. It's just one of these things that we remember, how fortunate we are that we can sail in these kinds of conditions.Louis grabbing his gear below. Sam: What's going on, buddy? Louis: The boats ahead of us got a header, and they have tacked. So we've gotta tack as well. Stacking on deck. Bouwe: Just got a big windshift; basically a 90-degree windshift. Sunset. Bouwe talks about the tricky conditions, clouds and big shifts. MAPFRE has done the best. Abby below. Peter in a bunk. Peter talks about being hurt by a shift to the left; hoping for a knock back to the right. 'This update brought to you by...' Sam to Capey: You want any coffee? Capey: Oh yes please that would be good. Sam hands the cup to Abby, who fills it, then he gives it back to Capey. Sam: So what's the dinnertime update. Capey, raising his hand to the lens: No camera... [I think this is a running gag based on that Pascal meme.] No; lot of racing to go... Drone shot. Capey: Dongfeng are doing good. Leading right now. AIS screen. Drone shot of Brunel sailing against the sunset. Bouwe on the helm. Drone shot.Prestart with TTToP behind them. Peter on the helm: Tacking here. Other boats: MAPFRE, Vestas, Scallywag, AkzoNobel. Start with Peter asking for traveler up. Mark rounding with MAPFRE a boatlength behind. Other boat: Dongfeng. Abby on the rail: Pressure building now. Peter and Bouwe on the stern. Passing a lighthouse close to shore. Capey and Bouwe talk about not tacking at the mark, but rather just hardening up. Other boats crossing behind them. Scallywag and Dongfeng cross ahead of them. Shifting the stack to leeward for a tack. Abby, eating below: Didn't have the best start. Had to pinch to make the pin end. MAPFRE didn't make it and had to go around. So we did better than them. Peter, eating below, explains where they are with respect to the other boats. Dongfeng had a pretty good start. We'll have to see again in two hours.Saying goodbye on shore in a cafe/breakfast tent setting. Abby hugs someone. Bouwe: We're going sailing! Going to the Hague, going home. Parade. Nina, hand in lens: No photo, no photo. Capey on the dock: Time to go. Sam: How great is this part? Capey: This is bad. This is boring. It's dull, isn't it. Hanging around, waiting for the big event. I'd rather get into it. On the dock, Peter and Carlo are talking with Blair Tuke. Peter: I'm dying, I need to get off. Bouwe comes up and shakes hands with Blair. Capey comments on Dongfeng's dockout. Bouwe has to make a big step onto the boat. Peter steps aboard. Dockout. Kyle, below: Five years ago we had a great comeback in the America's Cup. Unfortunately we weren't able to repeat that in Bermuda a year ago this weekend. But we're hoping to achieve a similar thing in the Volvo Ocean Race. Back in Auckland five months ago we were in second-to-last place, since then we've worked very hard. We've had a lot of fun with it, hope to keep the ball rolling, be on top of the podium when we get to the Hague. Nina, looking at MAPFRE motoring out ahead of them: I know that we're gonna beat 'em. Capey: Good people, nice boat, same as ours. So we have to outsail them. Bouwe on the helm: I've sailed around the world two times with them. They're good friends, so it will be nice to beat them. Sam to Carlo: Do you have some nerves today? Carlo: I have a little bit of nerves, yeah. But that's every leg start, really. Usually have nerves for an hour before the start, and then takes about two hours before that's gone. Sam: When you see the red boats what do you think? Carlo: I think good luck, but you're gonna be behind us. Hope you have a good leg as well, just not better than us.Crew is in a room talking about the upcoming leg. Abby asks how far they can go in at (somewhere). Bouwe answers: Potentially all the way inside of the harbor. Bouwe asks if anyone else has anything. Kyle: We've got no pressure on us, the other guys do. The only thing we need to do is keep doing what we're doing. Don't change anything, just do everything a little bit better. Everyone sticks to the process. The woman next to him says, "You can have my glasses because you just did my job." Bouwe has one thing to say, "One final thing. The last leg is always a little awkward. But just kick yourself and say, Fuck, we had fun this race, we did well. And just enjoy it, the moment. The moment you leave everybody goes their own way, some see each other, some don't see each other. These are the last miles we'll sail together... We had a pretty nice campaign. And that might make a difference.Washing machine shot of the cockpit. Again with someon in the OBR foulie jacket on the aft grinder, and actually grinding this time. Definitely not Sam. Another boat (MAPFRE, presumably) behind and to leeward.Bouwe, below: About 20 miles from Skagen, the most northern part of Denmark. That's my home; I'm Dutch but I'm living in Denmark, so it's a special spot for me. The good news is we are first on the water. MAPFRE is about a mile behind us; a little too close for my liking. But as it stands right now, the boats are behind us, and that's the goal. Talks about Akzo and Dongfeng. We might even pass them on the leaderboard, and that would be huge. But let's first just make the finish.Slomo of helicopter hovering off their stern. Washing machine. MAPFRE is visible a few miles behind them, barely. Below, Peter empties the pee bottle out the hatch. Sam: What's going on, Pete? Peter: That was a refreshing piss I just took. Apparently Norway's somewhere down there (points to port). Quite gray and raining. Can still see MAPFRE; they're 1.2 miles behind. A lot better than 1.2 miles in the front. Sam: How far to go, and how confident are you about keeping them behind you? Peter: No idea how far in miles, but Capey assures me it's about 8 hours, which means I'm not going to get any more sleep... Pretty good. Sam asks him about how he just sends it in the last few hours. Peter: The leg finishes seem to be quite tricky for us. End up in a park up. Hopefully this one won't. There always tricky; heaps of peels, coming back closer to land, and lots of trimming, stacking. Generally means we're awake. Sam: Yeah, but generally your more wired than usual. Peter: Well, you're coming close to the finish, mate. Getting back to land, have a shower, not that the food program's not great on board but you get to have some different food. [Looking forward, presumably at someone prepping a meal.] Sorry. [Continues.] You're finishing the leg. It's exciting. What more do I have to say? It's exciting, Greenie! Sam: So you're admitting that you become like a coiled spring, like a meercat, at the end every single leg. Peter: I feel like everyone is a coiled spring. Very coiled. Later, Peter talks to Capey at the nav station before going on deck. Peter: Do we want to be punchy here, or...? [I guess, making a change they've been discussing quickly rather than slowly.] Capey: Not super punchy. But let's have it in our minds that it could be... [snaps his fingers] Peter goes on deck. Crew in the cockpit in the gray light.Kyle: We were stuck behind MAPFRE for quite a while; managed to get past them, which is good. Still pushing as hard as we can, and hopefully we can hold it all the way to the finish. Sam: Do you think the dream is still alive? Kyle: Yeah. Step by step. Have to win this leg first... Chip away, and hopefully it will all come together. Sam: Who's the fastest boat in these conditions? Kyle: I think we are in these conditions, came from 4 miles behind. Later Dongfeng is fast with the J0; we've been working on moding in those conditions. Hopefully we can hold them.Stern cam as they sail in reach in strong conditions. Sam (or at least someone wearing the OBR foulies) is standing at the aft pedestal (which is unusual for the OBR, since he's not supposed to be grinding). MAPFRE is visible on the bow. Title comes up: LOSS OF SIGNAL. Closer shot of MAPFRE ahead of them with double- (triple- ?) reefed main. Looks like Brunel is double-heading with J2/J3. Mast cam footage of MAPFRE, spreader cam view of the cockpit, again with the OBR-jacket-wearing crew on the pedestal (though not in position for grinding; just holding on astern of it). Closing on MAPFRE with intense wind noise. Shot in the media station below showing the video screen with MAPFRE only a few hundred yards ahead of them on the spreader cam; what makes it cool is the noise level below is so intense. Slomo of them passing MAPFRE with the other boat to leeward a few boatlengths away. That's it. That's the race. MAPFRE astern, shot from the cabin, with a crewmember in the OBR foulies still on the pedestal. So that must not be Sam in the OBR foulies. Someone else wearing it. Capey, below: Sort of a luffing match with MAPFRE. We prevailed in the end, and we were losing a lot on the other boats, so they decided to come down. That's all I know about that one. Bouwe, below: Pretty windy for the last 12 hours; 35, 40 knots. But we've done well. Just took over MAPFRE about an hour ago. Took the lead, which is a nice thing. Still a long way to go... Have to see how it all pans out. But it's better to be in the lead than be the chasers. Shot of the cockpit with MAPFRE behind them. Washing machine.Night. Capey is getting his boots on (or off?) below. Sam: What's going on, Capey? Capey: Sail-change time. Sam: You were just sleeping pretty soundly... You pretty excited to go on deck? Capey: Yup. Capey at the nav station. Chart screen, which shows their position and other boats via AIS: even with Dongfeng and a few miles short of MAPFRE. Wind strength symbols appear to show them in a building wind, currently at 25 knots. Louis, getting ready below: Wish me luck, Sam. Sam: It's not easy, right? Louis: It's a very difficult peel. Lowering the jib in 25 knots. Whew. Wish me luck. Abby in the pit hoists the J2. Crew (Peter, and presumably Carlo on the bow) goes forward and the J1 starts coming down. Sam loses his balance in the hatch and falls. Sam, under his breath: "Fuck!" He gets the camera back on the crew on the foredeck. Looks like there are at least 4 people gathering in the J1. Stacking the J1 aft. Abby working in the pit. Peter, in the cockpit: Allright; J3 to deply in 2 [maybe? for double-heading?]. Grinding as the sail deploys.Kyle, in the hatch: We've just rounded the north of Scotland. We've got Dongfeng a mile under our bow here. Turn the Tide and Akzo just behind us, MAPFRE about 10 [?] miles in front of us. Waiting for the breeze to build. It's natural when you have good moments, bad moments, that the mood's kind of up and down, and obviously we're up at the moment. We've had a pretty good 6-8 hours, and managed to work our way through the fleet, so we're almost to the front. Sam: You guys still see a chance of winning this thing? Kyle: Like we've seen in every leg, it's not over till you cross the finish line. And we were on the bad end of that in Newport, where we lost the lead with 30 seconds to go. Need to keep a positive attitude. Sam: Any chance of a park up at the finish? Kyle: Looks pretty straightforward all the way from here to the finish. Breeze is gonna build. In the high-speed reaching and downwind, we know that that's our strength; saw that in the Southern Ocean and in the trans-Atlantic.HIgh-wind reaching past a Scottish island. Carlo, in the cockpit: We've been making nice gains on the others. Dongfeng, maybe 1.5 miles [ahead]. We're going around the top of Britain, setting course for the bottom of Norway. It's gonna be pretty windy soon. We'll be peeling to the J2 [from the J1, presumably] pretty soon. Sam: What's the morale on board in the last 12 hours? Carlo: Always good. Intense. Happy. Slightly tired. Nice sailing conditions. Sam: You've put boats behind you. Carlo: You can barely see them, but I think it's Turn the Tide and AkzoNobel. Disappearing quickly. Carlo on the foredeck (witih the J1 up). Bouwe: Top of England, with one more island to go. Got current with us, 3 knots. Sam: What's the intensity like right now? Bouwe: We've got the two red boats ahead of us, we're pushing hard. But Akzo and Turn the Tide about 4 miles behind us. We've done quite nicely in the last 7 or 8 hours. Grinding in the cockpit.Slomo shot of Bouwe steering. Below, Sam to Bouwe: Where's your head at right now? Bouwe: In some shelter from the land, made some good gains on Akzo. Sam asks a question about decision-making. Bouwe: We just decision based on where the two red boats are. Have to get past them in the next 36 hours. Sam: How hungry do you feel still? Bouwe: I could have a sandwich. Sam: In terms of winning this leg? Bouwe: Of course. We don't have to win the leg, as long as we beat the red boats that would be an ideal scenario... Reality right now is they're ahead of us... Yesterday we made one little mistake, where we gybed first of the group, gybed back and it worked out all right... Working hard and making gains on the boats ahead of us. Sam: Do you feel any pressure, from sponsors, fans, yourself... Bouwe: Only from my wife. Because she knows how badly I want to win this one as well. That's just a joke. There's no pressure as such. We all just sail 200%. When you sail this many races you know there's always going to be one winner; we just hope it's us.Louis, below: Pushing hard. 10 miles behind MAPFRE. Not ideal, but everything to play for. One big push to the finish, do everything we can to help Bouwe win his first Volvo. Sam to Carlo: How hard is everyone pushing right now? Carlo: Yeah, it's intense... Full on. Wind is always great, of course. The goal is to keep the two red boats behind us. It's tough. You can definitely notice a difference in the fleet the last couple of legs. We have to try. Louis changes into dry clothes, gets in his bunk. Cool maneuver with his boots to keep his socks dry. He laughs at Sam. "Such a struggle."Stern cam shot of heavy-air reaching conditions. Carlo's grinding; not sure who's driving or trimming. Spreader cam shots of the stern, the bow. Kyle eating below. Other boat astern. Sam to Kyle: How's the mood? Kyle: Mood's down a bit over the last 24 hours. Still have a chance of winning. Dongfeng and MAPFRE are about miles ahead. It's going to be hard to close that gap. It's all about boatspeed. Full-court press to the finish.Washing machine shots from the cabin. Capey at the nav station: Here we are off the Island of Lewis. In a bit of a puff, had to harden up. MAPFRE has a nice lead about 9 or 10 miles, Dongfeng about 5 miles out. AkzoNobel just to leeward. Turn the Tide to the north, about 3 miles away. So as we go across the top of Scotland it will get a little lighter, and will start to head by the Orkney Islands. By this evening heading south toward Norway. And that's all you get! Sam: How are you feeling right now? Capey: I could be feeling better. But I'm feeling okay. [Not sure if that's due to seasickness or injury.] Rough conditions out the cabin hatch.Nina: We haven't slept much this leg yet. We see Abby waking her up for a gybe. Nina: Even when it's super light we're always stacking or changing the sails. Drone shot of stacking. Nina: I only think I've had one hour block of sleep. That was with PB. I think in off-watch we did 4 or 5 gybes. So I'm wrecked. I don't think I've been this tired before, ever. I feel like Kyle and I are... just the luck of the draw. We've taken the brunt of the gybes. It's all right. Have another coffee. It's a short race. Intensity... Nina working in the pit. She eats some caffeine gum: It's like a little coffee in one stick of gum. Don't tell anyone. Sam: I've seen it.Bouwe: Good thing is we're all in sight of each other. Scallywag is behind, but they've made a nice comeback. We are now the most inside boat. Good if the breeze starts building and heading. But it will be all on once we've passed the top of Scotland. Then will be big breeze, and big differences in the (something) going toward the finish. I expect the decision will be falling (?) in the last part of the race. Peter, below: Probably lost 5 miles by gybing first and then the breeze went light. What can you do? Tried to cut the losses by gybing back out. Gonna keep trying to make the boat go fast. It's all we can do. 'Start crying! Yell at each other!' I'm going to sleep is what I'm going to do. Time for a nap.Bouwe in the cockpit, talking to Capey. MAPFRE to starboard. Stacking to leeward for a gybe. We see the gybe. Drone shot of the gybe! ((love that stuff) Sounds like the audio is real-time synced with the drone footage. MAPFRE crossing their bow. Alberto eating below: Just gybed. Crossed 4 or 5 lenghts behind Dongfeng, 3 lengths in front of Vestas and Turn the Tide. Now we have MAPFRE and AkzoNobel 4 or 5 miles on the bow. Fleet is very close. Chart screen. Other boats on the horizon. Bouwe talks about one final gybe to the top of Scotland. Alberto, below, talks about his food: With the barbecue sauce is good. Carlo, on deck, talks about tricky transitions and light breeze. Didn't do too well, so not in the best spot. But a lot of miles to go. Confident we'll fight back. Drone shot.Drone shot of Brunel with Dongfeng to leeward. Shot of Peter trimming with Dongfeng 3 boatlenghts ahead and to leeward. Drone shot of the two boats. Peter: That's all right. We're back in breeze... MAPFRE probably had the best transition there. Should make for an interesting last couple of days. Drone shot.High drone shot showing three boats. Capey on the bow: Today is the day the Volvo will be decided. Bouwe: Sailing through the ridge of high pressure. Once you're through it you get the good southerly. It's been tempting to sail high, and Akzo and MAPFRE, they look like they have a nice lead, but it should fill in from the south and the west, so we should pick it up first and sail around them. Throw the dice. Carlo: goddamn it, so many emotions. (wipes his eyes) Capey holds his hands up to the camera: No camera today. Until we're winning the Volvo Ocean Race. Carlo: Come back when we're ahead. Capey: Today we're off the west coast of Ireland. Volvo Ocean Race goes around the world, stops in 10 different ports, 11 legs, and the winner will be decided today, in a deathmatch, grudge match. Carlo: Who can drift the best. Bouwe on the helm with a drink. Flopping. Capey: No camera. Drone shot as they flop in glassy conditions. Bouwe (in voiceover as drone shot plays): Stand aside please Sam. Sam: Let me grab my (something).Crew on the bow talks about flying drones through tight spaces on Fastnet Rock. Drone flies over a ridge that has a hole in it. Abby: Well, we have Fastnet Rock in the background. But we don't have a lot of wind. Peter talks about Fastnet. Kyle: Nice to come back to somewhere we've been before. Peter interrupts to say they did it on the last leg. Kyle doesn't want to finish. "It's been ruined." Bouwe talks about doing nicely. "A bit of a bungee." "I htink we're going nicely. A bit frustrating that Dongfeng got a puff and sailed around everybody." Sam: Thank you.Tacking with MAPFRE behind them. Three boats inshore of them. Bouwe on the helm. Stacking aft. Capey at the nav station: MAPFRE's planning to go between the two [islands]. Peter, from his bunk: Gonna be quite close with us. Capey studies the screen. You can feel Sam wanting to talk to him, but not doing it because Capey is visibly thinking. Capey keeps glancing up at one screen, then down at the other. He blinks in surprise at something. Peter gets out of his bunk. Capey: Fuck. He gets up. Sam follows him. Capey talks to Bouwe in the cockpit. Peter gets his foulies on, goes up. MAPFRE crosses them on starboard just ahead. Dongfeng and another boat is visible beyond them. Peter is confused: Akzo appears to be goose-winging the jib. Or maybe he's on the other tack; can't really tell. Vestas is parked up here. (We see Vestas.) Alberto: Tricky situation; there's a couple of big islands. We just lost a couple of dozens of meters to MAPFRE and Dongfeng, but I think we have a good opportunity to gain again. Capey and Peter look to port. Peter: Should we go here? Capey goes to the nav station. Capey agrees. Peter: Go now! He starts shifting the stack. Bouwe seems to be letting them make the call. Tack. Abby and Louis grinding in the pit. Nina talks about there being a fishing farm that's not on our maps, so it adds a little stress to the afternoon. Fish farm nets as they sail past. Three boats ahead of them in the afternoon light. Waves on a headland to starboard. Bouwe's face on the helm. Slomo shots of islands, another boat as they sail upwind with the J1. Slomo of Alberto trimming. Sunset. Kyle explains. They had a parkup, then Turn the Tide took off. We didn't do the best job in the islands; kind of got spat out the back. Akzo, MAPFRE, Dongfeng, and Vestas are all ahead of us now; Turn the tide is behind us. We were in a good position, but now our position isn't too good. But going upwind, with some good opportunities, some good splits.Capey looks at his tablet on deck, talks about Dongfeng and Vestas. Boats on the horizon behind them. Flock of 7 alcids (murres?). Bouwe: Just got passed by a flock of ducks. That says something about our boatspeed. Capey eats. Nina: Do you want me up Kyle? Capey: Yup; starting to move now. Bouwe, on the helm: Looks like it's filling in more and more. Capey and Peter talk with Bouwe about gybing. Peter looks like he just woke up: Looks like the best breeze up here (looks to port). A motoring sailboat passes a boatlength behind them. Peter: Pretty light in front. Peter's lobbying for a tack onto starboard. Bouwe: Tacking! Capey (under his breath): I think it's not the right thing, but... Kyle: Dongfeng's parked up at the moment... Better pressure at the moment. Drone shot goes under a bridge in a gorge. Capey: Just coming into the new breeze, the northerly. The quicker we get into that the faster we'll be off. Dongfeng's stuck, going backwards, hope for the best. Not doing that great out here either. But sort of going the right way. High drone shot. Peter: Got some wind. [Looks aft.] Other boats pointing odd directions. Sam: Any other boat who's position yo'd rather be in? Peter (after discussing Scallywag). No. Peter: We might have just taken the lead. Peter puts a hand in the camera: "Not on camera." [looks exactly like Pascal in that video from the end of Leg 9, though without the middle finger.] Peter: We're imitating Dongfeng. We're very open with our OBRs. Louis: have to say it in French or English. 'No camera.'Drone shot flyes around an old Irish castle with Brunel in the background, MAPFRE in the background. Bouwe on the helm: Keep clocking right here at the moment. Islands in the background. Peter, looking at MAPFRE astern: He's quite a bit lighter than us. Bouwe: We still want to stay ahead of them as well. Gybe. Bouwe: We are at the Irish coast. Breeze turned SSE. So we're gybing now. Dongfeng is 2 miles ahead of us, MAPFRE a mile behind, and Akzo about 2 miles behind us. It's all right. Drone shot going between the two towers toward Brunel. Drifting with MAPFRE and another boat (AkzoNobel?) on their stern.Peter talks about having had a fly-by by some former teammates. Gitana. Drone shot goes under the ama! Peter: Just a little bit faster than we can go. Thomas and probably Yann on there. Drone shots of Gitana foiling. Nina: Wish we had the saem boatspeed. But we're still going 14 knots. Kyle: That's an impressive boat.Duplicate/repeat video. Bouwe in drifting conditions. TTToP. Sam: Bouwe, what's the current situation? Bouwe: Hardly any breeze. Dongfeng somehow sneaked around the outside, from nearly last to first. Wherever the new breeze is going to fill in from, should do well. Should fill in from the north, and we're the most northerly boat. Kyle yawns.Parade (already saw this footage). This is a repeat. Parade. Carlo gets water. Goodbyes. Louis smiles; someone makes a peace sign over his head. Dockout. Sam asks Bouwe how he feels. Bouwe: Just kick the butts of these two red boats. It's like any other race; you like to win. And I think we have a good chance of winning the next two legs. It's probably a must as well; let's put it that way.Carlo picks at his toenail. Carlo: Probably don't use that. He works at the nail with his knife, talks about how it went bad. This lady in Holland told me don't worry about it. Capey: That's what they told me 25 years ago. Abby: You can put that in the dinner tonight. Carlo: Mine aren't that bad. You should see Pete's feet.Capey looks at the nav computer, goes thorugh the other boats' positions. Sunrise shot of MAPFRE sailing on their port beam. Alberto talks about the position of the other boats. MAPFRE gaining on us due to some current line, probably. Shot of the old crescent moon.Bouwe and Capey talk on the bow in light conditions. Bouwe gestures to starboard, talks to helm: Keep on this side. Bouwe and Capey talk about the better pressure ahead.Drifting past coast. Carlo: Not actually a bad place, with the sun out. Nice little beach. Drone shots of people on shore, cliffs. Glassy conditions. Brunel with MAPFRE behind them. Low drone shot.Going through locks. Spectator boats. Bouwe hugs the jumper goodbye; he jumps off. Peter: It's not good timing, but you should drop it in somewhere that over half that crew is under 30. Good knowledge. Carlo on the foredeck. More horse, more carrots. Peter on the helm in the prestart yells at MAPFRE: Hold your course! He's altering course here! (Looks like a port-starboard with Brunel approaching on port and talking ahead and to leeward of the starboard-tack MAPFRE.) Bouwe holds up a protest flag. Bouwe: Come down, you're early. Big dip! Dongfeng on their stern. Capey looking at the fleet. Carlo on the foredeck as they tack. Bow with ripples. Carlo: We were over the line for a minute, but managed to squeeze back. Struggling to get some speed going. Luckly we have the tide with us. All trying to reach this pressure line. Spectator RIB with a Brunel flag. Capey points out wind to Peter on the helm. Carlo: A lot of tacking here. Decision between current and breeze. MAPFRE drifting to port. Kyle talks about not much wind. Dongfeng from last to first. MAPFRE not so lnicely. TTToP drifting through a tack. Sun reflections on the water. Slomo drifting.Parade. Carlo gets water. Goodbyes. Louis smiles; someone makes a peace sign over his head. Dockout. Sam asks Bouwe how he feels. Bouwe: Just kick the butts of these two red boats. It's like any other race; you like to win. And I think we have a good chance of winning the next two legs. It's probably a must as well; let's put it that way.Bouwe in drifting conditions. TTToP. Sam: Bouwe, what's the current situation? Bouwe: Hardly any breeze. Dongfeng somehow sneaked around the outside, from nearly last to first. Wherever the new breeze is going to fill in from, should do well. Should fill in from the north, and we're the most northerly boat. Kyle yawns.High drone shot showing Brunel leading AkzoNobel past Lundy Island. Alberto talks in Italian. Alberto eases the runner. Close up of the island. Alberto: It's a very nice island. Super-low-altitude drone shot. Bouwe: Still have 10 knots of breeze. Slowly starts heading, and the current is pretty slack right now. In 1 1/2 hours it will probably run 4 knots against us. Drone shot of a buoy in the foreground with about a half-knot of current, and Brunel in the background. (That's a sweet shot.) Bouwe talks about how the finishes in the Volvo seem to go like this. Floating balloon. Gulls. AkzoNobel close behind them. Sam: What's going on horse? Someone wearing the horse head nods. Drone shots. Bouwe: Well, we just did a little frenzy. We dropped out of the breeze. Akzo tacked behind them in the drone shot. We were in the midst of a live X conversation with a full stack forward. Went into a sudden tack with an uphill stack.Bouwe: Beautiful sunny day in Wales. Normally it's raining; something's wrong. AkzoNobel is visible on the horizon behind them. Peter on the helm. Bouwe: Roughly 100 miles to the finish. Current is with us now, but will be 3 to 4 knots against us by the end. So a restart. Not what you'd expect for an ocean race. And AkzoNobel 0.8 miles behind us. If the score stays the way it is now, we have a good chance of winning the race. So let's hope it stays the way it is now. Abby looks through binoculars at Akzo on their starboard quarter. Bouwe: It's like any yacht race. You're competing for winning. I've sailed it 8 times; 3 times I've been second, so it's time that we win. Alberto: All I'll remember of this leg is the pancakes. Carlo: It's stressful with Akzo not far behind, and Dongfeng not far behind. Going to be like Newport. Everyone's a bit on edge because of that. Below, Capey at the nav station: No more. Sam: Why do you say that? Capey: I don't know; I'm still young and good. Enough's enough. I've been lucky. Had a good run. Sam: Do you say that at the end of every Volvo? Capey: No. Never. This is a first. You've done a lap of the planet. Sam: How many laps have you done? Capey: Eight. Sam: And you really think this is it? Capey: Yupo. Stick a fork in me. Sam: Do you have any reflections you want to say? Capey: It's been a great run; met a lot of nice people, had a lot of great times. But I think it's time to put a line under it. Sam: Do you have any closing remarks? Capey: No. None. Go Team Brunel. Sam: It's a team effort. Capey, nodding: It's a team sport.Title: "Word of the Day". Louiis: Intense. Capey: Great. Nina: Close. Carlo: Pancakes. Kyle: Matt Knighton. Bouwe: Foggy. Alberto: Pancakes. Pancakes, pancakes. Yeah.A ship on the port quarter in the fog. Slomo of Kyle and Bouwe grinding. A competitor in the fog (Akzo). Peter: Every now and then they appear out of the fog. Abby: So, we have a match race on our hands. It's pea soup fog, but we can see them on the AIS. Expecting a header. It's all to play for. Nina puts her hands in front of the camera. "I don't know what to do with my hands."Capey, walking on deck: Gotta get through the ridge and then we'll be winning... Getting closer, which is good. Who needs a world record, when you can win the leg. Peter: It's a little annoying they're (Akzo) there, but at least they're close. Still trying to win the race that matters. Kyle, on the helm: It's light, it's pretty cold. There's only one thing that could lighten the mood, and that's having Matt Knighton as our OBR. Sam: So you don't want pancakes? Sam, below, makes pancakes. Peter, what are we calling this kitchen? Peter: Sam's Diner? Because he's American? We see a shot of the head, and the title on screen: "I also needed to make up for breaking the toilet legs during the level 11. downwinder yesterday" We see the whiteboard, which says: "Do not SIT on the toilet Hover! It's legs are broken. Port toilet wall broken. S.G." Carlo eats something. Sam squirts oil in an actual pan. He cooks a pancake. "For the spatula we've been using this paint scraper." He hands a pancake to Capey, who approves. He hands one to Peter, along with some syrup. "Thanks mate. It's not every day your OBR brings you a hot pancake on board." Kyle, off-camera: "Unless you have Matt Knighton on board." Peter tries it, gives a thumbs up. Sam: You don't taste the paint chips at all. Nina tries one: Best thing I've eaten since I left. Carlo, in his bunk: "Thanks. This is a wake up. It's going to be gone pretty quick. That's the only thing I'm sad about... Almost makes up for breaking the toilet Sam. Almost." He gives one to Alberto with tuna. Carlo: It's the best meal we've had on the boat. Only bad thing is we don't have a toilet. Abby likes it, Louis likes it. Louis: What a treat. Sam: What's going on with the racing right now? Louis: Well, we've sailed into the transition zone, so that's why everyone's in the bow. Kyle, on the helm: What? Is that for me? Delightful. Bouwe gets one with "Brunel" spelled on it with syrup. "Ooh, America! One bite for me, one bite for my daughter, one bite for my wife, and the last two for my dogs." Nina: We just got through the parkup. We lost the lead to Akzo, but we're close and we'll fight back. Bouwe: They got the breeze before us, which was painful, because we'd just got the bow out, and they got ahead of us. But have more wind, and will hopefully get in Monday night/Tuesday morning. We can have some more days off." Kyle takes the lazy sheet off the MH0 clew. Nina wears the horse head. Sam: Hey horse; what's the news? She whinnies.Washing machine shots out the hatch as they sail fast. Moving below. Epic washing machine on deck. Alberto getting geared up below. "It's too hard, to find the balance. Trying to put the gear on. It's only a few days." Slomo washing machine shots out the hatch. Bouwe, below: This isn't normal. Just putting your jacket on is difficult. Sam to Bouwe: What are you thinking about right now? Bouwe: About going outside. Peter, below: It's beautiful. Nice and warm. Slight slamming motion now and then; makes it hard to walk. But hey the boat's going fast. So it's what we live with. Abby, in her bunk: Impossible... Lurching around. Doing about 25-30 knots of boatspeed. Constant acceleration, deceleration. Just moving around the boat it's pretty hard work just trying to do anything normal. Abby bailing in the stern. Alberto: It's very dangerous. It's very easy to lose the balance. Peter and Abby move trash bags below. They get out the research buoy and deploy it. Sam: Oh no; the cable. Peter below getting geared up. Epic shots out the hatch, super loud, as dusk falls. Slomo washing machine from astern looking forward. Nina carrying a bucket and emptying it out the hatch. Kyle gets in his bunk. Abby eating. "Nothing on board is normal. I'm eating my meal. Someone could be on the toilet 6 feet. Kyle's just had a pee behind me. So nothing's normal. It could be worse. Could have been Nina the other day who got the poo bag exploding all over her." Shot from behind of someone peeing into a pee bottle. Carlo chuckles: "Life at the extreme."Sam: It's blowing 30 knots outside, and we're going 30 knots, so we're gonna try to launch the Phantom Pro in these conditions. He launches the drone. Amazing footage of Brunel surfing in 30 knot winds from the drone. Major stuff of the bow. Title (as the picture goes wobbly): Finally the camera gimble starts shorting out from salt and moisture. Drone comes in for the recovery, but the crewmember with a chest camera waiting to catch it misses it and it goes back aft toward Kyle, who makes a one-handed catch of it while continuing to HELM THE BOAT WITH HIS OTHER HAND. Thank you and good night.Bouwe, below, reads the latest sched: Three tenths slower than Akzo. Akzo sailed 601 miles in 24 hours. Bouwe: That's a pretty nice effort. They're now 10 miles ahead of us. So that's the biggest news of the day. There's a big impact; he looks around concerned, then settles down. Sam: Are you disappointed? Bouwe: No. I said it yesterday. Records are made to be broken. I think we had yesterday 2 hours without 20 knots of breeze. That's how it is. It's all right. It's all about the leg, who wants to win the leg.Nina, to Sam: The secret, as an OBR, to get Capey to talk to you? Um... from my personal experience, making him a coffee when he looks a little stressed. Crack a few jokes. Sam asks Capey: Capey, what time is it? Capey: Coffee time. He holds up his mug. Sam takes it from him. Sam: In exchange, how'd the sched go? Capey: Good. We didn't lose much to Dongfeng; gained some on the boats to leeward. Lost some on the guy next to us, that happens. He gives thumbs up. Sam: Waht do you want? Capey: A little bit of chocolate. Sam rummages in the galley, gets a chocolate bar, gives it to Capey. Capey: Oh, champion, mate.Peter, below: Not sure what happened, but the polars seemed down a bit. Just before, we saw this strange horse on deck. Sam launches a drone out of the hatch, sails along the weather rail, where a person is wearing the horse mask on the helm.Peter and Capey talk at the nav station. Capey rubs his eyes. Peter: We were just discussing the plan for the next two days. We just need to sail slightly quicker than the other guys for that period of time. There's a big low forming to the west of us, giving us some nice downwind conditions. Just deciding what sail configuration we're most likely to run. Also a good chance of a 24-hour speed run for the race. Should be interesting. How to best get through it, making our lives nice and easy... Same concerns as everyone else: Going from the quickest portion of the race to pretty slow, where everyone can see each other again. Then light upwind to the end. If you can get a small lead, can probably protect it. Go quicker than the boats behind us here, and get over the top of Dongfeng, and then protect the lead into Cardiff.Louis: So, Carlo we call The Horsey because he's strong as a horse. He eats like a horse. And he acts like a horse sometimes. Shot below of Kyle (it turns out) with a horsehead on to mess with Louis in his bunk. Louis laughs. "I was not ready for that one." Louis tries it on. Kyle laughs. Kyle took out a very funny mask, so Horsey's happy today. Carlo comes out from below with the horsehead on. Peter: We seem to have a horse.Bouwe eats below. Talks about the split. An ideal scenario for Brunel: if the southerly route pays off they can be ahead of the two red boats with lots of boats between them. We see Peter run out barefoot as Kyle gets his gear on. "Gybing" he says sleepily. Sam, to Capey below: What time is it Capey? Capey: Gybe time. We see the gybe through the hatch. Peter, below: Talks about the scheds being good, where the northern boats were light. They'll get the new breeze first; hopefully we'll be able to keep some of the lead. Kyle talks about hitting something. He's going to try to sand the leading edge of the rudder. Bouwe jokes with him about doing it naked. Kyle: Too cold. He tapes the sleeves of his survival suit. "Safety's no accident Sam." Pole shots of Kyle going over the side, sanding the leading edge of the keel. Drone shots of him ridding the tiller like a bucking bronco. Sam casually stands on the stern running the drone. Kyle, back on board. "It was so pitted." He jokes that the guys last night saw a fin the size of the mast. "We kind of think it was the Megaladon." He explains how there was a chunk out of the leading edge of the rudder. Shot of Peter, i slomo, grabbing something along the leeward rail while getting hit by waves. Noting that he wasn't clipped in. Sheesh.Abby in the hatch: Last night sailing in 20-25 knots of breeze, doing 25+ boatspeed. Appears we must have hit something with one of the rudders, and broke the tiller arm. Abby and Louis in the stern working on repairing the tiller arm. "Try some mallet?" Abby taps with the mallet. Louis: I was off watch, and got woken up that we'd broken the tiller arm... Two boats have sheered. Came back with Abby and put the spare one on from the emergency kit. Nothing major, but probably lost a mile or so, sailing with only one rudder until the leeward rudder was fixed. Abby: At first light this morning we checked with the endoscope, and it looks like the rudder is not damaged. A reminder that there's lots of stuff we can hit.Kyle before the parade, talks about the fog and cold and wind. Peter gives a peace sign. Abby in the parade. Bouwe in the parade. Kyle eating a burger. Peter unpacking gear below. Docking out. Jumper jumps out during the motor out (due to fog, I read on the SA forums). Start with Peter on the helm. Good start on starboard just above MAPFRE. Other boats near them. Ducking Vestas. Spectator fleet, bell buoy. Sam: How was that start Abby? Abby: Probably not our best. We sandwiched ourselves a bit and couldn't build up speed. Split on the run, crossing ahead of AkzoNobel. Calls starboard on Dongfeng. Brunel rounds the leeward mark in the lead. Going under the bridge. Spectator boat chanting "Bru-nel". Bouwe on the start: Basically got out of jail. Sam: What's next? Bouwe: Have to clear a couple of marks. And as you can see it starts getting foggy... Then we'll be out on the ocean.Drone footage *in the fog* of Brunel sailing upwind. Go Sam! Abby coiling in the pit. Capey with a tablet by the aft pedestal. Closeup of the chart showing routing. Peter calls up: MAPFRE's only half a mile behind us. Below, he talks about the fog, exclusion zones. Dongfeng in front, MAPFRE just behind. Low-altitude drone-in-fog shots. Now Sam's just showing off.Peter talks about his socks. Sched on the computer screen. Kyle talks about how Dongfeng is coming dwon on them in the sched. Nina: Hope we can hold them off. Very stressful. We can see them now on the horizon. Capey (in the background): I wouldn't sail above the mark. He calls out to Peteron the helm: He's giving up a lot of high for not a great deal of gain so far. Shot of Dongfeng on their weather rail several miles away. Carlo talks about how coming in last to Auckland was the worst. "It's definitely not happening this time." Peter, on the helm, talks about peeling to the J0.Kyle, below: Today was the most action we've seen in a while. Gybed, with Dongfeng behind them. Crew shifting stack. Capey stacking below. Drone shot of the gybe, then above the cockpit showing the crew working with Sam on the stern. Kyle: Big front coming, 35 knots overnight. Probably a lot of action. Bouwe on the helm as cre stacks. Kyle: Looking forward to Newport. Have a burger and a beer. And get a shower. Hasn't been too long a leg, but it will be nice to get to shore. High drone shot, then above the weather rail as they're stacking, and then the drone pulls back to show them pull away.Sam, to Kyle, below: What's it like on deck right now? Kyle: Wet. Nav screen shows strong winds they're sailing in. Kyle gets geared up. Sam shoots from the cabin as crew works in the washing machine in the cockpit. It looks wild. And loud! The sound editing really works here. Shot of the instruments, with the boat going 28 knots. (Update: I learned from Matt Knighton in The Boatfeed that this is using an infrared light source to backlight the crew. Very cool.)Sam asks Peter: Can you tell me anything you've lost or gained in the Bermuda Triangle? Peter: No, haven't really lost or gained much. Had a pretty good yacht race. Carlo: Won the America's Cup with Team New Zealand in Bermuda. But I can't really talk about it because it upsets Kyle. Carlo asks Kyle below: What did you lose? Kyle: Wow. That's a low blow. Gonna have to cry myself to sleep again.Drone shot labeled "Somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle". Bouwe, Peter, Abby talk about the Bermuda Triangle. Carlo mentions seeing another boat behind them. Capey makes a flying saucer with a dish. Carlo asks Bouwe to explain the Flying Dutchman story. Abby talks about it more. What is so special or different about this place. "Fingers crossed we make it through and out the other side." Drone shot with eerie music. Capey: Guys! What's gone wrong with the GPS, we've lost all the coms. Oh, shit the compass has gone too. Capey disappears. Then, in the drone shot, Brunel disappears.Drone shot from close astern as Brunel surfs fast. At nav station, Peter talks about how they got screwed by a couple of clouds. Shows sattelite image. "Probably should keep compressing the whole way into the high." Pretty shify and tricky. He shows the routing and zooms in. "Doesn't look like it's going to get much easier; looks like a pretty good park up at the end. Hopefully have a few miles up our sleeves at that point." Drone shot low ahead as they surf. Capey bailing below in a Movistar shirt. Sam asks him the trick. He explains it's just like helming; you have to work with the waves. But it doesn't make as much difference. Sam: What do you have to say about Kyle Langford. Capey: He's the man. Used to the boy. Sam: How was he when he first came to you. Capey: Young champion. Young and dumb. Capey moves gingerly aft to the nav station. Bouwe: Last couple of scheds were not so good. That's what we expected sailing towards the high. Doing relatively well against Vestas and Dongfeng. (sound issues) Capey, at the nav station: We've gained a little bit back. Kyle, at nav station in the dark: Just got the sched, gained a little against Dongfeng. Surfing shot on deck. Abby: Currently got 20 knots of breeze, and we're sending it. Over there (gestures to port) is a big sucker cloud. We're hoping that Dongfeng is in that cloud doing 2 knots rather than 20 knots. We see a broach to clear weed. Drone following them into the sunset. Flies in and Kyle catches it, grins at the camera.Bouwe talks about seaweed in the sargasso sea. Slomo shot of sargasso. Drone shot from high overhead of sargasso. Sam: Why so unhappy Kyle? Kyle, on the helm: A lot of weed. Peter: It's a bit of a pain, really. It gets stuck all over the deck, all over the lifelines. Shots of weed in the lifelines. Bouwe brushes his teeth below; Abby picks off weed at the base of the mast. More weed washes onto the boat in slo motion. Abby: It's not making us go fast. Might be good for the environment, but it's definitely not making us go fast. Bouwe, below, talks about how to clear it off. Peter, below, explains that they've got enough wind to "broach it off." Kyle demonstrates. Drone shot of them doing big S-curves to clear weed. Bouwe: We seem to be doing it all right. We see the polar percentages go down, we do our little trick, and the polar percentages go up again. Drone shots. Slomo washing machine. Abby grinding. Peter trimming. "Hold there." Peter, at the shrouds. "I think the 2 might be a little bit loose... Yeah."Kyle, in his bunk: Capey got is in a good spot in the trades when we left Brazil, and we managed to get a few clouds and wiggle our way into the lead. Tradewind sailing, so it's pretty straightforward, so Capey's getting some rest. Getting caught up on Netflix. Title: 1300 Position Report. Capey gets gingerly out of his bunk. Settles into nav station. Pulls up position report. Sam: Is it one thumbs up or two thumbs up. Cape gestures. Title: That's 2 thumbs up. Kyle: He's monitoring our angle. Capey to the cockpit: Nice to work down a bit. Another degree down, if we could... Dongfeng's going shitty, but lower. [He shakes his head.] They lost 5. Kyle: He's taking it kind of easy now. In the next few days as we're approaching Newport he'll be busy. Bouwe talks about doing well. It's a competitive advantage having a mental coach. In the last race, we were doing poorly, and she helped us work on our communication and trust. It's an advantage, especially as the race goes on. Slomo shot of washing machine in the cockpit. Carlo working on the bow to hoist a new sail. Crew grinding in the cockpit. Peter: Reckon he's an 8 or 9 (on a scale of 1-10) in terms of being detail-oriented. Carlo: He likes to play around with all the leads when we're triple-headed. Playing around with the leads on the J2, J3. Perfect... everything. Perfect bowl of food, perfect sleeping setup. All about the details.Sam, to Capey: What's the race report. Capey: Good. We're winning the Volvo. The leg. For right now at least... [To Sam]: Are you the admiral? Sam: What? Capey: Admirals and assholes. Do you know that one?Very high drone shot. Peter, shirtless below: Had a pretty good night last night. Can see the boats in front of us, Vestas and Dongfeng. Bouwe: How's the morning? Little clouds, a little rain. Shot of a gybe. Other boat to port. Nina: I have the craziest dreams offshore. I think it's because your sleep is broken up, all the gybing. They're really real. Sam asks Bouwe: When you're offshore, what do you dream about? Bouwe: Sex, with my wife. [To Capey: Isn't that true?] Capey, eating: I don't dream of sex with your wife. Nina: I had this really strange dream in the Southern Ocean. That the Volvo Ocean Race wasn't real; it was a coverup for a drug-smuggling operation... We're in an escape plane, and a missile is coming, and a tracker was in my bag... Sam asks Abby: How long is it until Neptune comes? Abby: Less than 24 hours. Bouwe: Three. Here, here, and here. (He demonstrates a triple reverse mohawk.) Abby: I dream about my kid. I think when you get so tired you start to hallucinate. She asks Bouwe what his dreams are about, and he repeats the "sex with my wife" line. Abby laughs. "That was honest." Low drone shot circling the boat under clouds. Abby, at night in black and white: We are either just passing or about to pass Turn the Tide on Plastic. Shot of them to port. Carlo: The other day I had a nightmare. I went to this fishing farm, where they were breeding salmon. I went inside and I was being chased by the fishermen that were working in there. But they had fish skin and it was melting. It was really strange. Peter on the helm. Carlo: Just lost a little bit on them. Louis: I've had many crazy dreams, but they're too crazy to share. Peter: I'm always pretty tired for some reason. Shot of Kyle sleeping below with the engine running.Drone approaches Brunel sailing on starboard, goes under the boom and gets caught by Peter, who gives a thumbs-up.Capey at the nav station. He comes on deck, reports on the competition to Peter. Sam: What's the concern, Pete? Peter: Capey's our navigator. He's very experienced. It was his tenth time around the Horn. Does an incredible job on the charts, keeping us safe. (Capey pees off the transom in the background, then moves gingerly around with an obviously painful back issue.) Peter tries to engage him in the story; Capey's not having any of it. Just talks about the race. Bouwe: I think he's one of the best in the world. And we just have that mutual understanding. It's straightforward. You have a plan, and you execute the plan. I think that's why I like to sail with him. Abby comes up and does a Capey impression. "It's that itme of day and I'm coming through." She goes to the stern to mime pooping. A funky yellow fishing boat comes by: Drone shots from close aboard as they haul pots. Carlo: I had wet boots in the Southern Ocean, and this nail, for some reason, is starting to fall off. He shows his left big toe, which looks kind of scary and discolored. Carlo: Capey says we're driving in about two hours. Have Akzo to windward. Need to put a second sheet on the masthead zero. We see from the drone as Nina puts the sheet on. Bouwe talks about a big cloud, and how it affects the wind. He explains that they'll probably gain some on Akzo due to the cloud. "Very often the luck of the draw is involved in it." Drone shot of hte stern, bow, and barbecue on the aft deck of a big container ship: "Shanghai Highway". Crew of the ship waves and jumps up and down. Kyle, in the sunset: Had a lovely day today. Sam had the drone over a container ship where they were having a lovely barbecue. Nina: I feel like Kyle has his Saturday best on. "It's a good day for Kyle; maybe not for us." Beautiful sunset clouds, slomo with moon.Drone shot of Brunel with setting sun behind her. Below, Kyle jokes about trying to wake up Carlo. He says he's already awake. "He's on deck. He's trimming the main." Carlo gets up. Kyle shows his watch: 10 minutes late. Kyle teases Carlo in the galley. Carlo: All day long... Kyle: You might not be able to hear him, but he's saying that he loves me. Drone shot from close ahead of Brunel. Abby: Today is Friday, and my wish for the weekend is that I be able to teleport off the yacht and spend the weekend at home. Nina: 10 knots more of boatspeed. Or a shower. Peter, on the helm: No-sail-change Sunday. Alberto: Some pancakes and ice cream would be nice. Bouwe: Back home it's another big day, in Denmark, for young kids, when they become 15 years old, it's a big thing for church. I hope they're having a good party. Kyle: I wish that King Neptune shows a bit of leniency toward Nina Curtis.... I think she's gonna be punished pretty badly, and I hope that she survives it. Drone shot. Nina: I'm a little bit nervous. King Neptune is tormenting me every day... Kyle told me how to use my own watch, and it has GPS, so I'm keeping track of how many degrees until we get to the equator. And I've only got 14 degrees until I meet Neptune for the first time. She does a high kick. "I"m coming at you King Neptune." Sam asks Capey to wear a mic, and he doesn't want to. Nina explains that Capey had a bad fall and landed on the foot brace in the cockpit sole. Bouwe explains that Capey was lucky. Things can happen in a matter of no time. Capey moves gingerly across the cockpit. Kyle checks the mast. Beautiful sunset clouds. Wake.Paper hat crown on Bouwe. He and Carlo (also in a crown) hold a Dutch flag, and talk about celebrating the birthday of the king. Carlo explains how everyone in Holland goes crazy. You want to be in Amsterdam. Bouwe on the helm: It's a big thing. And I'm a royal fan. Alberto comes on deck in an orange shirt that says "Itajai". Where are the cookies? Bouwe: They're gone. Carlo and Bouwe improves a classic game, with a cookie dangling from a boathook. Bouwe blindfolds himself with the Dutch flag. Bouwe tries to eat the cookie as Carlo dangles it in front of him. He eventually gets it. "Yeah!" That was the best cookie-eating I've ever seen. Carlo: And now we drink beers. Carlo dangles the cookie for Alberto. Bouwe talks in Dutch. He leads "three cheers for our king." Bouwe, of Alberto: He earns a cookie. Of course. I think Italians want to be part of the Dutch empire. Alberto: If there is a party I'm happy to be part of it. Bouwe, back on the helm (though still in his crown), looking serious. He talks in Dutch some more. Sam to Bouwe: Did you have a good king's day? Bouwe: Yes. Always nice to remember where you come from. Slomo shot of Bouwe.Drone shot approaches, goes under the boom, and continues to weather. Sam briefly visible operating the controls in the shot. Heh. Nice.Alberto, in the cockpit, explains that they had a very bad night, and lost a lot of distance on TTToP and Vestas. Bouwe, on the wheel: Turn the Tide and Vestas made a very nice move and gained 20 miles on everybody... Just keep trying, trying to improve, sail against numbers... And hope soon we can crack the sheet a little. Below, Louis talks about trying to improve. In the cockpit, Alberto: The secret to going faster is a good engine and a lot of fuel. But don't tell anyone; it's a secret. Awesome low-altittude drone shots, slomo, from in front with a competitor behind them. Kyle, below: Today is ANZAC day. Nina: A good day to catch up wiht friends and family, have a few drinks. (She waves.) Peter: It's our biggest wartime memorial we have every year. Obviously a long way from both NZ and Europe, but definitely thoughts with them. Shot from the stern as they prepare for a maneuver. Drone shot with competitor behind. Kyle: King Neptune is coming to the yacht to visit Nina. Alberto: Nina's the one who's very excited. Nina: Can't even deal. The torment, with the equator and King Neptune, it's started already. It's gonna be three or four days. They're too excited about it. I'm very nervous. Bouwe looking serious as night falls. Peter: She reckons we could sell the hair we're gonna get off her head. Or donate it, to kids. It's up to her to decide. Nina: I don't think anyone will want it anymore [after all this offshore yacht racing]. Someone calls down below for a peel. Abby: Too many. Crew comes up, they hoist the new sail. (MH0?) Slomo of sunset. Nina: I wanted to say to Caitlan, that I'm really sorry if I don't have any hair when I'm maid of honor at her wedding. Maybe if Caitlin also pays to King Neptune, maybe he'll take only half the hair, or an eyebrow... Sorry Caitlin. Night time shot of stars.Kyle explains they just went through a fleet of oil rigs. Drone footage of the flaming oil exploration vessel, and flyby of a drilling vessel. Shot of burning flare with MAPFRE sailing beyond them. Kyle explains that TTToP is just behind them, Dongfeng and MAPFRE just to weather. Setting up for next week. Capey and Bouwe at the nav station. Crewmembers sleeping below. Kyle talks about crew sleeping below and coming up to tack. Nina talks, laughing, about being tired (I think; bad wind noise in the audio). Bouwe stands in the cockpit with sunset behind him. Sam: What's the news? Bouwe smiles. Nina says something.On-screen graphic: Who is Alberto Bolzan? Different crewmembers laugh, make non-answers. Slomo of Alberto trimming. Kyle: good drive, good sailor, very emotional. Mark-rounding footage. Kyle: He hates all freeze-dried food. Footage of Alberto eating. Carlo, in his bunk: whenever we eat pasta he says itn's not real pasta. (We see Alberto complaining about pasta.) Sam asks: What's the secret to surviving the volvo ocean race? Alberto: Talks about focus. Kyle, Bouwe talk about his skills. Bouwe: "Not the tallest guy." Alberto trimming. Alberto below, talks about his hobbies. Shows photos on his phone of paragliding. Talks about his girlfriend, who's a world champion at it. Shows photos of his cat. Talks about flying. It's like sailing with a third dimension. He shows photos of the day before he left Brazil. What he loves about flying is the strategy. Where the thermals are, can make a lot of distance. The world record is 565 km. Shot of Alberto trimming with two other boats visible a mile to leeward. Alberto: I'm really competitive with everythign I do. I can't beat my girlfriend. She's too good. That's the worst part of flying. Drone shot of the bow of Brunel with dolphins swimming in front of them.Pre-departure schmoozing in the big tent. Parade. Scallywag pulls out. Peter gives them a thumbs up. "Pretty amazing to think what they've been through... see them back on the water." Brunel docks out. Bouwe steering. Bouwe, motoring out: Leg start there's a lot of hanging out, doing things you don't want to do. In the background Kyle chats up the jumper, who's wearing a Brazilian flag on the stern. Gull flying by. Peter talks about how Kyle's nickname is seagull. Start action, mark rounding with A3 deploy with Peter on the helm. Then Bouwe on the helm calls for the A3 furl. Upwind close action. Jumper jumps over. Bouwe: We have to go early, Pete! Screamnig match with TTToP on mark approach. Bouwe: Start was horrible. Good thing is we're on our way. Sweet drone shot making a low-altitude flyby as Brunel sails upwind in light air. More drone shots. Peter, below, shirtless: Didn't get the best start. Kyle: 10 miles offshore. An average start; got into third place by the leaving mark. Nice to be sailing in light air and warm air as well.Lucas, on deck in light conditions before sunrise: Because we're enjoying ourselves so much out here, and are so in touch with nature, we thought we'd come up with some romantic sea poems. Frederico on the helm: Oh wind oh wind. Where are you wind? Oh wind. We used to be friends... Come back my wind. Don't be shy my wind. I love you my wind. (people laugh in the background). Sunrise. Liz: Oh winch oh winch I wish you would turn. Lucas: 130 miles to the finish. Liz goes aloft, walking lazily up the side of the mast.Liz, in the morning, points to the high pressure to starboard. "That there is the center of hell." Elodie says "good morning" as she climbs out the companionway. Lucas steers. Bianca makes a face. Bianca: "Pain. Lots of pain." Elodie: "Happy morning, Freddy." Liz does a puppet show with two red gummy animals (dinosaurs?): "Hello. I'm a diplodocus." "I'm a dinosaur too, but I don't know what kind I am." She eats one of the dinosaurs. "It's all getting a bit weird out here." Bleddyn eases the runner, making a loud noise. "Sorry Henry." He does it again. "Sorry Frankie." Bianca: "Cape Horn feels like it was weeks ago... As long as we beat MAPFRE it's fine." Below, Dee and Liz get the latest sched. Dee: "They were doing 5.1 knots." Liz (excited, dancing in her seat): "We were doing 9.6! We were doing 9.6!" Dee laughs. "Ah. How sad for them." They both laugh. In the cockpit, Elodie and Bianca ask Sam about the position report. Elodie: "How is it?" Bianca: "Are you gonna tell us how it was?" Lucas, on the helm: "MAPFRE, 20 miles in front." They laugh. Lucas: "Another 10 days out here, Sam." He pumps his fist. "Yes!" Dee comes up from below, putting on her sunglasses to try to hide her expression. She laughs. "I can't hide it. I tried to look really sad but I can't do it." She claps. "We were twice as fast as them!" She summarizes the current distances. 99 miles ahead of MAPFRE with 660 miles to go. Dee, below: "Nice to have some good news." She and Liz talk about AkzoNobel; Dee doesn't think they're going to get them. Rainbow, sunset.Setting moon behind the clew of the MH0 as TTToP sails on starboard. Camera pans to starboard to show the sunrise. Liz, on the helm: Slowly escaping the little ball of high pressure we've been stuck in. In the last sched MAPFRE was doing 3 knots slower, more stuck in it. On the bow, Bianca looks at a mess. "We've had birds go on the boat, but I think this might be squid ink. A bit of an explosion." Shot looking aft from the end of the bowsprit (go Sam!) as Bianca rigs a furler on the red tack line. Bianca: Unfortunately we got stuck in the high. On the pedestal, Brian talks about their narrow (possible) escape from the clutches of the high pressure. Graphic: What's stuck in everyone's head today? Francesca dances and sings: I'll follow you, deep sea baby... Henry sings, someone (Bianca? Whoever's trimming the main with her face concealed in a balaclava) sings, Francesca sings. Then Bleddyn recites: I'll follow you. Deep sea baby. Title: 743 nm to Itajai.Dee, in sunrise: It's Easter Sunday. And if we're good boys and girls we'll get Easter Eggs. But what we really want is a working rig on starboard. Lucas: New rules of the boat: Can't sail on starboard. Only on port. Sort of like a one-legged duck. (he quacks) Liz: we can't sail with the full main, cant' sail with any masthead sails, can't slam into any waves, can't say the f-bomb on deck because someone might think we've just broken the mast. Bleddyn: [Something about poo bags. Probably just as well I can't understand.] Liz explains she'll go up with a spanner and try to get the spreader back in while someone on deck leans on the stay to try to pop it back. "Someone biggish." They look at Frederico. "It's not going to break?" They laugh. Liz goes aloft. Gopro (garmin) footage. "Strops are on." She uses a grinder on deck to shave down the wrench. Bleddyn: We have a grand total of 1/4 turn. So about 40 steps to go. Frederico bounces on the stay. Dee and Brian talk by the wheel; Liz cheers from the mast. "Dee! It's done!" Dee: "Now that's an Easter chick if ever I saw one." Liz: This spanner is going into the Hall of Fame. Henry: 2018 years ago, Jesus rose from the dead. And we've just resurrected our mast. Liz, in the dark, talks about the screwing in. Below, Franscesca: "It's a miracle." Dee: "The race is back on." "1000 miles to go you guys." Gopro shot of liz signing the mast with a white pen: "01/04/2018 Rig = 0 // Liz = 1 !!!" Plus a tongue-sticking-out happy face.Dee, below with alarm sounding, talks about frontal system gave them nasty waves, and now they have a rig issue. On deck, she explains that Liz is going up to check. GoPro (Garmin) shot from Liz's POV up the rig as she finds the starboard middle spreader popped out of the mast. Elodie explains that they are trying to bounce the mast to screw the spreader into the mast again. Not easy. Dee explains that they've received a phonecall that okays them to use the J1 and the FR0 and the reefed main. "It's good news and we're going to get sailing again!"Dee looks out companionway at sunset; she cheers. Crew at the stern cheer back and raise their arms. Francesca (I think) on the foredeck with a camera takes video of herself with her life vest accidentally deployed, laughing. Crew in the cockpit (can't tell who under all the layers) mugging and waving at the camera. High drone shot of them sailing in relatively light winds (20?) with the FR0 and a reefed main with both J2 and J3 hoisted but furled. Drone shot of a gybe in those conditions! Dee, below: We think we've just done our final gybe in the Southern Ocean to get to Cape Horn. Francesca: Our last time in the Southern Ocean, finally we will get some warm weather. At the same time I'm looking forward for Cape Horn in daylight... Something I've dreamed of my whole life, and it's almost come true. Liz, on the stern: It's a bit sad, because it's always amazing sailing down here. But it's been cold, and everyone's looking forward to warming up. Not going to shoot myself in the foot; have 250 miles to go. But she's looking forward to the restart and the last part of the leg. Frederico: Still have to be very focused on the job. One more night to get through. Sam to Liz: Would you come back and do it again? Liz: "Of course I'd come back and do it again. Sign me up tomorrow... Even with one arm." Frederico: "Yeah, with some dry socks this time. For sure." Francesca: I don't know. Maybe I'd do it again. Right now I'd say no. Maybe after... Night vision shot from the stern cam of washing machine in the cockpit.Fast wake shot. View forward as they stuff the bow. Fast surfing shot looking aft at massive waves. More shots of epic big-wave surfing. Brian, in the companionway: "I've got my skis, poles, boots; I'm just gonna go out now. Snows up. Should be perfect powder. Southern Ocean... I'm gonna go enjoy it." Slomo of stern as snow falls. Spreader cam view of washing machine in the cockpit. Dee and Brian at the nav station talking strategy. Brian jokes about the motion: "Hang on in the underground train." He explains to Sam: They're less than 2 days from Cape Horn. Have to do 2 more gybes to get to Cape Horn. Critical to get the timing of the gybes right. Very shifty winds, both direction and speed. Are in a good position in the fleet; need to get to Cape Horn in good position. Not time to go crazy and break the boat trying to get first to Cape Horn, because Brunel's going to be first to Cape Horn.Stern cam/crash cam view of them stuffing into a wave. Liz, below, shows her bandaged right wrist. Liz: I was trimming the main, and Freddy got taken off the wheel by a massive wave and crushed my arm into the runner. [Note: the crash cam footage appears not to show that incident, but I guess Sam included it because it shows a big wave washing through the cockpit?] We don't really know what I've done to it yet, but it's pretty useless. Photos of Liz's arm. Dee bandages her; talks about how they don't know if she broke it or not. Liz says, "this is gonna make me invicible." Dee jokes about having to manage it. Liz, on the stern, about wanting to join in on the action. Below, she talks about how it's frustrating; can't drive, trim, or grind. She shows her swollen hand. Sam: "Yikes." Night vision view of the cockpit. And then of Liz, one-handed, trying to stack. Lucas: Pretty damn cold, frankly. Haven't been able to feel my fingers for the last hour and a half. [Note: this video apparently appears twice in the Raw Content feed. I've deleted the later one from the spreadsheet.]Stern cam/crash cam view of them stuffing into a wave. Liz, below, shows her bandaged right wrist. Liz: I was trimming the main, and Freddy got taken off the wheel by a massive wave and crushed my arm into the runner. [Note: the crash cam footage appears not to show that incident, but I guess Sam included it because it shows a big wave washing through the cockpit?] We don't really know what I've done to it yet, but it's pretty useless. Photos of Liz's arm. Dee bandages her; talks about how they don't know if she broke it or not. Liz says, "this is gonna make me invicible." Dee jokes about having to manage it. Liz, on the stern, about wanting to join in on the action. Below, she talks about how it's frustrating; can't drive, trim, or grind. She shows her swollen hand. Sam: "Yikes." Night vision view of the cockpit. And then of Liz, one-handed, trying to stack. Lucas: Pretty damn cold, frankly. Haven't been able to feel my fingers for the last hour and a half. [Note: this video apparently appears twice in the Raw Content feed. I've deleted the later one from the spreadsheet.]Lucas bailing, talks about how the VO65 is not dry. Slomo spray. Stern cam footage of near-roundup. Bleddyn: Pushing pretty hard for the last 2, 3 days. Not sure how many days it's been. Gybe in the cockpit. Liz talks about how as of the last position report they're the furthest south and closest to Cape Horn, so in the lead. More than halfway to Cape Horn. And it's a pretty special thing. Bleddyn talks about how they had a duel with MAPFRE. Shot on deck of TTToP sailing on starboard gybe with MAPFRE a mile ahead of them. Then MAPFRE abeam of them. Elodie: Pretty nice to see them, because we're pushing hard at the moment, gybing, which doesn't allow us to rest or eat properly. So it gives you another kick of energy to keep going. Dee: Have a crew that's been here before, so they're more confident. Good drivers, and we've made some good decisions. Does prove to the naysayers... but I always knew. Slomo big-wave shots. Slomo washing machine. Sam asks Dee, below, what the goal is now. Dee: Keep the boat on its feet, keep my crew in one piece, get them safely around Cape Horn, and get to Italjai... She talks about a restart after Cape Horn.Crew gets gear on below. Lucas: Out there it's pretty wild at the moment. 30-35 knots of wind; boat's doing 30-35 knots down the waves. Half the time you're not really in control. Just hanging on for dear life. But it's fun. Brian, getting dressed: Pretty spectacular downwind sailing. We're going to be sailing downwind for the next 2000 miles to Cape Horn. Pretty spectacular. Brian: Few things less fun than pulling off wet foul weather gear... Once they get on deck it gets a whole lot better. But the act of getting on the gear is not fun. Bianca: My hands are sore. My neck is sore... She gets her gear on. Lucas talks about how getting your kit on to go on deck is at least a half-hour operation. Like trying to get dressed standing on the back of a flatbed truck going 100kph down a bumpy road. Smallest moves become nearly impossible. Bianca: Pretty bumpy, pretty wet, pretty windy. But this is what we love doing. So it's pretty awesome to get up on deck for another 4 hours.Epic drone footage of Brunel surfing big waves in 35-40 knots in the Southern Ocean. Looks like they're under the FR0, J3, and a triple-reefed main. Bouwe, below: Of course the sailing is really fun, but it's hairy because if you do something wrong it can go terribly wrong, so it's always to find that balance. He says that if they'd been closer to the ice gate conditions would have been worse, so they played it a little safer and the rest of the fleet did the same, so positions are the same as when they entered the ice gate.Sunrise rays through the clouds. Double- (triple- ?) reefed main and no headsail. Crew in the cockpit works on repairing the runner block. Witty, below, explains that as they were gybing for the ice gate the runner got twisted and the block broke. "We were lucky. We could have snapped the runner and lost the rig." Managed to jury rig. But now they're 110 miles behind. "Happens." "You can deal with little setbacks, but when it sort of the final nail in your coffin for aspirations for a good result in the race, that you've spent years trying to do it, how do you think it feels? But we never give up, got 4,000 miles..." Keep pushing, maybe when we get around the Horn... We were 100 miles behind and won into Hong Kong, and were 100 miles behind and finished second into New Zealand. "Plenty of fight left in this dog." Closeup of jury-rigged runner; washing machine. Witty below: "I think when you consider yourself a reasonable level of yachtsman, you've gotta do this leg. And you've gotta get through this leg... I'm gonna finish the leg and I'm gonna do well and give it a good go. That doesn't mean I'm gonna wanna do it again though, I'll give you a tip. Bloody horrible." Crash cam footage from the stern of someone (Witty?) being washed off the wheel by a wave.Sam asks Lucas, on the helm in fairly mellow conditions at sunset, "How does your Southern Ocean song go?" Lucas sings: "I am an albatross, and I fly across the seaaaa!"Epic drone footage of Brunel surfing big waves in 35-40 knots in the Southern Ocean. Looks like they're under the FR0, J3, and a triple-reefed main. Bouwe, below: Of course the sailing is really fun, but it's hairy because if you do something wrong it can go terribly wrong, so it's always to find that balance. He says that if they'd been closer to the ice gate conditions would have been worse, so they played it a little safer and the rest of the fleet did the same, so positions are the same as when they entered the ice gate.Sunrise rays through the clouds. Double- (triple- ?) reefed main and no headsail. Crew in the cockpit works on repairing the runner block. Witty, below, explains that as they were gybing for the ice gate the runner got twisted and the block broke. "We were lucky. We could have snapped the runner and lost the rig." Managed to jury rig. But now they're 110 miles behind. "Happens." "You can deal with little setbacks, but when it sort of the final nail in your coffin for aspirations for a good result in the race, that you've spent years trying to do it, how do you think it feels? But we never give up, got 4,000 miles..." Keep pushing, maybe when we get around the Horn... We were 100 miles behind and won into Hong Kong, and were 100 miles behind and finished second into New Zealand. "Plenty of fight left in this dog." Closeup of jury-rigged runner; washing machine. Witty below: "I think when you consider yourself a reasonable level of yachtsman, you've gotta do this leg. And you've gotta get through this leg... I'm gonna finish the leg and I'm gonna do well and give it a good go. That doesn't mean I'm gonna wanna do it again though, I'll give you a tip. Bloody horrible." Crash cam footage from the stern of someone (Witty?) being washed off the wheel by a wave.Sam asks Lucas, on the helm in fairly mellow conditions at sunset, "How does your Southern Ocean song go?" Lucas sings: "I am an albatross, and I fly across the seaaaa!"Epic drone footage of Brunel surfing big waves in 35-40 knots in the Southern Ocean. Looks like they're under the FR0, J3, and a triple-reefed main. Bouwe, below: Of course the sailing is really fun, but it's hairy because if you do something wrong it can go terribly wrong, so it's always to find that balance. He says that if they'd been closer to the ice gate conditions would have been worse, so they played it a little safer and the rest of the fleet did the same, so positions are the same as when they entered the ice gate.Sunrise rays through the clouds. Double- (triple- ?) reefed main and no headsail. Crew in the cockpit works on repairing the runner block. Witty, below, explains that as they were gybing for the ice gate the runner got twisted and the block broke. "We were lucky. We could have snapped the runner and lost the rig." Managed to jury rig. But now they're 110 miles behind. "Happens." "You can deal with little setbacks, but when it sort of the final nail in your coffin for aspirations for a good result in the race, that you've spent years trying to do it, how do you think it feels? But we never give up, got 4,000 miles..." Keep pushing, maybe when we get around the Horn... We were 100 miles behind and won into Hong Kong, and were 100 miles behind and finished second into New Zealand. "Plenty of fight left in this dog." Closeup of jury-rigged runner; washing machine. Witty below: "I think when you consider yourself a reasonable level of yachtsman, you've gotta do this leg. And you've gotta get through this leg... I'm gonna finish the leg and I'm gonna do well and give it a good go. That doesn't mean I'm gonna wanna do it again though, I'll give you a tip. Bloody horrible." Crash cam footage from the stern of someone (Witty?) being washed off the wheel by a wave.Sam asks Lucas, on the helm in fairly mellow conditions at sunset, "How does your Southern Ocean song go?" Lucas sings: "I am an albatross, and I fly across the seaaaa!"Fast sailing sunset shots; Sam getting around on the deck to show the action rather than just hiding in the cabin. Slomo washing machine. Dee, on the helm: We've had some wet wild rides, and some sunny beautiful sailing. We've seen the fleet go in front of us, which is annoying. So we're doing our best to hang in there. And it's getting colder.Sailing south on port tack at sunrise. Washing machine. Bianca, in the cockpit, cheers they're having entered the Southern Ocean (she thinks). Dee: We're still winning. Enjoy it while we can. We had a great first 48 hours. Now have the fleet breathing down their necks. Sending it into the south. Isn't getting cold yet but it will be. Slomo washing machine cascade from the companionway.Shifting sails to leeward for a tack. Crew working on the foredeck with a hovering helicopter ahead of them. Slomo of Frederico grinding with Brunel and a New Zealand headland in the background. Bianca, below, talks about sailing away from New Zealand. Awesome going into the Southern Ocean again, going around the Horn. Thanks Auckland for the support, spectators, especially her family and friends. Frederico (I think?) in his bunk. Liz, in her bunk, recaps that they've sailed upwind a couple hundred miles from Auckland to East Cape, tacking, peels. Not much sleep; a lot of stacking. Went pretty quick. More slomo with Brunel in the background. Liz: On the southern highway, straight to the ice gate for us. About 48 hours... Way too wired to go to sleep. (She mimes going to sleep.) Bianca spills up spilled rice in the galley. "I want my mum." I haven't exactly found my sea legs yet. Lucas: It's not as bad as the time I spilled shit everywhere. That was a lot worse. Bianca asks Sam, "Were you on that leg? It was a full explosion." Lucas: "Nah; he was on another boat. Getting _ridden_." Lucas, brushing his teeth, talks about lack of sleep: You think everything's funny. You think everything's shit, or you think everything's funny. Bianca: Just let me clean up my shit... in peace. Lucas: She hasn't got to the funny part yet. [They laugh.] They keep talking (with Liz commenting in the background) as we see a drone shot circling TTToP sailing upwind under J0/J3. [Favoriting mostly for Sam's cool slice-of-life on board. Really feels like being part of the crew.]Henry, on the weather rail, talks about the first few hours of the race. He sounds a little seasick. Aft of Sam, Frederico shakes the water off his head with the sunset behind him, talks about how nervous he was this morning. So dangerous, so many obstacles, low pressure, Cape Horn. Now he's more relaxed; they've started. But it's pretty epic. Liz, on the helm: If you want to do the VOR, this is the leg you think of first. Every offshore sailor's dream. Brian: He's done two legs with this crew, and he's seen how much they've approved. They're not newbies down there. Their learning curve has gone up really high. Have enough experience and common sense now to deal with the south. Talks about easing into it; 25 knots upwind now, and when they get to the Southern Ocean won't be blowing dogs off chains straightaway.Henry, on the weather rail, talks about the first few hours of the race. He sounds a little seasick. Aft of Sam, Frederico shakes the water off his head with the sunset behind him, talks about how nervous he was this morning. So dangerous, so many obstacles, low pressure, Cape Horn. Now he's more relaxed; they've started. But it's pretty epic. Liz, on the helm: If you want to do the VOR, this is the leg you think of first. Every offshore sailor's dream. Brian: He's done two legs with this crew, and he's seen how much they've approved. They're not newbies down there. Their learning curve has gone up really high. Have enough experience and common sense now to deal with the south. Talks about easing into it; 25 knots upwind now, and when they get to the Southern Ocean won't be blowing dogs off chains straightaway."Twenty seconds" (unitl the start). Tacking up after the start. Dee on the helm. Rounding the weather mark behind Brunel. Lucas talks about being right in the middle of it; good intensity. Henry, on the aft pedestal, talks about the crowd. When they arrived it was 2 a.m. and they thought they had a lot of boats out, but Sunday afternoon is a different level. Nice start; they're in good shape. Time to head south. They love their yachting in New Zealand. Frederico talks about the spectator fleet. Dee; What a send off. Auckland Harbor delivered... Loving it."Twenty seconds" (unitl the start). Tacking up after the start. Dee on the helm. Rounding the weather mark behind Brunel. Lucas talks about being right in the middle of it; good intensity. Henry, on the aft pedestal, talks about the crowd. When they arrived it was 2 a.m. and they thought they had a lot of boats out, but Sunday afternoon is a different level. Nice start; they're in good shape. Time to head south. They love their yachting in New Zealand. Frederico talks about the spectator fleet. Dee; What a send off. Auckland Harbor delivered... Loving it.Very high drone shot. Jules, on the stern, talks about how they're in stealth mode. Most of those on the boat have done 35 out of the last 40 days at sea. Drone shot flying in toward and then past the boat.Distant drone shot of AkzoNobel. Drone shot of the cockpit from overhead. Shot of the crew in the cockpit. Simeon, below, sys they're 3 days from Hong Kong, a little less breeze than they wanted. A couple of gybes in the last 48 hours to seek some more pressure to the south, which was unfortunate because they'd committed to the north earlier. Trying to defend against MAPFRE. Drone flyby of an interesting-looking motor vessel, painted white and about 100' long; numbers "BJ4979" painted on the side. It's a tuna longliner; see https://www.wcpfc.int/node/16813. As the drone passes it we see AkzoNobel in the background. In the cockpit, Brad and Nicolai talk. Brad: "What's your favorite movie quote?" Nicolai: "Favorite movie quote?" He thinks. Brad: "I think I know what it is... Yours would be: 'I'm not a smart man. But I know what love is." [Forrest Gump.] Nicolai: "That's a good one." Another drone shot of the fishing boat, showing the crew working in the area forward of the cabin. Brad: "'Are you not entertained?'" [Gladiator.]VR 360-degree shot FROM THE DRONE. [Go Sam.] Includes actual drone audio. Drone's view of launch, tracking above AkzoNobel, recovery.Nicolai, on deck: "You are going to have good and bad days when you do the Volvo Ocean Race, and you're more likely to have more bad days than good days. Today for example is a bad day; we just lost 4 miles to Dongfeng in a couple of hours, and we don't really have the answers to it. So frustration goes up, people get frustrated, tired, they're exhausted already, and you've gotta be able to deal with that. And that just comes down to good leadership, good management of the team, and everyone getting back into their positing and their roles, and just doing their job, and not trying to get into each other and getting emotional about it... keep the ups and downs away... Tomorrow we might gain for miles... Just flatline the emotional part of it." Below, Simeon talks about Dongfeng being 4 miles ahead. "And the next guys coming on watch are like, what happened?" On deck, Brad looks tense. "It's not like it's the end of the world. Still a week out." Luke, on the wheel: Talks about being happy the rest of the fleet is tucked away. Nicolai talks about having three not-so-good legs, so the pressure is on. Need to deliver results. "You can never regret putting in 100%, and that's what we're doing right now."Darkness and the sound of flopping sails. On deck at night, Jules is in the foreground, his face illuminated by the light from a tablet. Behind him the railing by the helm is lit by red light. Jules: "The only problem at the moment this way is that no one's actually moving." Nicho: "We can still do our five minutes heading north." Jules: "On starboard." Nicho: "Before running into where MAPFRE is." They discuss that MAPFRE and Dongfeng have stopped. [Guys: I've seen the future. There's a huge windless cloud ahead.] Nicho: "But at least we'll be heading north until we stop." Simeon and Cécile grind on the pedestal. Stars overhead; the main pops over as they tack to starboard. Below, at the nav station, Nicho points out the changed positions on the chart: They've pulled ahead of Dongfeng and MAPFRE, while Vestas further west has made up ground. "Just from one cloud." Another 500, 600 miles of this, he says. Low-altitude drone shot of AkzoNobel drifting on a glassy sea. Martine throws something small down the forward hatch. Crew sits on sails on the bow. Below, Brad says to Nicolai: "Nicolai, you still awake?" Nicolai: "Yeah. Too warm to sleep. Just watching a bit of Netflix." They have a little scripted chitchat. Jules calls down the hatch that they want to do a peel to the J1, and they need some big strong muscle-y men. Shot of the instruments on the mast: Boatspeed: 0.93. High-altitude time-lapse drone shot of AkzoNobel drifting along. Nicho talks about the "good guys" generally doing okay in the doldrums. Nicolai pulls the main. Very-high-altitude drone shot showing them parked. Pretty slomo shot of their branding reflected in the water. Luke, on the helm, talks about the mood: concerned. Need to come out of the doldrums okay so the front bunch gets a jump. Low-altitude drone shot at sunset with another boat beyond them. I think it's probably Vestas.High drone shot showing Dongfeng in the foreground and AkzoNobel in the background. It's a pretty distant shot, and makes me wonder: The OBRs haven't been using this opportunity to get drone closeups of their competitors (which they did, a little, in Leg 2). I bet there was some kind of agreement to limit that, presumably for competitive reasons (i.e., an extension of the "OBR shall not contribute to the racing" concept, such that they shouldn't be potentially helping their crew steal info about setup on the other boats). Anyway, Sam's voice is lapped over the shot: "Nicho, tell me about the art of sailing through the doldrums." We see Nicho, who tells a story about meeting with a meterologist who talked about clouds all day, and he asked him how to tell a good cloud from a bad one. "There is an element of luck... I"m lucky I enjoy it." Luke talks about being stuck in the doldrums, playing cat-and-mouse with Dongfeng. Overlapped with a time-laps of the drone shot of the two boats - which I realize now shows a third boat, Vestas, ahead of them both. Simeon, on the helm, talks about trying to sail from puff to puff. Shot of Dongfeng ahead of them and to leeward. Luke talks about how he thinks Dongfeng is probably tense on board, with their close competitor MAPFRE close by. Shot of a rain cloud. Drone shot from astern as the sun is setting to port with a competitor on the horizon while Brad is hoisted up the mast. Drone shots circling him at the masthead showing rain clouds and the other boats around them. Nicolai talks about them sending Brad up to look for the beeze, having 5 boats in the same area. Simeon, shirtless with the low sun on him, talks about being pretty happy with the situation. "Fighting, you know, every single watch and hour." A shot of them approaching a competitor (I think; unless it's a low-altitude drone shot of their own boat) with the sunset sky behind them. We see the other boat just a few boatlenghts away. Someone says, "There's somebody standing on the prod." [?] Brad (I think) calls out to them: "Who's the monkey on the bowsprit?" We hear the response. Something like, "Go back to Kerikeri, mate", which makes Brad chuckle. [Brad and Blair Tuke are both from Kerikeri, NZ.] I think this must be the super-close approach they had with MAPFRE around 2018.01.10 08:20:10 UTC, so that would make it either Blair or Louis who's answering. Brad, invisible in the dark: "It's nice to talk to somebody from another boat for a change. As much as I love these guys, it's nice to hear a different voice for once. Especially one from Kerikeri." Awesome drone shot passing AkzoNobel at low altitude, flying toward MAPFRE. Lightning-flash illuminated shots of them sailing in the squall that night.Amazing high-altitude drone shot showing AkzoNobel far below and a number of islands, clouds, and I think a rainbow in the distance. Pretty sure that's Ghupuna closest to them. Jules explains that they're at the east end of the Solomons. In third place. "Still a long way to go." Drone shot with island behind them. Nicolai: "Solomon Islands. Beautiful place. One of those places you don't get to go often that you probably never will come back to." Shot of whale surfacing on their starboard quarter. More islands. Drone shot of purse seiner ("Southern Seas No. 302 SI-LV110") fishing as they pass in the background. Drone records them pulling in what looks like a struggling blue shark. Detail of the fishing boat's mast, with multiple crow's nests with what look like spotting scopes mounted on them.Drone shot of AkzoNobel with low sun behind them. In the audio we hear Jules announcing the latest sched, with distances to other boats. Switches to closeups of him talking in the companionway. Below, Brad talks to Nicolai about "Master and Commander". On the foredeck, stacking, Martine slips and falls. She sits in the cockpit and talks about "Master and Commander": "It feels like Master and Commander. We are chasing the French boat." Below, Jules talks about doing 11 gybes in 11 hours. We see the zigzag line on the chart screen. Nicolai, on the pedestal, talks about how they've been chasing Dongfeng, choosing to stick with them. Martine and Simeon talk about it as a battle. Martine: "It is fighting a battle but no guns. Just a lot of trimming the sails." We see a closeup of Cécile's finger (the little finger on her left hand) with a nasty slice as she bandages herself. She explains how she cut it on the handhold when she was thrown off-balance. In the cockpit, Brad, invisible in a balaclava and sunglasses, jokes about wanting to cut it off and cauterize it. "I wanted to do it today but she wouldn't let me." He explains that the pirates used to do it all the time. References Master and Commander again. Nicolai talks about Dongfeng and trying to learn from their moding (whether they sail high or low) and the sail combinations and setup. We see Dongfeng in the distance. Closeup of Cécile's hand with the bandaged finger as she trims. Great drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing fast, triple-heading with the A3.Drone shot AT NIGHT of AkzoNobel silhouetted against the trail of the nearly full moon on the water behind them. Masthead red running light is visible, also four different white lights. Not sure what's up with those. Sail-illumination lights? Brad, on deck: "Beautiful night out here." Talks about chipping away at Dongfeng, who crossed them by 2.5 miles, and are now 5 miles away. Gybe coming up; hope to make more gains there. Simeon, at nav station below, nods to Sam. Simeon: "Yeah. Pretty happy." Luke, on deck on the wheel (I think): "Warm water. Full moon. Doesn't get any better... Great company. Go the A-team on here." Shot of Orion standing on his head next to the shrouds. Shot of the helmsman from the cockpit, then pans up the backstay to show the Southern Cross. Drone shot close to the boat from to leeward, illuminated by moonlight.Jules, at the nav station, talks to Sam. "How would I describe myself? Tired?... I think I'm pretty easy-going, most of the time, except when I'm tired." Sam: "How do you think the crew would describe you?" Jules: "Miserable. Quiet." On deck, Luke answers the question: "Uncomplicated, I would say. [laughs] No; he's a good rooster. Very rarely gets it wrong. It's only us getting it wrong that makes him look bad." Looks like this was shot as they were beating out of Port Phillip Bay on the first afternoon. Closeup of Jules at the nav station, rubbing his head. Shot of the computer showing weather. On deck, Brad points out Green Cape. "Everyone knows it's one of the most southeastern capes of Australia." Shot of the cape with its lighthouse. To the left is another boat, barely visible; I'm guessing it's Vestas. On deck, Simeon talks about needing to choose whether to play the coast or go offshore. Shot from the cabin of Jules (below) talking to Nicho (on deck). Simeon crouches down as water splashes over him. Simeon: "[something] stay in touch with the other guys. Otherwise you'll lose them." Jules discusses how the fleet is splitting. Also there are three different tidal models that disagree as to where the eddy is. More discussion by Simeon: gybe or not? Conversation with the three of them continues below at the nav station. Nicho: "If you gybe back, you're pretty much committed to playing the shore." Sam talks to Jules: "How would you describe the decision-making process on this boat?" Jules: "Not very clear. Because not everyone knows the full implications of everything they're talking about. You often get into situations like this where it's a tossup, you gotta trust one weather model or the other. Or you just do the conservative thing and stay with the fleet." Nicho, below, eating: "You've gotta kick it around. Kick it to death. And then make a gut call, usually. There's a fair bit of science involved... I think in the end for this situation, we're on a good heading with great pressure. More breeze than inshore." Sam: "How would you describe the decision-making process on this boat?" Nicho: "Plenty of input from everybody. At times this is Simeon's boat. I certainly from my side I feel like I can make the decision and live with it perhaps a bit easier. It's not a difficulty, it's just how it is. I guess we've kind of struggled and grappled with that sitaution a little. But no; the actual process I think is quite good. No one's angry or frustrated or anyting like that. It's just trying to weigh up all the pros and cons, come up with a decision."AkzoNobel is sailing upwind inside Port Phillip Bay on starboard. Nicho, on the stern, talks about how they couldn't hold their lane on port tack after the start. "Don't know. Not sure what happened. We were slow on port for a long time." Shot of their stern with a Bravo (protest) flag flying; other boats in the distance. Simeon below: "Yeah, we had a bit of a speed issue, yeah." Shots of crew moving the stack. Nicho: "It's not where you want to be... back of the pack... No use grumbling about it." Below, Nicolai and Simeon are looking through the window in the hull, talking about the prop. Maybe it wasn't folding properly? Brad looks through an inspection tool: "It's closed but it's got weed in it... Looks like I'm going over the side. Get a lot of heel on, and rip it off." Sam: "Would this explain the speed?" Brad: "Hopefully." On deck, Brad gets lowered over the weather side in his foulies with lines forward and aft; he goes down near the waterline to inspect. Cécile's back is in the foreground as she relays Brad's words, then helps him back on deck. Brad: "A bit of weed. Not as big as it looked. But it's closed. Nothing underwater slowing us down. So get into it." Later, on the stern, Sam asks Brad: "How's it feel to be in last place coming out of Australia?" Brad: "I hate to say, but we're used to it." Luke: "New Year's resolution? Probably just to win a few legs here." Martine: "I dunno. Just keep positive." Brad: "Not be last out of the next start. And start getting in front of the fleet." Rainbow in the boat's spray to leeward. Luke talks about the frustration of starting off in last or close to last. "People say you're unlucky, but you create your own luck." Talks about teamwork, they're a great group of sailors. Real rainbow to leeward; a competitor below and behind them. Simeon talks about them doing well in the last sched. "Zero to hero." First in the position reports. At the nav station, Jules talks about their performance. Sam: "How'd you manage to check back in with the fleet?" Jules: "Bit of luck, really. Guys have been sailing pretty hard all night. Everyone's been up pretty much most of the night. Gybed on a couple of shifts. Got a nice header for a while..." Talks about disappointment at the start, needing to hang in there. "If we go fast we'll be all right." Rainbow with Vestas, Dongfeng to leeward.Simon, at the nav station, looks at routing software and a sched (I think?). He talks about hopefully making gains, or at least holding even. "I"m just hoping we gained, or at least held them. Were getting lifted now, so it'd be nice for them to get lifted as well." He looks at the sched. "One longer, two higher." Charlie looks over his shoulder. They discuss the update. Charlie: "And relative to the last sched they must have been fucking 10 higher." Charlie: "C'mon. Difference in distance to finish 2 miles?" SiFi: "Good for the fans at home." They talk about getting lifted compared to the model; when to gybe. Charlie: "Nice to know we're a bit longer, a little faster... We'll run out of pressure before them. It's nice to be so close to Dongfeng, but that's a little inflated... Still fighting to the end, especially with double points." SiFi explains that they were talking about Brunel. "Next 24 hours is all about keeping the yellow boat behind us, and catching the red one."Vestas sails fast on starboard gybe with a reefed main (I think?). Slomo washing machine shot from behind the helm. TJ, below, is eating. On screen title: Tom Johnson presents / A Christmas Story. Tom: "Hello Sam, said TJ. There once was a boy trying to make it home for Christmas." Stacey, eating below, talks about how they're 2 days away from Christmas. Stacey explains that she's not from that part of Australia, but a family is coming to see her. TJ talks about the big, cold low-pressure system that prevented them from gybing to get north. Shot on deck shows helmsman NOT standing on the helm platform, but instead on a stacked sail. Below, Sam asks Stacey, "Motivation to go faster?" Stacey: "Yeah. We've been down in the cold too long, and we're pretty keen to get out of there... Any minute now it's gonna be balmy and warm." Below, Tony eats, and explains that real Christmas for him is getting away with the family for a summer holiday. Stacey jokes that this isn't warm. Tony exhales so you can see his breath. TJ keeps telling his Christmas story, trying to get there to see his family on Christmas. Father and mother; his sister he hasn't seen for 3 years. And his niece Lucille that he's never even met. Talks about that being a hard thing about his job: Always moving. Charlie talks with Simon (off camera) about how they should do stealth mode now, becaue once MAPFRE is within 200 miles of the finish it will end. TJ talks about stealth mode. Charlie talks about how they've decided when to gybe, strategic consideration with Brunel. TJ: "TJ's storytelling voice... You'll find out how the story ends in a couple of days. Hopefully it's a happy story." Tony on the helm. TJ: "He's bringing his sled. A big sled, Vestas Wind."Charlie, below, talks about how they've cleared the ice gate. "We're in an ocean race. Now we have the whole ocean to sail around in." Mark, in the pit, talks about no more gybing. "Well, no more gybing every hour." He trims something in in the pit. The crew shifts the stack from forward aft using the traditional heave chant: "Two, Six!"Jena, grinding in the cockpit on the middle pedestal, talks about making gains on every sched. Still hope with more than 1,000 miles to go that they can catch them. Mark, in the cockpit: "The two most competititve boats that we're racing are currently ahead of us in this leg. So yes, of course it matters to me. I want to beat them. I want to be first. I want to win." [Sounds a little annoyed with Sam's question.] Sam asks Jena to do a "weather dance". She dances at the pedestal. Jena: "What do you think about that?" Charlie, at the helm: "Well, we haven't seen any results yet. So." Jena: "Don't worry. I'll show my magic. Dancing magic." Crew kidding in the cockpit; TJ says something about going to Outback Steakhouse. Nick laughs. Charlie hands the wheel off to Chuy. Sam, to Charlie: "How was the watch, Chaz?" Charlie: "Transitional. It went from windy to not so windy. Drag all the sails forward... Little frustrated with the boatspeed... Kind of tough sailing right now with the leftover slop."At nav station, Charlie explains to Sam that there aren't a lot of decisions to make right now; they're just pushing the boat for boatspeed as they parallel the ice limit. Decisions to be made shortly about where to go later. Risk/reward analysis changes based on waht happens at the back of the fleet behind them. On deck, Jena steers on port gybe in about 15 knots of wind under a cloudy sky. Then TJ (invisible in balacava; thank goodness for accents) steers and talks about Jena, about getting her time on the helm when conditions aren't too technical. By the end, he says, she'll be driving as much as anyone else. Nick, on the stern, says he wants Chuy to start a men's fashion line. Has him model his baseball cap stitched onto a neoprene balaclava (as described by Tony). Some discussion of Tron that I didn't really understand. Then SiFi talks about trying to catch the two red boats ahead (though unfortunately Vestas has less wind), and about Brunel about 20 miles behind them. Future wind prospects. Nick and SiFi, in the companionway. Nick: "This boat is a prison." SiFi: "There's no escape."Condensation dripping inside from a grab rail. Firehose shot of the foredeck while Vestas is triple-heading. SiFi, unrecognizable in his balaclava except by voice, talks about how they're now drag-racing, not gybing. "We're starting to pin our ears back and sail fast." On the stern, Tony talks about the current conditions. He asks the termperature; Stacey answers "Nine and nine." Tony explains: 9 degrees C air, 9 degrees water. He talks about how even with all the layers you get cold, but if you move you get hot and then sweat, and then you get wet and cold again. Tony talks about his 3-day-old protein bar he's found in his pocket and is going to eat. Stacey says she can do better: Pulls out a bar. "Tropical holiday."Tony and Simon are sitting on the weather rail. Tony is in the middle of a story about seeing an iceberg. "It was right there, hundreds of meters long, 25, 30 meters high, or whatever they are. And that was the one you can see in the middle of the day... And then nighttime comes and radar's got targets everywhere. And those are only the big ones. Can't see the bus or car-sized ones." Simon, at the nav station, talks about being near the exclusion zone. Simon explains about how the trailing boats have had an easier time, while the lead boats have had to stair-step along the edge of the exclusion zone. Shot of the computer screen showing the exclusion zone. Tony points out the "wall". "Must have painted it gray; it blends right in." Nick is getting dressed; he tells a bedtime story to Jena, in her bunk. "Once upon a time there were 7 lonely sailboats in the Southern Ocean, on their way to Melbourne." He explains to Sam: "I'm telling the Swiss Miss girl." "On their way to Melbourne to have a very hot Southern Hemisphere Christmas. And then, the wild and scary Race Committee decided to put a liquid Himalaya ice gate that we had to climb atop, so we wouldn't be there for Christmas Day." Jena: "Did they steal our Christmas?" Nick and Tom are internal-stacking onto the port side; Tom mimes being attacked by killer bees. "They're eating my eyes!" On the helm, Chuy says there's a rule, like on a bus: Don't speak to the driver. Jena, sitting in the cockpit in a balaclava: "I actually got a little sad, because I feel Santa will never find us out here." SiFi: "It's true. I didn't even bring my stocking." Tom: "No Christmas for you. We're gonna keep you at sea. Make you sail around waypoints forever!" Jena jokes about a broken candycane being in 3 pieces so they can share. Tony and SiFi talk about icebergs. Tony doesn't need to see any more of them. SiFi: "They make the ice gates on a good scientific basis." Tony: "I've passed south of one that was 30 miles long, and it was no fun... I've dodged them, and been just about able to touch them from the wheel. That's how close we were... If they've got the information, as SiFi says, it'd be negligent not to act on it... Safety. Safety first." Sunset.Nick, in his bunk: "We have crossed that point where people have started losing it. And some of those people have also found the caffeine chewing gum. So things are getting quite loose on board." On the stern with the setting sun behind them, Tony shouts, "Cue the rainbow!" We see a rainbow ahead of them. "All we need now is a couple of icebergs to complete the set." Below, Nick continues: "Big Tones [Tony]; coincidently, he was talking about being in the Truman Show yesterday. So I'd say he's feeling the sleep deprivation pretty nicely at this point." Tony: "I thought we'd just sail round and round in circles, around the wall. That sounds just fine to me." SiFi, standing next to him: "By the top corner in the ice gate, we might be able to get through that little door and escape... It's good we're playing Truman Show and not Hunger Games. Hunger Games the consequences are way worse than this." Tony: "The Kracken would be climbing over the side to get us." Tom on the helm joins in. "Hunger Games and Truman Show [something I can't catch]. Becuase they can control the weather, they can control the... Remember they make that fire?" Nick below: "TJ is also probably feeling a bit loopy, but I guess that's pretty much on par with TJ, so shouldn't be too worried about him." Jena, below: "As hard as it is physical, it's also a mental game, this thing. There's a lot of time where you have time to make your thoughts, and wonder. Maybe the most reasonable person to talk to is yourself." SiFi sits at the computer. "Holy shit. That sched is about as bad as it can get. Had a pretty slow 6 hours, pretty light winds and pretty unstable breeze. and as expected everyone is else moving along pretty nicely... It's funny to see how people change when things get a bit lighter. There's a chance to relax a bit, have a joke. But I think we're all a little bit crazy." Shot of them surfing toward the rainbow. Tony: "I don't know who was in the technical department. They deserve a pay raise." Nick, in his bunk: "I would never ask TJ to make a big decision. It would stress me out." On deck, at sunset on the stern, Stacey asks a series of questios of Tom. "Would you rather be itchy or sticky." Tom: "Sticky". "Blind or deaf?" Tom: "Tough one. A sad one. I dunno. I can't answer that one." "Would you rather be in the Truman Show or the Hunger Games?" "Truman Show. Nah, Hunger Games. Changed my mind. You get some action." Sam: "Are you feeling the mental effects of being offshoe?" Tom: "Most likely, yeah. Every day, man. One hour at a time, Sammy, out here. One minute at a time." Stacey: "I've got a real good last question. What's the first thing you're gonna eat when you get to Melbourne?" Tom: "I want an avocado... and a coffee." He and Tony seque into a beer commercial. "And the best cold beer is Vic."Southern Ocean waves. Slomo waves. Crew on stern as Vestas sails downwind in large seas. SiFi, below, describes what an ice gate is. Shot of the computer screen showing routing software and their track bumping up to the ice gate. Charlie, below: "It would be nice to have a little bit more freedom. And we wouldn't actually have to do this. But because we do we've gotten pretty good at." Explains that it takes about 40 minutes to gybe due to stacking. Talks about how many times they have to do it. SiFi talks about sailing along the edge of the exclusion zone with all the gybing. SiFi getting dressed. "It's quite nice on deck. Gearing up's a little inconvenient." Shots of crew on deck. Grinding, Stacking. Charlie steering. Jena, below: "I hope we don't see any icebergs." Chuny, below: "Safety first." On the stern (trimming the mainsheet, I think), Tony points out where the ice gates are, 60 miles away. Sam: "Who builds these gates?" Tony: "I don't know. Maybe they've got a deal with Trump. An imaginary fencing company. I wonder how high it is. Twenty-one feet?" Tom (I think?) says it could be like The Truman Show. The clouds coult be painted. Stacey and Tom join in. Jena: "We're actually in a big pool of water, and they're just moving the water underneath us. And we're not going anywhere." Tony: "We're actually in a room with a green screen behind us, and they're throwing buckets of water on us." Epic surfing shot from astern. Slomo washing machine.SiFi sits at the nav station looking at a routing screen on the computer. His breath is visibly fogging due to the cold. "It looks like we're walking the line between speed and safety reasonably well." Slomo of his breath fogging. With low sun behind them as they stand on the stern, Charlie and SiFi talk about a problem with the main. "There's so much friction on it on the spreaders and shit it's probably not going anywhere." Nick talks about a couple of squall lines came through, up to 45 knots. And going onto the third reef the headboard of the mainsail isn't going onto lock. Mark: "Well, we've got 44 knots, and if you look this way there's a massive cloud, and the water's more white than blue." Charlie jokes about not saying "white squall". Slomo. Sam to Mark: "How is it being down here?" Mark: "It's everything you'd expect. Windy, cold, we've got 48 knots right now. Look upwind. It's crazy. Doing 30 knots of boatspeed. It's pretty crazy, but somehow everything's still in control." Slomo wake.Opens with a drone shot from behind of Vestas sailing on starboard gybe. A dark seabird (a shearwater, maybe?) is visible trailing the boat; the bird turns and flies RIGHT PAST THE DRONE. Overlapping audio of Sam asking SiFi, at the wheel, "Any second thoughts about sailing into this low?" We see Simon on the helm. "What's that Sam?" Stacey sits in the foreground chuckling. SiFi: "Second, third, fourth, fifth... Lots of thoughts... About how to get through it safely, and hopefully ahead." Below, Nick's face is mostly shadowed as he eats. "I guess I keep coming down here because this is where you're pushed the hardest, mentally and physically. And so far we're seeing the beignning of that with definitely the mental side pushing us hard, and the physical side is just about to start. Latest routing shows us doing about 1 million gybes between here and Melbourne. So we're going to try to figure out how we're going to make those as smooth as possible." On deck, Tom leans on the middle pedestal. "When it gets hard; hard, wet, and tired; it's hard, wet, and tired for all your mates on the other boats as well. Like Kyle Langford, the big seagull. He's gonna be tired. Pete Burling, Blair Tuke, Willy, Louis... everyoe's in the same boat. It's hard for everyone." Another shot of the shearwater buzzing the drone. Kyle: "It's hard for everyone. Sail fast. We're going to Australia. Heading home." He grins. "Heading home." Sifi is at the wheel as the boat barely moves in light wind. "Calm before the storm... Not really in the forecast, this light stuff." Below, Charlie tosses something round and blue in one hand, and says something I can't catch. "It's hever going to be easier than right now." (?) Wake as they sail fast under scary clouds. On deck, Charlie: "So far, so good." He grinds, gets a slap of water in the face. Mark talks about how they just put the second reef in, and have some water in the folds of the main, so they're trying to get it out. We see someone doing that with a boathook, getting hit by spray. Charlie talks about where the other boats are, geometry of trying to figure out where to aim to come out ahead of the other boats. "We've got more options up here. Whether they sneak around our bow remains to be seen." He talks about "separation anxiety", I assume because they're north of the other boats. "We'll know more in 12 hours I guess." Slomo washing machine, wake.Charlie and Simon at the nav station looking at routing (I think?). Charlie is eating. Charlie jokes about how when the wind gets high enough there's no sail in the sail chart. Charlie: "It's just like, good luck. Bare poles?" Simon chuckles, jokes about how you don't bother with some data points: "100 true, 1,000 knots." They talk about apparent wind angle. Simon: "You can reach down; this is where you end up on the ice gate... Then it passes over and you're back to running again." Charlie: "Realistically is the J1 getting hanked on? Probably not." Simon: "No." Simon says J2, probably. "A bit like the Trans-atlantic, probably." Charlie: "It would be pretty tough. 25 knots is when the J2 becomes a realistic outrigger sail." Charlie: "So how are we going to get the A3... We could to the J0 for a little bit. J0/J2, something like that?" Tony, from his bunk: "How much wind you got in that low?" Charlie: "In the center of it?" Tony: "No, in the route." Charlie: "The part that affects us? 37 in the listed result." Tony: "So that's a good chunk into the 40s." Simon: "Yeah." Charlie, lookng at Sam: "We've gone higher." Tony: something I can't understand, like: So when you (something about being on the A3?) you get the (something) down there quick." (?) Simon: No, exactly. Tony: "Actually faster at 25, 23, 20 boat knots of breeze." Simon: "Yeah." That's a lot of experience talking there.Drone shot of Vestas with the sun low behind them reaching in 15 knots of wind on starboard tack. (Think this is from late in the day on 2017-12-11.) Charlie, below, talks about the race so far. The plan they had when they left was not the best one, which put them on the back foot. "We've hit the reset button in the ridge." Simon, at the nav station, says they've just had the 0700 sched, and they look pretty good. He points out their position vs. the other boats: Scallywag, TTToP, then the other pack of boats about 20 miles south. Good to be further north. In 24, 48 hours it's good to be further north. "Certainly a more seamanlike [i.e., safety-conscious] way to go about it." Charlie, below, talks about "the weather, Friday, looks pretty fresh with nowhere to run." Setting yourself to be in the right place in three days' time in 50 knots of wind is more important. Simon shows the scary low on the computer forecast. Have to be careful to not get into a position where the wind and sea state are so bad you're pushed against the ice gate and have to slow down. Charlie: "Have to watch the weather pretty closely to make sure we don't find ourselves in a bad spot." Drone shot from ahead with the sunset behind them.Dockout. Simon crouches on the rail, saying goodbye to a young boy holding a Wisdom plushie; behind a younger child with a pacifier is held by a woman. Simon: "Be good!" As Vestas pulls away from the dock they all wave to each other. Below as they motor out to the start, Simon has put on his foulies and talks to Sam about the crew, how they combine youth, experience, lots of races, people in for the first time. "For the next leg the experience is good." Threading the line between sailing fast and breaking the boat. Sam: "Do you get nervous before these legs?" (I bet Sam is nervous.) Simon: "The hanging around the dock's the most stressful part for me. Saying goodbye to the family. But once you're out here there's not much time for nerves to be honest." In the cockpit as they sail before the start under main, Stacey talks about how yeah, a little nervous, going into the Southern Ocean with the forecast. Tony says it's his tenth time going down there. Shot of just after the start as the fleet sails on starboard tack. On the foredeck, Nick wrestles with a furled sail; it appears to be hung up in the rig above him. Nick, to the back of the boat: "Keep easing!... Are you easing?" He struggles to free the sail. Nick (under his breath): "Fuck it." To the cockpit: "Somebody come up and help me." Tom runs forward to help pull on the sail. Sam is right in the action as they wrestle with the sail. Nick: "Okay! It's good! Start hoisting!" Shot of Scallywag right on their stern, diving below them, TTToP and AkzoNobel further to leeward. Chuny is steering. Scallywag comes in beneath them. Shouting back and forth between the boats. Sam is RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ACTION, leaning out to leeward, practically touching Scallywag. We see the OBR on Scallywag (Konrad Frost) filming Sam as Sam films him. Protests. Shouts from Vestas about the overtaking leeward vessel not having rights to luff above proper course. Later, they sail in less wind, the shore visible to port. TTToP and Scallywag are visible to leeward. Chuny, on the helm, appears to still be talking about the Scallywag incident. Chuny: "I saw him (gestures) luffing against US." Slomo shot of crew reefing the main. Sam: "Hey, Chuny. What happened at the start with Scallywag?" Chuny explains the rule, that Scallywag came in from behind and started luffing, and how it's not safe, it could have broken both boats, at the start of a leg like this. "I was angry... Because it's not safe." We see them putting in a second reef. Charlie, on the aft pedestal, grinding and talking to Sam. Subtitles (added by Sam), because he's barely understandable. "Ah you know everyone puts a lot of stock in the start. But it's kind of more how you finish."Dee, below, explains that they're stacking below in anticipation of gybing. They want to do that, and then gybe and then stack on deck only after the gybe. That way Scallywag wont know they're gybing until after they've done it. "It's the little things." Nicolas moves gear from port to starboard. Dee is below with Martin, Francesca, and Bianca (I think?). Dee explains that they aren't going on deck because "they're watching our every move", and even for the extra crew to arrive on deck would let the Scallywags know they're about to gybe. From the drone close above their weather quarter, with Scallywag visible ahead and to leeward, we see the crew pile out of the cabin. Drone shot of J3 furling (with J2 already furled), and then we see TTToP gybe to starboard with Scallywag in the distance. Dee comes below: "We did our stealth gybe, but they were waiting for us. And as we gybed, they gybed." Drone shot of Scallywag gybing to starboard. Henry, in his bunk, talks about the stealth gybe. "They managed to match us quite quickly, so I think they saw it coming." Prison-sentence tick marks are visible on the hull behind him. Drone shot of Scallywag's crew stacking sails to starboard after their gybe.Slomo shot up the slot as TTToP sails on port talk toward the sunrise. Drone shot from astern with AkzoNobel a few miles directly ahead of them; drone then circles TTToP and we see Scallywag a half mile astern of them and slightly to weather. Henry, in the cockpit with Scallywag visible behind him: "It's been all right. Pretty intense. Scallywag breathing down our necks, trying to catch AkzoNobel." Close drone shot as TTToP sails past the drone. Martin is trimming. Martin: "Traveler up... Hold." Sam: "How's the intensity, Martin?" Martin (glancing astern): "A bit too close for comfort I think. It's going to be a long, long day with this setup with three boats within two and a half miles. It's going to be an interesting finish." Drone shot of TTToP from bow with Scallywag close behind them. Henry, laughing: "Three boats have already finished, so it isn't that close. Nothing like fighting for a wooden spoon." He sticks his tongue out. Henry: "Never fought so hard to be not-last in my life. But if you're not first your last so it doesn't matter!" Francesca, on the helm, makes a face. Another drone shot, slowly circling to show Scallywag behind them, AkzoNobel ahead.Drone shot of TTToP sailing on port under the MH0 with low clouds behind. On the horizon behind them and to weather we can see Scallywag. Off-camera, we hear Sam: "Hey Dee." "Yeah?" "Twenty days, how many thousand miles, you've got a race for 5th place. What's going on?" Dee: "It's cool..." We see Dee talking in the cockpit. "There actually hasn't been a day in the southern ocean when we haven't had a boat in sight or on AIS. It's awesome racing." Liz, on the helm, talks about how long they've been fighting with Scallywag and now fighting with AkzoNobel. High drone shot of TTToP sailing away. Henry, below and looking out the hatch, smiles as the crew in the cockpit cheers. Henry: "That is the level of excitement we get every single time we get a good half-hour average." He talks about the tight group of three boats and how the whole leg will come down to this for them. High drone shot. Henry: "Boatspeed. Boatspeed, boatspeed, boatspeed." Liz, on the helm: "Nobody wants to come in last." Dee, pointing ahead: "I want to take them [she points aft] and leave them behind." Shot of the cockpit. Drone shot of the top of the rig, flying in close. Someone (Annalise?) standing in the hatch waves to the drone, then points forward. The drone pulls back and climbs.Drone shot follows an albatross in the foreground with TTToP sailing on port tack in about 10 knots of wind in the background. Dee, in the cockpit, explains that they're a few miles north of 40 degrees south, and some of the crew wants to go south to get in the Southern Ocean officially, others want to get to Cape Town. Temperature has dropped, and they've seen albatrosses.Below, Lucas talks about the importance of catching waves when the wind isn't as strong (like now) to increase average speed. Drone shot of TTToP on port gybe in borderline-surfing conditions. On deck, Lucas talks about how he does more surfing than sailing. Liz, on the aft pedestal, talks in surfer dialecdt about his surviving the ECC ("east coast current"). Lucas sings: "Let's go surfing now..." Below, Liz talks: "Lucas is a natural with any water sports, who does all water sports and does them all very well." She talks about the first time she took him sailing on "one of these boats", and there were "massive waves; he jumped on the helm and absolutely sent it." Francesca and Bianca do an embarrasing/culturally insensitive wind dance in the cockpit. Dee: "We desperately need to arrive in Cape Town as soon as possible." At the nav station, Dee and Nicolas talk about the strategic decision to dive south to avoid the high ahead of them. Nicolas, laughing: "At least we all agree. Perhaps we are wrong but [we] agree." Dee talks about being surprised AkzoNobel didn't activate stealth. Dee, later, talks about how they've gybed, and AkzoNobel and Scallywag are on AIS but have not gybed. Later, closeup of AIS screen. Nicolas explains that AkzoNobel has gybed. "At least if I have made a mistake I will not be the only one who made it."Liz, sitting on the stack, jokes that Freddy's not very happy with the cruise he booked. Frederico, on the helm, goes along, talking about how he didn't see as many islands as he expected, but the food was very good. Can't complain. "The company was the best. You can see all my girls here." [laughter] "Not my girls; my friends. Sleeping was also very good, very comfortable, now that we are using the sleeping bags." Francesca, on the leeward side, talks about trying to see land, but being unable to see anything. Per the tracker, this would have been around 2017.11.21 09:09:58 UTC, when they were passing within a few miles of Tristan de Cunha. Liz, looking to leeward: "It's a bit of a dilemma on the old 'Land Ho' call. You'd normally need to see it to be able to make the call. We know it's 7 miles away, and you can see a little darkness in the fog. Do you call it? Or not?" We see an albatross to leeward. Liz (?) takes a gopro on a strut forward and gets slomo shots of spray from the J2 tack. She laughs. Slomo of Henry on the helm in the washing machine.Wake. There's a bird visible; doesn't look big enough for an albatross. Liz looks out and comments (I think) on the cold. Below, Nicolas talks about wanting to finish the race quickly and see his new daughter. mast cam view looking down. Below, Henry mixes a food packet. Henry: "Just making the mac and cheese, mate; just coming off watch." Sam: "So what's the rundown?" Henry explains they're getting east as fast as possible, trying to stay with the front, after which Dee and Nicolas will need to decide whether to go north or south. Nicolas, at the nav station, says he needs a coin to decide. Dee, in her bunk, jokes: "It's a big week for Nico, coming into Cape Town." Henry explains that Nico was on MAPFRE in the last edition of the race as they finished in Cape Town, when SCA overtook them when they became becalmed and they came in last for the leg. On the stern, Liz points out an albatross. Liz: "There's the real Wisdom! Pretty cool."Holy crap, what a drone sequence. Sam gets drone footage of TTToP and Scallywag sailing neck and neck a few boatlenghts apart with a crossing tanker/container ship *in the foreground*. What must they have thought on that ship? Footage in deep dusk aboard TTToP, sailing on starboard gybe, with Scallywag visible to starboard with their port red (or maybe stern white?) masthead light visible. Woman's voice on TTToP: "They're gybing, woo!" We see Scallywag gybe onto starboard. Then we get drone footage from ahead of Scallywag, passing back past them with TTToP a few boatlenghts behind them. Footage from TTToP with Scallywag even closer, ahead and to weather of them. High-altitude drone shot with both boats visible below and the sunrise behind them. Liz, on the helm, in the morning light. Sam asks her what's happening. She explains that Scallywag gybed to windward of them, trying to get through them, can't get through and waiting for a lift. Liz: "We're just trying to stay as close to transom of them as possible so they don't get away. Every time they've come within distance we've let them get away, so we're determined to keep them this time."Liz, below, explains that they're actually closer to Cape Horn than to Capetown by a few hundred miles, and (on starboard) they're actually on layline [for Cape Horn]. "So I gave Dee the option, in case she wants to go around the world the wrong way again." Sterncam view looking forward. Below, Liz talks about seeing more rubbish in the water, and being curious what they're microplastic filter picks up. Liz: "It's pretty sad." Henry, stacking from starboard to port below, explains that they're going to gybe. On deck, we see the gybe. Dee jokes about the being closer to Cape Horn and her reputation for going the wrong way round. Nicolas jokes about how he's out of the cabin. Dee, with the sunset behind her, talks about how people are happier now that they're actually heading for their destination rather than away from it. Lucas: "Well, wind's dying; we're fucked. What else do you want me to say?" Sam, to Henry: "We just made really good miles to Capetown, right?" Henry (snorts): "For 10 minutes." Lucas, as they're back on starboard sailing towad the sunset: "Gybe, gybe, gybe, no sleep, french alarm clock, loss, loss, gybe, think we're winning, going to Cape Town, gybe, no wind, loss, Scallywag, bye. That way." (pointing ahead). Shots of Scallywag in the dusk, crossing them on port, then to leeward and ahead of them after gybing back to starboard. Lucas, in the last light of day: "Add a little tag on the end. Gybe, gybe, gybe, choke - no. Not choke. They choked. [coughs] Scallway, coughing. Here they are, right there. We're gonna roll them, right now. Let's go."Nicolas, on the weather rail in his boxer shorts, trims his nails. Henry (I think?) who is trimming the mainsheet ahead of him, holds out his free hand; Nicolas trims Henry's nails. Nicolas explains that he's going to clean his teeshirt. Below, we see Nicolas in his shorts washing his shirt in the galley sink. In the cockpit, Annalise steers and Henry (?) jokes to Dee: "He's definitely a navigator. Everyone else brings there... high performance boxers, and he just brings his cottony flowery ones. 'Eh; I'm never gonna be on deck.'" Below, Nicolas washes his clothes in the sink. "In order to finish the leg as a human and not an animal." Liz, on the aft pedestal: "Yeah; he's a bit random. But I guess he is french. I guess it wasn't his choice to be french." We see Nicolas's flowery boxers hanging form the boom to dry as he heads below.Crew on the foredeck with TTToP on port gybe. Scallywag is ahead and to windward. High drone shot showing TTToP in the foreground, Scallywag in the background. Dee, on the helm: "I'm pissed. They're still there. I want to get rid of them. Bloody Scallies." Closeup drone shot of Scallywag; Witty (I think) on the stern waves to the drone. (I love that I was just talking about wanting to see that on the SA forums, where The Main Man told me it had already happened in this video.) Lucas (?) on the rail, as Martin takes a bearing on Scallywag to weather: "Hanging around like a bad smell. It's like a pimple on your back that you can't get rid of, that's what that is. Gotta squeeze 'em out." Drone shot of TTToP with Scallywag visible in the background. Dee, at the nav station, reads emails she's been trading with Steve Hayles and Witty on Scallywag. "Everyone's in good form, feeling happy, and we have left them behind. Yes!"Dee, below, explains that there were some clouds on the horizon and the wind started dropping, so they told "her" to do a wind dance, and she did, and the wind started increasing. Dee: "So we told her to keep dancing, and it worked. And we were sending it." On deck, Francesca explains: "You have to look at the cloud, and then dance some samba to try to keep the wind." She dances to demonstrate. Closeup of the knotmeter showing speed increasing. Francesca: "It's a really good technique." Dee: "So now whenever we're in a lull, Frankie's gonna be called on deck to do a wind dance. Must be the Italian style."In the cockpit, Wisdom (voiced by Liz) talks about the competition. Wisdom: "Nico told me that Scallywag's only two and a half miles over there, and Akzonobel's only 42 miles away over there. I'm gonna go have a fly and check them out." We then see a very high drone shot looking at Scallywag, which then zooms out to show TTToP far below. Wisdom (Liz) in voiceover: "I'm really really high right now. Can you see Scallywag? They're 2.5 miles away. And look at our boat. That's my boat, Turn the Tide on Plastic. And the other boats, they're over 50 miles away. They're over the curve of the earth, so we're gonna have to sail really fast to catch them."Liz on the helm in the morning. Liz: "I haven't actually seen the full report, but news is that we did pretty well on Scallywag and the rest of the fleet. The rest of the fleet is pretty far away but Scallywag is back here [gestures astern] and that feels pretty damn good. Only 'cause it's Scallywag." Gopro-on-a-pole shot, elevated, above the stern looking forward, that then rotates around to be a shot, upside down, of the weather rudder mostly out of the water.Drone shots of TTToP sailing in the afternoon.Drone shot of TTToP sailing on a close reach on port. Dee, in the cockpit, talks about them being a few hours away from King Neptune's visit. Below, in the bow, Liz walks forward. "Hi. I'm Liz Wardley and I'm a science nerd." Liz explains that they've passed 3 degrees north, so they're going to deploy their drifter buoy to collect data. She cuts it loose and carries it aft. Dee, in the galley, explains more about the drifter buoy. On deck, we see a GoPro view of Frederico tossing the buoy off the stern, then we see the launching a second time, this time from the perspective of the drone hovering off their stern.Edited-down version of the previous TTToP video, intercut with drone shots at the edits, to remove the talk about filming Annalise peeing, and tighten up the remainder a bit.In the cockpit, Dee talks about the equator crossing ceremony. She wants it to be memorable, but she also wants it to be clean and tidy. So probably hair loss, she says. Dee: "It's quick, because I've got six of them to deal with. We've got a fleet to catch." Bianca, on the sheet: "Dee, what happened to you on your first crossing of the equator?" Dee: "I was on my own. And I was great." Dee [to Annalise, pulling her shorts up on the stern]: "We're filming you peeing." Bianca: "So technically you haven't been initiated by Neptune." Dee: "Not gonna happen. And any revolt will be punished 10 times worse. Just remember he's got the razor and scissors. Neptune does." Annalise talks about a girl at camp who got her eyebrows removed in a prank and they never grew back.On deck, in a shot titled "November 9, 2017" (2 days previously), Liz talks about how Nico's wife is due to deliver, and they have a chocolate mousse stashed in a food bag to celebrate. Liz: "I don't really mind about the baby, but I'd love to nail some chocolate mousse at the moment." Sam to Henry, on the helm: "Hank, do you have any kids?" Henry: "I have no kids, but I'm excited for the arrival of Nico's new girl. I've decided it's going to be a girl because Nico can only produce girls... And there's nothing sexist about that because girls are awesome." Camera pans to show Liz miming shoveling; the crew laughs. Frederico talks how it's awesome, struggles for word "born". We see TTToP reaching in stronger winds in a shot titled "Two days later..." Nico below, smiling: "I'm a father for second time, a small girl." Liz beams from her bunk in the background. Liz: "You happy?" She reaches out a hand; Nico clasps it. Henry, standing, smiles. They discuss her name: Catherine (in Britain). They joke about the chocalate mousse. Nico tells the people on deck, who cheer. Henry, below: "I'm super happy for him. I know Nico well from our days in the Figaro." Nico and Henry examine the chart at the nav station; Nico explains that he and his wife agreed that the child's middle name would be from somewhere near where the boat was at the time she was born, so he's looking at placenames in the Cape Verde Islands. Screenshot of the nav station computer running Outlook; Nico looks at pictures of his new daughter. Nico, to Dee: "It's better than a good sched." Dee: "Yeah. Much better news." Shot of Nico, smiling, on the after grinder pedestal. Dee, below, talks about how Brian Thompson's breaking his leg changed their navigator situation. She thanks Nico's wife for the sacrifice of having him on board during the birth of their child.At the nav station with Nicolas, Dee sounds morose as she recounts how they have lost ground against the leaders, who have moved into new pressure. Sam: "In regards to our stealth experiment, how does this bode?" Dee shrugs, grimaces. Dee: "Hasn't really had a good effect." On deck, talking to the crew in the cockpit. Dee shrugs. Dee: "Bugger." Dee, against the sky as she sits against the stack in the cockpit, talks to Sam about the strategic situation. Dee: 'It's a bit weird to be reaching. It's very unusual. I feel like we had the doldrums at the Canaries, and now we're reaching. God knews what's ahead of us." Sam: "And how are you feeling?" Dee: "A bit deflated. I'm not having a happy-Dee day today, and that hasn't really helped. But we're sailing in perfect conditions."Pretty low-altitude drone shot of TTToP sailing at sunset on port gybe. Drone moves in toward bowsprit, where a sailor is standing. Below, at the nav station, Liz, Dee, and Nicolas are looking at the computer. Liz plays with Wisdom. Dee explains that they've just received a position report and they are the furthest-west boat. She says they're discussing doing stealth mode. "I think we're gonna go for it." Liz has Wisdom explain (or explains to Wisdom; not completely sure) what stealth mode is. On deck, Lucas: "You watch. We're gonna come out of this, bang! Like a ninja!" Bianca covers her face with her hands, then flaps them open. "Stealth mode!" Martin: "Now you see us, now you don't." Wide, high drone shot circling TTToP in the evening with clouds.At the nav station, Nicolas talks with Dee about the latest sched. Nicolas: "It's not that drama." (?) Dee: "Yeah, thank god." Nicolas: "It is possible to think that they were 150 miles ahead." Dee: "Easily." Dee talks to Sam: "So where we thought life was ending for us, all is not lost. We're the furthest west, which is where Nico wanted to be." On deck in the evening, standing in the pit, Liz says: "I'm gonna go and have a celebratory dump because we just had a great sched." Lucas: "You made that word up. Celebrate-y isn't even a word, is it?" Liz: "Celebratory? Yes, celebratory is totally a word." Lucas: "It's not a word." Liz: "It is. It is a word. I just said it, so it must be a word. It came out of my mouth, so it is a word. Celebratory, celebratory, celebratory..." On the stern, Liz squats down and acts like she's about to pull down her shorts, then straighens up and laughs. Liz: "Get out of it." Two crewmembers (I think maybe Annalise on the helm and Bianca sitting forward of the helm?) laugh.TTToP is sailing on port gybe in about 10 knots with Annalise on the helm and Frederico on the mainsheet. Frederico narrates: "We are here in the hands of the Volvo 65 boats. We brought two of the greatest grinders in the world. Here you will see them catch the waves in 3, 2, 1, big trim guys! Trim!" Pulls back to a wider shot of Frederico tailing while plush toys Barney (purple dinosaur) (I think?) and Wisdom (albatross), which have had their arms taped to the handles, spin around madly. (Because someone out of frame is grinding a linked pedestal.) Frederico: "Trim, trim, trim, trim! Nice... Hold." Frederico: "So. Much. Massive. Weapons." Annalise laughs. Closeup of Wisdom.A+ drone work from drone-master Sam. High drone shot of TTToP, looking down. Fast tracking low-altitude drone shot, overtaking TTToP from their port quarter and passing astern. The boat is sailing with a lot of heel and a close reaching angle under Masthead 0 and a J3 staysail, backdropped by a beautiful sunset and crepuscular rays. Drone shot from ahead of the bow as Liz scoots out on the bowsprit and fixes some velcro fairing (?) around the tack of the Masthead 0. Shot slows to slomo as Liz looks at the drone.Time-lapse shot looking aft from the cabin at the cockpit as the sun comes up. It's actually pretty interesting to go through it frame by frame and see what people are doing. Most of the time it's Liz on the helm and Annalise (I think?) on the mainsheet. At one point Henry takes the wheel for a bit. Later Sam comes up, and apparently they figure out the time lapse has been running, because Henry points forward and Liz waves. Sam stands on the stern photographing the wake, the horizon to port.Drone shots of TTToP sailing under the Masthead 0 on port gybe in what looks like about 15 knots of wind. We see the crew shifting the stack to starboard in preparation for a gybe, then we actually SEE THE GYBE FROM THE DRONE! Go Sam! Shot ends in mid-gybe as the boom is swinging across, which I'm pretty sure wasn't the plan, but it's awesome anyway.Liz on the helm at sunrise with TTToP surfing on starboard. Sam: "How's your hydration, Liz?" Liz: "My hydration? Well I've been drinking a lot of salt water. My tongue feels like it's twice the size that it should be. I think I'd prefer to be drinking beer than salt water. But I've got a little issue with my water bottle, because I managed to wash it with industrial soap and it tastes pretty bad. Now we're just sending it down a wave; wow!" Henry on deck: "Because it's been so wet on deck I've been drinking a lot of salt water, so my lips are feeling pretty dehydrated. It's hard to drink enough." Annalise on the stern with the dawn behind her: "When you're tired and you're cold you don't really want to drink anything, but you definitely need to... I'm keeping the electrolytes high: every time I get hit in the face with a wave... like now." Frederico, hanging onto the running backstay with the sunrise behind him, deadpan: "I'm a very lucky man. I'm having the time of my life." Henry, laughing: "Don't say it with such enthusiasm!" Henry is heading below; Liz, on the wheel, calls out to him, "Hey Bomby!" He turns around. Liz: "Um, just wait. Hang on a second." (He gets hit with spray.) Liz, laughing: "I just wanted to get you with a wave." Below, Annalise fills her water bottle in the galley. From cabin, shot of the crew on the stern in the washing machine, then pans to Henry drinking below. Annalise, below, sprays water on her face from a spray bottle. Henry, below in long underwear, holds a plastic pee bottle; after filling it he dumps it into the cockpit. Crew on the stern: "Oh, no! You're kidding!" Sam, standing in the hatch filming himself, to the crew in the cockpit: "I'm gonna throw up" (He does.) Sam: "No more breakfast." Sam, to Henry, below: "Why do you do this?" Henry: "Do what? Do the Volvo? Because when you're driving on deck downwind at 25 knots it's about as good as it gets. So it's worth the other stuff. [shrugs] And you get to eat porridge every morning as well."Shot from the cabin aft toward the cockpit, where crew is silhouetted against the evening sky as TTToP sails fast on starboard gybe. Pretty sure this is from the previous evening when they were north of Madeira, before they gybed to port around 19:18 UTC. Below, in her neoprene hood at the nav station, Liz talks to Sam: "We just gybed west next to Madeira. Looks like this might be our last gybe on starboard." (This would have been the gybe around 22:37 UTC.) Liz: "Just got the [2300] position report in; it's not ideal. A long way to go. About 40 miles from the first boat. We're going to have to push quite hard, but we'll hopefully catch them up when they start slowing down... A bit disappointed, because we thought we'd been pushing quite hard. But obviously not as hard as the others. So we're gonna have to try a bit harder." Lights on Madeira; the loom of a lighthouse. Shot of someone (Liz?) unvelcro-ing the cuff of her foulies. Martin, below in his bunk, says something I can't quite decipher: "We just gybed, [something something] behind us and Atlantic Ocean straight ahead." Sam pans down from Martin in his bunk to Nicolas asleep in the bunk below him.Nicolas, below: "The news is, we have just gybed a couple of minutes ago." Liz pesters him with Wisdom, a plush toy albatross. Nicolas: "With Wisdom we have one more crewmember on board... We still have 20, 25 knots of windspeed." (Liz keeps pestering him, having the albatross attack him, lick his face. He keeps pushing it away; tries to go on with the interview.) "We are not so far away from Madeira." Sam (to albatross): "What do you think, Wisdom?" Wisdom (voiced by Liz, off-camera): "This is really exciting! We're gonna see land, and other boats, and we're gonna gybe again, and then we're gonna stack, and then we're gonna tack, and then we're gonna gybe, and bail water out of the boat, and we're gonna annoy Nicolas, and it's gonna be really really really fun. [Wisdom does a barrel roll.] Woo!"Uninterrupted stern cam shot of TTToP surfing at high speed toward the setting sun. At first the shot is sped up time-lapse style. Then it suddenly slows down and becomes slomo as spray comes over the boat, then continues at normal speed.Martin on the stern as TTToP surfs on starboard gybe. Martin: "This is one of the best moments in the race. We've just left all the marks, all the shit (?)... stack is up, and now we're sending it; 30 knots." Major washing machine shots looking forward into the sunset, looking aft, mast-cam view of the stern and the wake with the person on the helm (Francesca?) working hard as they surf. Bianca on the cockpit sole being helped up by Liz after being washed off the stack, which inflated her PFD. Bianca, panting and dripping under the coaming: "So I just went to windward to go and get the halyard to tie it off, sat in front of the winch to try and clear it, just as the wave came and took me out. But I was clipped on, mom; don't worry." She laughs. Slomo shots of sending it, wide-angle shot showing Dee on the helm and another boat (Vestas?) crossing their bow; then changes to slomo shot of spray. Liz clipping in and climbing out the sheet to the clew of the Fractional 0; Martin helps her back on board. Slomo washing machine shots in the cockpit. Slomo spray and grinding with sunset in background. Epic stuff.