Sophie on the rail: We are so close. We're coming up to the TSS, and we're gonna bear away. And we're 0.2 of a mile away from Brunel... we just gotta pass them. Joan looks at tablet, calls them being clear of the exclusion zone. Trying to punch through to leeward of Brunel. Drone shot of them gybing in front of AkzoNobel. Tamara, on the bow, talks in Spanish. Neti looks through binoculars. AkzoNobel crosses behind them. Neti talks in Spanish. He repeats in English: We're pushing hard, we take the first chance to overtake them, and we take it. Now we have to wait and see what happens with Dongfeng on the other side. Hopefully we keep ahead of Brunel, and the guys on the other side. We'll see.Rob, in the midnight sun: In and out of Aarhus today. It was hard. It's been nonstop all day. In fact this whole leg's been nonstop. Got out of phase, a bit shifty. Was pretty good to see all the people on shore. Just been fighting, fighting, fighting. Waiting for a chance to get by. Be patient. Wait for them to make a mistake. Keep nibbling away. Pablo: Talks in Spanish about being tired, Dongfeng. Repeats in English: We're tired, like eveyrone I guess. The important thing is to keep the boat fast. Couple of hours of sleep. We are with Dongfeng; they are very close. Have been fighting all day. Meter by meter. Hopefully we can take them over tonight. More discussion in Spanish. Pablo: We have been doing a lot of maneuvers. And in my case I have been on the wheel. Good fun; with Dongfeng we have been fighting. Slomo of RIB alongside. Willy. Joan with his tablet, looking at Dongfeng. Spectator boats following them. Tack. (Oh, this is their Aarhus footage.) Crowd cheering. Xabi in the pit. Vestas crossing their bow. Tamara talks in Spanish while trimming. Slomo of Dongfeng ahead of them. Blair on the foredeck looking SO punchy. Xabi looks through binoculars. Lowering the J1. Slomo of Xabi in the sunset.TJ, on the cabin, recaps: Beating upwind in 17 knots quite nicely. Always knew there would be this big transition, didn't expect it to be this abrupt. Wasn't ideal for us. A lot lighter than we expected. On the masthead zero. Nice peel. Norway's close. Might be an interesting tricky night. Lot of clouds around. Stacking. SiFi: Craziness. Big wind shifts. Helicopter noise. Other boat with sunset and helicopter. Charlie talks with SiFi about their position. SiFi gives speeds of other boats. "Probably wouldn't hurt to set it up." TJ puts way binoculars. Hoisting the MH0 with the J1 up.Brunel sailing alongside as they move into new wind after the ridge. Other boats on the horizon. Charles gestures gallicly. Drone shot showing Dongfeng with Brunel in the background. Drone shots. Binnacle. Kevin on the helm. Pascal looks through binoculars and talks in French. Jack and Pascal look around, tense. Pascal: Nothing's for sure... Next is to catch the pressure and to gybe. Quite good timing, because starboard we're going to catch more pressure, maybe 30 knots. We will see. Jack: No comment, no comment. Pascal: I'm a bit afraid the pressure comes in like that (gestures from astern) and everybody... Pressure is coming in quite fast now. Drone shots of Dongfeng and Brunel. Charles on the helm. Stacking from forward to amidships. Brunel gybes and crosses their stern. Charles and Pascal talk in French. Kevin, on the helm: Brunel just gybed behind us. MAPFRE quite a lot of gauge to leeward, so they will be in front of us. Wind will increase, 30 knots. Going inside the Shetlands tomorrow. Now we have to be fast, do good maneuver, catch MAPFRE. Plenty of opportunities to be fast, choose the good sail. Most of the navigation choices have been made; now it's a speed contest. Drone shot overhead. Drone shots. Stacking to leeward for the gybe. We see the gybe. Fabien and Black grinding. Carolijn calls trim.Drone shot of Akzo flopping with the J1 as a windseeker. Jules, standing on the mast: Best breeze is through there. Nicho, with binoculars: They're all on port with zeroes. Other boats on the horizon. Nicolai on the helm talks to Simeon about the wind. Nicho: Fastest we've been for about half an hour. Crew sleeping in the bow. Luke: talks about broken sleep because of maneuvers. Going to plug in some music and zone out. Low-alttitude drone shot of Akzo in drifting conditions. Nicho talks to Jules about best heading. Justin: Gotta get out to that line, don't we? Nicho responds about the ridge. Flopping with MH0. Jules: Might be our turn now. Simeon: You wanna come down on this? Other boat (MAPFRE) to starboard. Justin: Just catch it before it dies. Nicho: That way (points ahead) 20 miles there's good southerlies. Talks about MAPFRE next to them; different scenarios as the breeze fills in. High drone shot of the two boats.Sailing upwind in light conditions with MAPFRE, AkzoNobel, and Vestas on their starboard quarter. Stacking in the evening twighlight. Scallywag to leeward. Annalise points out the other boats around them. Dee on the bow: We're kind of like the home team, a lot of people came down to visit, so a busy stopover. Really nice to leave with that kind of energy. Leg is complex. Lots of corners, lots of tidal gates. Pretty busy job for the navigator. Brian at the nav station talks about the course. Brian: Biggest challenge is all the land effects. The weather models are accurate in the oceans, but with land heating up and cooling down it's a little unpredictable. Looking where the fleet is going, where the wind is, where the tide is. Martin on the helm with MAPFRE behind them. Lucas looks at them throgh binoculars. Dee: Still want to be as competitive as possible. Haven't had a good result. Think we deserve it. Have been chipping away at Scallwag. Want to not be at the bottom of the leaderboard by The Hague.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.Drone shot of AkzoNobel on a glassy sea. Someone (Nicolai? Nico?) looks through binoculars as Konrad films him. "I feel like someone's watching me." Emily, on the bow: Hopefully within the last 24 hours. Brunel is just over there (she points to starboard). We see a drone shot with AkzoNobel in the foreground and Brunel ahead and to starboard of them. ...about 2 miles away. Wind is going to be up and down, not a lot of sleep, a lot of tacks and sail changes. Overhead drone shot. Sail change. Martine: We're not in a great position right now, but overall still good. In a good position with the fleet, and with a 24-hour record. But Brunel is the closest boat to us on the scoreboard. Stacking forward. Martine: Right now we're focusing a lot on Brunel, but we have to be protective of the fleet. Drone shot.Drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing in misty conditions. Brunel on their starboard beam. Jules talks about how it was unlucky we went into 7 knots of wind... Justin interrupts: It's not unlucky it's just [bleep] light. Simeon looks at Brunel through binoculars and talks about their sail combination. Jules: Trying to defend our lead, which is very slim at the moment. Slomo crew work: Grinding, foredeck, steering, stacking. Jules: Still with 350 miles to go you don't wanna get too involved in a straight match race. You don't want to give them free reins to sail past. Staying with him, minimizing the risk, but also sailing the plan to get there as quickly as possible. Slomo crew work: Hoisting a sail. Drone shot.Sophie, on the bow in light conditions, talks about the compression that's happening. Knew it was coming, but it's super good to see the other boats. She points out Vestas and Dongfeng in front of them. Xabi, on the bow, talks in Spanish. He talks about Dongfeng ahead of them, and points out Vestas on the port beam. He repeats in English. 600 miles to go to Cardiff. He talks more in Spanish, repeats in English. After this leg hasn't gone well for them, this light spot is important to try to make a change. Hopefully they will be close and have more options south of Ireland. Making numbers all the time and they don't look very good for us right now. Dongfeng ahead, and have a boat between us. Going to be a big fight all the way to The Hague. Neti trims and talks in Spanish. Slomo shots of crew in the cockpit. Rob throws a coiled line. Sophie on the bow. Blair looks through binoculars for another boat. Xabi trimming. Vestas on the horizon. Dongfeng on the horizon. Crew on the bow.Xabi, in the cockpit talks in Spanish. Wind is about 12 knots. Talks about Turn the Tide and AkzoNobel, the approach to Newport. Repeats in Spanish: The last 24 hours we knew would be very tricky. Last night had winds up to 35 knots downwind. Now we've passed the front and we're going upwind with 7 or 8 knots. Going to be a compression. Managed to pass Turn the Tide, and made some distance as well with AkzoNobel. Are now 8 miles from Vestas. Still some hope. A lot can happen. Crew stacks to leeward in anticipation of a tack. Working the jury-rigged keel turing the tack. Joan, Xabi, and Neti clustered over the nav station, talking in Spanish. Washing machine from the cabin looking aft. Rob on the helm; Xabi on the pedestal. As it gets dark, wind is lighter, Rob looks to starboard through binoculars. Willy forward for a sail change. Looks like going from MH0 to J0 or vice versa.Trystan jury rigs a freshwater pump. Talks about needing to fix things. Parko looks throgh binoculars. Stack forward. J3 clew (think theyr'e triple-heading). Alex working in the pit. Alex, on the bow, talks about how even if you're down you don't want to let it affect the others in the crew. Important to keep pushing along, and be positive. Antonio smiles. Trystan on the helm: This sucks; I hate it. It's slow and hot... I'm just over it.Working on the bow. Crew laughing in the cockpit at sunrise. Charlie comes up from below to report on the sched: "Generally a little higher and quicker than those guys." He goes on to discuss strategy with Tom. Phil, on the helm, talks about his knee being sore, which is why he's standing on one foot. TJ does pushups. TJ, below, washes his shirt in a bucket, then wrings it out of the forward hatch. Shirt drying on a pedestal. Tom steering. Someone going out to the MH0 clew to put a new sheet on for the gybe; stumbles coming back over the rail. (Maybe Nick?) Tony, on the helm, explains that dongfent has gybed, so now they're going to gybe to protect their position. We see the gybe. SiFi looks through binoculars to starboard (presumably at Dongfeng), talks about them being on port tack.Sunrise. Alex on the helm. Clouds. Alex: Massive header. Ben sleeping against the stack. Witty at the nav station: Not very good. Brunel got a bit of speed and got through to leeward of us. Decision on where to tack today. Computer screen with routing software. Parko looking through binoculars. Annemieke: We have our moments when we do well; other times we struggle. Difficult conditions. Very choppy sea state, and the windspeed is up and down. You see it in the whole fleet. Rain showers to windward. Peter on the helm. Witty talks to Parko about what the boats to leeward are doing. "We might not get over all of them but we'll get at least some." Ben wrestles the MH0 (I asssume) aloft on the bow.Time lapse of the cabin below. Nicolai: We're not going so well this morning. We're reshuffling the weight of the boat. It's quite painful when you're losing. Simeon on the helm; Luke crossing the cockpit in slomo. Emily looks through binoculars at a competitor on their port side. Luke: Have been struggling. Breeze is shifty and up and down. "It's not the easiest sailing, and we haven't been doing it particularly well... Put it down to learning I guess."Spreader cam view of AkzoNobel triple-heading. Bow cam view looking aft. Someone (Martine?) looking forward through binoculars, presumably at a competitor. Shot forward from behind the wheel of washing machine and a competitor crossing ahead of them (Dongfeng). Nicolai, standing on the stern trimming the main, talks about Dongfeng and (unfortunately) MAPFRE crossing them. Last night they were behind us; now they've crossed us. Not the best morning. But still 15 mornings to go. Shot of the other boat to port. Stern cam footage of them sailing on starboard. Jules and Nicho sit at the nav station talking strategy. Nicho, eating: "No shortage of breeze." Martine below. She guesses she got the most sleep, but not anymore. Going to be gybing. Luke: With the two gybes in his off-watch he got about an hour of sleep during his four off. Jules talks about having lost a lot of distance to the boats nearby. Did some good gybes, got a couple of hundred meters behind Brunel. But now they've coughed up some distance. Spreader cam view of shifting the stack aft.Drone shots of sunrise (?) with islands in the distance. A competitor is 3 miles ahead of them. High drone shot of islands. Blair: Awesome seeing the Three Kings in the morning. Pretty surreal sailing down the coast now. Flyby by a helicopter, a fishing boat. A plane flies overhead doing acrobatics. A boat comes alongside. Another boat comes alongside with MAPFRE flags flying. Xabi: So hard to overtake Dongfeng. Pablo: Only 150 miles to go; we have them less than a mile in front. Xabi: Catching them a little bit. New Zealand flag on the backstay. Sophie going aloft. Dongfeng to leeward. Blair spots TTToP through the binoculars. Willy talks about compression being expected. Chance to pass them, but it's remote. Joan: Seeing the race leaders in front. Light air for a bit. Just saw AkzoNobel was winning the race; on the AIS only 7 miles. Willy: Last 100 miles you're all on deck. Xabi looks through binoculars. Xabi trimming. Rob on the helm. Alongside Dongfeng a few boatlengths away. Dongfeng astern. Other boats ahead of them and inside. Dongfeng close behind in the sunset. Sophie rigging the J2 for hoisting. Triple heading. Dongfeng close behind them. Sophie: This was our first good opportunity to get past them. Have had 80% of the race at the back of the fleet. The vibe on the boat hasn't been good. Being back up now, gaining these miles, and can see Akzo over there; it's really exciting. Not giving up, fighting to the end.Liz looks through binoculars and reports on the boat ahead of them. Bianca talks about the intensity. Shot of AkzoNobel in front of land a mile or so away. Dee talks about how the boats behind have closed on them more than they thought. Drifting conditions, being in sight of the other boats is really hard work. Liz on th ehelm with other boats on the horizon behind her. Low-altitude drone shot of them drifting with land a few miles away.Antonio looks through binoculars at AkzoNobel, sailing in light air a quarter-mile ahead of them. AkzoNobel a quarter-mile to leeward. Witty calls for crew to get out of the forepeak and right on the bow. At the nav station: Witty says "238 miles of this rubbish... Wait for the right opportunity. Patience..." Sailing alongsisde Akzo. Alex trimming. Witty: "Just press in the puff." Trystan: "Full on, isn't it? We'll keep changing watch; keep the fresh people going... They just got nudged ahead." Libby, looking at her tablet, calls the angle on the other tack. Tacking the MH0; AkzoNobel three-quarters of a mile ahead of them. Antonio: Tight to the end. Libby looking through binoculars: "Pretty patchy out where Dee is." Libby explains that they got too focused on Akzo, maybe, and didn't pay enough attention to TTToP. Marcus discusses whether they'll be able to stay ahead of TTToP. 100 miles to go. "Not having a meltdown just yet." Shot of TTToP on the horizon.Sunset. Stacking aft in lighter wind. Moon. Witty, at the nav station, explains the details of why Akzo will not show up on the next sched. He sounds frustrated. "How did I round up some of the dumbest human beings on the planet?" They get the sched. Dee's only 9[ miles behind us. Antonio and Ben look astern and argue over whether they're seeing a container ship or Dee. Witty: That means Akzo's somewhere between 10 and 25 miles. Antonio looks, doesn't see them. Witty uses the binoculars in the last light to look for them.Brad, up the mast wearing a GoPro (realize it's a Garmin), looks for wind, calls down to the deck. View from deck level as they flop. Knotmeter: 1.6. Hoisting the J1. Luke stands by the MH0 clew. Luke: Brad's just up the mast to pop the battens. GoPro shot of Brad doing that. Luke: 2/3 of the distance through the leg, Scallywag just 4 miles away. Simeon: Brunel, Scallywag, and ourselves. Cecile: Hopefully the guys behind us get stuck in the same stuff. Shot of another boat on the horizon. Martine takes a bearing. Jules talks about "going over there to get in that breeze. Luke looks through the binoculars. Simeon talks down into the cabin: "Need to get more snacks. Keep up the motivation. Luke lies below. Nicolai eats. Simeon: All short-term plans. Luke: Sea state is calm. Going to get flatter as well. Winch closeup. Sunset.Pablo, in the cockpit, talks in Spanish about the competition. Rob gives a recap: heading southeast through the monsoon. Westerly breeze, big clouds, 10-30 knots of wind with big direction changes. A lot of work. They're a day behind the fleet. Giving it their best shot. Dongfeng on the bow. Fingers crossed we'll see AkzoNobel again before Auckland. Xabi looking through binoculars. Louis on the clew. Easing sails in a squall. Slomo spray on the bow. Blair and Willy grinding in slomo. Grinding in a squall. Rain clouds. Slomo rain. Tamara makes the shaka sign.In the morning light, Ben stands on the boom to look through binoculars ahead of them. Ben: "We've seen a sailing boat with a square-topped mainsail and a masthead sail, so we think it might be one of the other Volvos." Have been following them in the sched, and now have seen them in real life. Below, Libby calls out the latest sched. Sounds pretty happy. "Spotted Brunel about 40 minutes ago off our windward bow." Crew eats breakfast on the bow, talking about it. Witty: "One or two days ago we were a hundred miles behind the leaders." Ben: "We had to fucking work pretty hard the last two days." John talks about how they've worked hard, so to get where they can actually see and identify a yacht is cool. Witty talks about not giving up, keeping trying. "It's a really important leg for us. It would be catastrophic to come in last." Night shots of lightning. Witty on a PA tells the crew about Brunel being 9 miles away on AIS. "We're winning the sched for the first time, so well done lads." Talks about a rain cloud. "We've got this rain cloud which looks [BLEEP] horrendous." Beautiful shot of the waning gibbous moon rising through clouds behind the helmsman, silhouetting him. Next day, Witty talks on deck sounding despondent about getting stuck in the rain cloud with no wind. We see Libby at the nav station with Grant looking at Expedition's "Strip Chart" display. Libby: "True wind angle's at 120 here." Grant [pointing]: "So all this is starboard gybe..." Witty talks about losing 50 miles when they got stuck in the cloud and the other boats didn't. "probably lost 10 of the 30 miles there, and then we lost 20 of the 30 miles sailing 170 degrees off course... "We just did one of the stupidest things ever and now we're 30 miles behind running last again... We're the ones letting ourselves down. It's not bad luck; we're just being idiots. And we deserve to be here at the moment. And I'm just concerned that you don't get too many chances in this quality fleet to go from 30 miles behind or 100 miles behind to back in the lead. Somehow we've got 3,000 miles to figure out how we're going to do it. Again." He and Grant sit on the bow discussing it.