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Drone

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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.

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.

Drone shot of Vestas triple-heading on starboard gybe. Drone shot of peeling to the MH0, furling the J0. SiFi, below: Last night was important tactically. Explains taking the offshore option. Made the choice we made because we thought we might get ahead of MAPFRE and Dongfeng that way. As it turns out, MAPFRE joined us. Now the overall of the race is resting on who made the right choice on which lane. We've seen one boat pick one, one pick the other, and one sort of waver between the two. Roy Disney, Jr. on deck. Charlie on the helm. Stacey grinding. Tony fiddles with the clew of a sail. Drones shot of lowering the J0, pulling the tack of the J0 off the bowsprit.

High drone shot of AkzoNobel with Brunel and MAPFRE behind them. Martine grinding as they peel to the MH0. Martine: after the mark in Aarhus, being so far behind we didn't expect to be in this position. But after a lot of flat out, no-sleep watches, here we are. Brad trimming with the other boats behind them. "Last day of it all. I'm feeling a sense of relief, but it's all on back there. No thought about resting tomorrow; next eight hours is going to be flat out. No eating no sleeping no drinking for the next eight hours. It's all on." Low drone shot from ahead.

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.

HIgh drone shot in low-light conditions. Nicolai stacking below. Jules in the cockpit talking about wind with Nicolai and Nicho. Jules: Got a little complicated there. Models had a big shift. Trying to time that, and dealing wiht the TSS. High drone shot of Akzo with Brunel a quarter mile behind them. Emily stacking uphill below. Jules at the nav station talking to Nicho. Nicolai getting his gear on below, talking to Jules about the upcoming wind. Nicho talks about changing to the J0; confirms with Nicolai that the outrigger is already set up for it. Nicolai to Nicho: Set up J1, J3, outrigger? Slomo washing machine on deck. Brunel behind them. Drone shot of both boats. Nicolai below, his face covered in freshly-applied sunscreen: Day 2? Day 3. Rounded the virtual mark off Norway. Transitions... Talks about the stress on the three boats with a chance to win the race. "Stress is on them. We just want to sail as fast as we can and win the leg."

Drone shots of Scallywag sailing upwind wih TTToP a half mile away. Parko, below: We've basically been match racing with them since the start of this leg, and the position between us has changed a half dozen times now. I don't think anyone's going to change to a smaller sail, and after a couple of hours the breeze should lighten up a bit. Crew working in the cockpit in rougher conditions. Annemieke and Seng Huang Lee on the pedestal. Parko, below: Going through the moding, and you have to laugh sometimes; all the sails are flapping and you're still going 20 knots... Last chance to drive these boats hard before the Hague, in this edition. Slomo washing machine. Parko: It's always amazing toward the end of these campaigns. Amazing events, getting to compete against the best in the business. I think we're going to be close to them the rest of the way; I wouldn't be surprised if our position changes again before the finish. Drone shot.

Drone shot of Vestas tacking with the J1 and land in the background. Charlie in the cockpit: Little bit of a situation when we passed the virtual mark and the breeze died, and we ended up on the wrong side of the TSS. A little disappointing. But it's going to make some fun racing on the last night of the race. Drone shots: stacking, sailing upwind. Mark and Charlie sailing in the cockpit. Phil grinding. Drone shot from overhead.

High drone shot of Dongfeng with MAPFRE a half mile astern and to weather. Low drone shot. Both boats under MH0 in light conditions. More drone shots.

Ben and Trystan go through food packs by the galley. Libby tells them 10 minutes to the virtual mark. Witty asks how far. Libby: 4.7 miles. Fleet compressed; at one point everyone was within 6 or 7 miles; now they've spread out again. Might be able to get past Turn the Tide. Will see in 40 minutes. Boats around the "mark" are going slower than boats still going upwind, so wind is light. Witty calls to be ready for a tack. "Hopefully get across Plastics." They tack. Owner on the grinder. Drone shots of them converging with TTToP, both sailing very slowly.

Amazing sunrise drone shot with AkzoNobel sailing across in front of it. Luke on the helm: I'd say everyone is shattered. It'd be a good word. This has probably been the longest stretch of sleep for people. Unfortunately Brad and I are on watch while everyone else is getting this great sleep. I think in total we've probably had an hour since the start, of solid sleep. But that's the race; it's a short leg. It's part of what we do. Lots of corners, lots of places to see, different countries. Stacking. Drone shot of pulling J1 forward for a sail change. Brad, hanking on the J1, talks about not having sleep. Getting up able to see all the boats. Almost a restart. Feeling hopeful as well. Simeon: Back in the same spot we were 24 hours ago. All compressing in. Leaders are just 5 miles in front, hitting a wall of no pressure. Drone shot with sunrise. Luke: We keep on pushing because if we're going to take the effort to be out here, might as well push and try to win the leg. Doesn't mean too much for overall points for us, but if we're all going to be together and do our last race, we'll do the best we can. Sunrise.

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.

Drone shot of Scallywag triple-heading. Libby: I'd be pretty keen to split the stack now, so we have options. TTToP a few boatlenghts behind. Libby: We didn't do to well coming in. Turning in a marina which is always pretty exciting to watch. Close rounding, bit of a frenzy. Passing lighthouse. Rounding the turning mark. Libby: A3 up as soon as you can. Libby: No rest, lots of corners, lots of sail changes. We're just trying to get to the Hague. Witty: I haven't been in Denmark for 20 years. There you go; that was in and out. Done.

Drone shots of Vestas sailing upwind with a lot of heel. Jena in the cockpit. SiFi with his tablet. More of Jena grinding. SiFi: We've had our final course. We'll be sailing into the marina at Aarhus. And then a virtual mark off Norway. Which is going to put us through a transition line on the way up, and again on the way back. They're making the course longer. Drone shot. J0, with J3 hoisted but furled. Foredeck work. Jena in the cockpit again. Stacking aft. Birds flying (geese?). Mark (I think?) coiling in the pit.

High drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing past the wind farm. Nicho talks to Brad about getting rid of the J3 and bring the J2 in a bit. Brad does that. Jules: Not doing too well at the moment. Didn't have too good a run from the buoy up at Norway. Brad hoists the MH0. Simeon, with binoculars: Pretty disappointed. Off the pace; out of sync. Peel. Simeon: Still a long way to go. Everyone's working hard. Getting a little bit of rest now. I don't think anyone slept longer than 40 minutes. This afternoon we'll get into Aarhus, then back up north again. Drone shot with wind farm.

Drone shot of Scallywag sailing on starboard. Drone shows TTToP to weather of them. Alex: Turn the Tide. We've been next to them the whole time. We're just reaching along, boatspeed the same. Happy with how we're going. You go the same speed most of the time, then you have your moment when you're quicker. Both boats waiting to capitalize on a mistake; tension is pretty high. Pretty stressful. Drone shot of triple-heading wth the J2 flapping. Alex: Yesterday we were ahead; now we're even. Just gotta have patience. Drone shot as J2 is furled.

Blair, by the runner, talks about the competitive situation. They've stretched out on the boats behind on this downwind stretch, but have managed to stay close to Dongfeng. As we've come in toward Denmark now we've compressed a bit. 1.5 miles behind them. J0 ("joe") reaching at the moment. All's good, but hopefully we can catch these guys some more before the Hague, and catch them. Everyone's running on 20 minutes sleep; I should go below and get some sleep. (Asked about Brunel.) Good that they're 20 miles behind, but they need to keep focused on the guys in front. Beautiful drone shot of them surfing with the sun behind them. Drone shots of them triple-heading. Blair on the helm. Slomo of someone taking spray on the foredeck. Wind farm. Spreader cam shot of Dongfeng ahead of them.

Drone shot of Vestas sailing fast. Wind farm. Charlie: Sailing to Aarhus in Denmark, home of Vestas wind systems. Drone shot of the wind farm. Jena: Almost home; woo hoo!

Drone shot of AkzoNobel in the near-darkness below. Drone shots of them sailing downwind triple-heading. Crew trimming in the cockpit. Another boat to port: Brunel. Brad: 1:00 in the morning, sun's coming up. In the lee of Norway. Will likely be building soon. Brunel behind and to windward; doing all right on them. Just ahead is Vestas. Drone shots of them surfing with the dawn behind them.

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.

Drone shot of Vestas furling the J0 (I think) with the J1 set under it. Rain clouds and sunset on the horizon beyond. Crew on the weather rail looking at the other boats in a line to weather. Clouds. Gull flying overhead. Tony on the helm. Rain coming toward them. Charlie: Should we dump some water here? Nick talks about sailing really lifted, and now it's a bit tougher. Boats to weather doing well against them. Big rain cloud coming here. Drone shot of them sailing toward rain under J1. Rain comes down toward them. SiFi as the rain hits. SiFi checks his tablet.

Drone shot of Brunel to weather and astern, then AkzoNobel in the foreground. Shot with Nicho driving and Brunel behind them. Slomo Martine in the sunset. Martine: It's a pretty cool sight. Today's the longest day of the year. Which means we'll have the longest night. Was forecast 35 knots, upwind and cloud. It's actually quite nice. A bit slower. It did change quite a bit in the beginning. Now on a big line with that group there, Dongfeng and MAPFRE, our group here, us and Brunel, and those down below. Drone shot with AkzoNobel silhouetted by the setting sun.

Drone shot of AkzoNobel triple-heading with the J0. Jules through the hatch: Think Turn the Tide might have gone to the J1. Shot of chart screen. Jules and Nicho talk about wind, sail selection. "Just starting to build a bit now, into J1 country." Martine looks through binoculars. Crew discusses other boats and their sail selection: Vestas, Dongfeng. Sail change. Nicho: Just changed from the J0 to the J1. Not an easy change, becaue the bowman has to hank on the new sail forward; he usually complains about that a bit. Don't know why. Goes on to talk about competion. "Slightly smaller sail, go a bit higher. Slightly smaller sail, but it gets us where we need to be. Next question is, if it's too windy for this sail when we get to the corner, we'll have to do another heinous sail change, and he'll probably change again. [He asks Luke on the helm if he thinks the bowman will complain; Luke agrees.] Nicho: That's why once in a blue moon you go up there with him so then he can't complain... Won't be doing that again. Slomo pole cam footage from outboard of Nicho on the bow with someone (presumably Brad) hooking up and hoisting the J1.

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.

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.

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 a distant red boat with AkzoNobel coming into view in the foreground, triple-heading. Slomo drone shot of stacking to leeward for a gybe. Slomo of the gybe from the drone. Nicolai: Finally in the breeze now. Long and difficult day, getting through the ridge into the new pressure. Now we're all heading to the north of Scotland. MAPFRE just in front of us, we're in second place. Fleet behind... Setting ourselves up for a big battle and big winds. I think the boat's ready for it. We're pretty much ready for anything. Slomo washing machine; Martine in the cockpit.

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.

Drone shot of Scallywag sailing in light conditions. Annemieke: In a transition zone... It's really light; super tricky. Parko on the helm. High drone shot of the boat passing just under the drone in glassy conditions. Bowsprit. MH0 flopping. Witty on the bow: This leg far from over. As we say, we never give up. Last sched we were only 13 miles behind. I think it's 100% changed me. More good than bad. But changed me in a bad way too. The good stuff is I'm more tolerant and definitely more patient. When you can be part of the development of someone like Nipper, or you go through the loss of like Fish and that's like circumstances or other things that have happened... if you're 5 minutes late to work you get caught in traffic or... your priorities change. My priorities have changed a hell of a lot. You realize you can't control anything. You can prepare better than you have in the past, but you can't control anything. Libby at the nav station gets the sched: We're third. I don't really understand the sched. We made a 3-mile gain on the fleet. they're in very light winds. We were the fastest boat by half a knot. As they flop, Libby: At the moment we're smashing the [bleep] out of it!

Drone shot of 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.

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.

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.

Willy talks in Spanish on the bow as they sail in light conditions. He repeats in English: 24 hours after the start, pretty much in the same spot they were at the start. Together with Dongfeng and Brunel. Three or four days to go. Forecast is to start going upwind. Probably the Volvo decided in the next 10 hours. Because after that the wind comes and it's harder to pass people. Drone shots: stacking aft, sailing with competitors in the background, rounding Irish headland, Blair aloft with Ireland behind him. Other boats all around them. Slomo of Xabi. Brunel and Dongfeng. AkzoNobel, TTToP, Vestas. Rob on the bow talks to Joan about strategy. Joan reads off his tablet about Dongfeng's status. Three other boats and Fastnet Rock. Dongfeng and Vestas behind them. Sophie calls to Rob: There's seaweed everywhere. Rob: Tricky race so far. Gave Dongfeng a 5-mile lead at Fastnet. Tricky transition. Akzo and Vestas coming from behind.... I don't know what we did wrong, but it was all very difficult. Now beating up west side of Ireland, around islands. Evening's been good so far, but it's going to be a long night. Last tacking exhange overtook Brunel; they're about 3/4 of a mile behind them, Dongfeng 3/4 of a mile ahead, and then Vestas ahead of them. Busy night with lots of tacks. Got some sleep on the first night. No one's resting today or tonight. Going to have to keep pushing hard. Keep the coffee coming and we'll see how we feel in two days time. Slomo of Xabi grinding. Stacking. Slomo spray on the bow. Tack. Irish coast. Xabi looking through binoculars: Yes, he has tacked. Drone shot of them sailing upwind with Dongfeng a quarter mile ahead. Beautiful drone shots with clouds and land, other boats.

Drone shots of them sailing past Ireland. Ben: We're just off the tip of Ireland. Fastnet rock just down to leeward of us. Drone shots of land. Ben: We've caught up another 30 knots, so we're 30 knots behind instead of 60. Drone shots. Antonio: Happy to Fastnet rock again. Obviously not in the best position, but we are recovering. I think we are in the fight. Plenty of miles to go. Let's keep positive. Drone shots with bird. Antonio: We have a headland 7 miles, then go north upwind. Pass the high pressure and then a cold front passing and we start the fast speeds. Drone shot.

Martine holds the J1 clew as they flop in glassy conditions. Vestas and another boat are visible behind her. Martine: I think the first one that gets the wind is going to be the leader. Everyone's in the same situation; pretty slow. Luke on the helm: If we get the breeze first we can extend a bit. Eventually someone will be the first to get the northerly wind... Good for sleeping, though. Jules talks about wind. "Yeah, there goes Dongfeng. I reckon we'll go pretty soon." "Do they have the masthead?" "No; it's in the air though." They start moving, with other boats on their port quarter. They tack onto starboard. Furling the J1 forward. Drone shot of them triple heading and working on the foredeck.

Drone shot alongside as AkzoNobel sails in 15 knots of wind. Looks like they have a J0 and J3 up; MH0 and J2 (maybe?) are up but furled. Maybe shifting gears in expectation of falling wind? Brad goes out to the MH0 clew to take the lazy sheet off. Nicho talks about them expecting lighter winds as they approach the Irish coast. Beautiful drone shot with grassy hillside in the foreground and AkzoNobel and two other competitors (TTToP and Vestas, I think, from the tracker) behind them approaching the coast. Jules talks strategy in the cockpit. Jules: It's pretty rugged, and the water's pretty fresh and clean, and there's lots of granite that's been weathered by lots of storms, so there's lots of caves and arches. Drone shot flying through a sea cave (!) with AkzoNobel visible beyond. Then another shot of a small opening in the rock with a red-sailed boat (MAPFRE?) beyond. Jules: Pretty green because it rains a lot. And there's lots of good pubs. That's why I like it. He talks about the fleet, and compression; first 6 boats all within 3-5 miles of each other. Emily: Quite cool to see the geography of Ireland. Usually the wather's bad so you don't see it that much. Justin on the bow with Fastnet rock behind him. Drone shot with ridge and AkzoNobel beyone. Nicho: third or fourth at the moment; same as we are overall. Way forward for us to score as high up as possible, but certainly conditions ahead could have boats doing damage. We need a little of that to help us get on the podium overall. Just keep pushing the boat and sailing as quick as we can.

Drone shot of Scallywag passing behind an oil platform. Jack (new face!): It's just like riding a bike with team Scallywag. Never a dull moment. It was actually pleasant sailing yesterday, sailing down the river, but just ran out of wind. I've sailed with them for a number of years, with Nipper. Ben: Went through a cloud, a transition, 25 knots to 8 knots. Hopefully the other boats are going slower than this. Jack: We copped a heavy punishment for a little mistake... Put the bow down thinking we were in the new pressure, and we weren't, and fell off the cliff. Drone shot of them triple heading. Ben below asks Libby re: the latest sched. How did we do. Libby: 40 mile gain... Dongfeng is in 1 knot of wind... At the moment we're still gaining. And they have some tide against them. Parko, below: We made a mistake, and we paid dearly for it. Trying to fight back. Fell a hundred miles behind, and we've taken a big chunk of that back. Drone shot of Scallywag surfing with oil platform in the back. Parko: That was about as brutal as it gets.

Drone shot of dophins swimming with land in the background, then drone turns to show Dongfeng triple heading in light wind. Kevin on the helm; his left hand is wrapped with a bandage. Justine trimming. Jack: It's a nice spot to be in... After the start got some good current and passed the fleet. Next transition is the south of Ireland. Do everything we can to work through that. Don't think about it and just move forward. Charles climbs the mast to look ahead and to starboard (looking for wind, I assume). Justine grinds. Charles and Fabien look at wind. Stacking forward. Daryl clips into a halyard, explains he's going up to look at the wind. Talks about the land formations ahead of them and the anticipated wind drop. Kevin grins in the pit; they hoist him up. Drone shot of Daryl at the hounds. He calls to the deck. Drone pulls back to show land beyond dthem. Justine and Carolijn talking in the cockpit. Tacking close to shore. Other boats visible on the horizon behind them as they tack. Carolijn: Nice pressure here. Land. Low altitude drone shot.

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.

Drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing in the sunrise. Simeon: Went through the first night out of Cardiff, and got out with the tide out of the Bristol Channel, and breeze built and shifted right, so making good progress toward Fastnet Rock. A bit of compression at Ireland. Good pressure; cold wind from the north.

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.

They sail in super light inshore conditions with Vestas and Dongfeng next to them. Super close-quarters tacking duel. Crew sleeping in bow. Glassy reflections. Charlie talks by the mast: It wasn't a velocity header; they tacked they're gone. Dongfeng... They're ripping... They see Brunel with some wind. MAPFRE drifting astern of them. SiFi looks at his tablet. "Dee and the Dongers are the fastest right now." Phil pops out of the hatch. TJ eats below. "I like a bit of freeze-dried." They get some wind in the sunsset. Hoist a new sail. Nick: Had a tricky few hours here playing the current and the shifts. Fleet's converted twice. Pushed it too far inland in a bad current spot. Everybody shifted ahead of us. Interesting night. Slow build, the northerlies are going to fill in, and fleet sail as fast as we can to Fastnet Rock. Tony: Some more wind coming on. Drone shots going over Vestas under MH0.

Drone shot of them sailing in glass conditions. Trying to stay in the pressure. Sunset. Witty points out other boats. Witty: Considering the terrible start I had, we're in pretty good shape. Witty: Dee's just lifted massively. Libby: Gotta get into that. Witty: Where's the keel? Helmsman: Center. Alex on the bow talks about how they've dropped out of the pressure and everyone else is in it. Tacking. Witty cursing. Ben: We've run out of every bit of pressure we had. It's like we put the handbrake on. Did some tacking back and forth because there was no breeze. We're now 6 miles behind when we were 6 miles in front of some boats. But hey; that's yachting. Trystan: We can't be behind Turn the Tide. He curses. Trystan: Trying to stay focused, not get too dishearted. Drone shot with sunset.

High drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing in light conditions. Trimming. Slomo of Martine and Emily on the bow. RIB drives alongside; Justin waves to them from the helm. Justin stacking forward. Sunset. Justin: Whole leaderboard got reversed... Can just see Dongfeng on the bow. Plastics and Scallywag forward and to leeward. Luckly Vestas is behind us. That's always a bonus. Doing 11/12 knots toward Fastnet Rock. Good for the progress toward the finish, but not so good for the leaderboard. Drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing toward the sunset in flat conditions.

Night drone shots with the reflective branding standing out. Interesting that the drone has a light source. Moon.

Pablo talks in Spanish on the weather rail as MAPFRE sails upwind in 10 knots of wind on port. Sounds like he's talking about the competition, the tricky last part of the race. Repeats in English: Finish in Cardiff will be quite tricky for all the boats. A lot of work to windward; we have some chances. We want Dongfeng to be as far back as possible, but it's not something we can control. Have to be fast and do the best we can and wait and see. A little over 100 miles to go. 30 miles to Vestas, so quite a lot of distance. Stacking. Grinding in the runner. Dolphins alongside. Slomo dolphines. Pablo, Joan, and Rob at the nav station looking at a sched. They discuss with Neti in the cockpit. Brunel still leading? Just. Rob: I'm just happy that Dongfeng look less likely to win the leg. Sunset. Drone shots of MAPFRE sailing upwind under MH0 and J3. Such beautiful peaceful shots. Low-altitude drone.

High drone shot. Drone shots in glassy conditions. Jack: Silky smooth. Pascal: Worst case is at one point no wind, and anchor. And I want to be as close to the shore as possible when we tack. They pass a lobster buoy, Charles points out the current; running a knot or two against them. Sunset. Low-altitude drone shots. Abby: Akzo and Brunel have 20 knots. Charles: Shit! Chalres bangs something in frustration. Daryl, from the helm. How far are they? Charles: 18 miles, and 20 knots of wind. Charles looks at the computer and mutters to himself in French. Charles: Allez; come on, I need some wind! Carolijn: it's coming up. Thomas, on the helm: It could be temporary; a rain cloud or something. Carolijn: Need to worry about Vestas. And MAPFRE, they're currently 80 miles behind. Charles: Wind is going to drop... We have to stay ahead of MAPFRE. I lost 3 hours in this bay. I say nothing to Pascal!... We catch some wind, no? It's good! Allez! Kevin below in the nav station. Pascal stands in the cockpit. Glassy conditions. Sunset.

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.

Low altitude drone shot. Brian talking to Dee on the helm about the wind. They pass some floating trash, and comment on it. Bianca stacking below. Martin: A tack coming up. Hopefully the last Code-0 tack in this leg. Stacking. Martin, on the helm: Okay let's go. We see the tack. Lazy sheet hangs up for a second. Drone shot.

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.

Drone follows a Northern Gannet with Dongfeng in the background, sailing slowly on port tack. At one point it passes over some alcids, too.

Sign taped to the aft side of the doghouse: "National Wine Day". Has wind forecast for each various times throughout the day. DTF 670. Libby: It is. It's National Wine Day. Libby at the nav station with Witty. Witty reads out the gains on the other boats due to the comression. Peter on the helm. Drone shots in light conditions. Foredeck. Slomo telltales. Antonio: 600 miles from the finish. Having to cross the light conditions. Libby and Witty at the nav station. Libby yawns. Flopping with the MH0. Slomo flopping. Antonio talks about the ETA. Flopping. Antonio: Still a bit far behind to talk about catching someone. If it were windy it would be harder, so it's good to have these conditions now. Peter shakes the main to try to pop the batten. Sunset.

Nicolai below: Still battling with Brunel; never-ending story. Simeon at the nav station: Gaining a bit, losing a bit, different pressure. Trying to get the best sail setup. Trying to cover and hold on. Same old same old. Drone shot with sunset of them peeling to the J0 in strengthening wind. Triple-heading. Bagging the MH0 on the foredeck. Nicho, below: We've lost a little in the last 24 hours to them. We've coughed up a little; that's part of the game in trying to put yourself between the other boat and the mark. Looking like a long match race to the finish. We're in a good position; just need to consolidate it a little in these next few hours. Drone shot circling AkzoNobel under cloudy skies.

Horace, bailing, talks about how awesome it is to sail fast. That's why he came to this race. I hate the life on board, but I love fast. Kevin looks through the endoscope and sees something below. He gets the swim gear on and dives in from the bow. Big piece of seagrass on the keel that he gets off. That loooked cold! Drone shot circling the boat in light conditions. Horace interviews Pascal on the bow: We're going to arrive the day we arrive. Marie: Maybe three more days, eh? Stu: Both are stressful. I find the heavy weather more stressful, especially when you're driving at night. Pascal on how difficult light conditions are. Stu: I'm going to right about how hard it is to have a shit on the toilet when the boat is sailing 30 knots. Carolijn below, brushing her hair, comments how the person on the boat who doesn't have any hair made a comment about her appearance. On deck, she gives some of the hair she pulled out on Kevin's head. Daryl, on the helm, talks about sailing into the high pressure ridge. Big line of clear blue sky ahead, where there will be zero wind. Pascal and Charles talking on the bow in French. Glassy conditions. Kevin to Pascal: We don't see them on AIS? Pascal shakes his head. Bird flies over. High drone shot. Other boat (I think Vestas from the tracker) on the horizon behind them as Stu steers in light wind. They tack the MH0 onto port. Low drone shot approaching from far away.

Jules at the nav station: Going to come to a grinding halt... Will get a bit of breeze Sunday from the north to get us to the southwest tip of Ireland. And then a very messy situation in the Celtic Sea. Going to take us 2 days to get into Wales, and no obvious way to get in. Might see a restart in the race. But we'll see what hapens. Drone shots of AkzoNobel sailing in lighter conditions under the MH0. Brad: As expected we're sailing in lighter conditions... All these boats are moving in behind us and getting closer. Closer in distance, but should be about the same time-wise. Can see Brunel again; about 6 miles. Keep pushing, through this ridge and out the other side. Drone shot circling AkzoNobel in the sunrise.

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.

Joan talks below in Spanish. Lots of mention of wind. Rob, below: Right now we're not in great shape. The leaders, first 3 boats, have extended quite a lot. That may change in the ridge. Dongfeng not that far away. Scallywag probably going to overtake us in the next sched. Dee not far away. Podium still a possibility, but we're going to have to get some luck with the upcoming ridge. Joan talks more in Spanish; discusses the limit of the Gulf Stream. Rob: Had a very cold night last night. Water was down to zero at one stage. Passed an iceberg; could see it on the radar. Water's probably 10 or 12 now. More Joan in Spanish. Washing machine shots of the cockpit from the hatch. Slomo washing machine. Neti grinding. Crew putting on foulies below. Stern cam shots of big spray. Sail change: Hoisting the FR0. Sophie wrestling the sail. Spreader cam shots of the sail change. Drone shots of them triple-heading wiht the FR0 and full main: Must be in lighter wind than some of the other boats. Looks like 20 knots of wind or less from the sea surface. Favoriting for those drone shots at the end.

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.

Elodie grinding. Martin, on the helm, talks about crew weight forward. Elodie laughs. Bernardo on the helm. Drone shot of them reaching fast with a lot of heel, double heading with the J0 and J3. Elodie on the helm. Drone shot. More shots of Elodie driving with Bianca (I think) trimming. Drone shot. Sail change: Taking the J0(?) tack forward, hoisting it, with the J1 up. Elodie, below, eating. She talks about her first time on a boat, 2 or 3 years old. Going sailing on a cruising boat on a lake with her family. First time she got involved this year, was her sister getting involved i 2013, said they were still looking for big girls. So I did a try out in Lanzarote, and got picked, which was a big surprise for me. But I think knowing how to work well with a team was good for me. I think what I like about offshore sailing is the rhythm. Getting away from everything in the world. Sailing in different conditions, different skies, different sea states. Learning every day. Because Dee told me she wanted an extra girl to do rotations. So every time I'm on board one of the girls is taking a rest. Francesca is getting a rest now. I'll do 4 legs. It was really what I wanted; I didn't want to do the whole race. Really good team, nice sailors, nice people. I'm really happy with the choice I made to join this team for the race. I think when you are doing the race for the first time, there are so many new things there are a lot of things you don't see. I think this race will be like a big experience tick for me, compared to the race before, where everything was new you felt all the time a bit behind. But this time is different. Really nice to feel different, push more and more all the time. Bianca working in the cockpit at night with red lights; Bernardo comes below. Stacking below, it looks like?

Drone shot of Vestas triple heading with the sunset behind them. Phil: I'd rather NOT tell you how it's doing with Akzo today. Below, Charlie: Had a pretty good exchange with Akzo about 24 hours ago. And when we finally got across this wind it wasn't as forecast. Shot of AkzoNobel to starboard. Phil: It's been one of those frustrating days on the Volvo Ocean Race you try not to have too much of. Charlie: Wind shifted, they got out of phase with us pretty nicely. They've been going well. But now we're on their line, which eliminates differences from wind and current. We've stopped the bleeding. Hope our southerly decision pays off. Soon we'll be drifting around in high pressure. Be patient. Shot of AkzoNobel on the horizon several miles ahead of them. Phil: Tomorrow's another day. Only lost a few miles. We'll be all right. Drone shot with Vestas silhouetted by the sun behind them.

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.

Jules at the nav station talks with Simeon about stragy. They tack in the dark. I think we actually see the tack from a nighttime drone shot. High drone shot of them sailing. Brad, in the morning: Busy night last night, lot of tacks. They're neck and neck with Vestas. We're on J0, they're on J1. We see Vestas to port. Brad: Always good to have a boat next to you. Sunrise. Drone shots. Brad: Next 12 hours we should get a lift. Should get another sail in and start triple-heading. Drone shot showing both boats.

Xabi summarizes the first 2 days of the leg in Spanish. Discusses the complicated conditions, the relative positions of the northern and southern groups. Tamara, on the bow as they flop, talks in Spanish. Xabi repeats his summary in English. First time they've seen such a big split in the race. Very slow for them and Dongfeng and TTToP. The fleet in the south always kept in front of the front. They have a lot of work to do now to get to the north. They look quite strong. We need to wait and see. Tamara repeats her comments in English: In a transition. Hard to wait for the wind. Hope they'll be sailing fast soon. Xabi trims. Sophie and Blair grind. Stacking forward. Flopping. Xabi rubs his head. Instruments show them doing 3 knots. Drone shot of them floopping from above the masthead, then low and alongside in very flat water.

Slomo spray, grinding. Drone shots of TTToP. Other boat on the starboard quarter (Dongfeng, I think). Bianca: Annalise came up and told us we've overtaken MAPFRE and we can see Dongfeng on AIS. And we can see them down here. It's a nice surprise for breakfast. Dee jokes about Dongfeng being astern them: "Maybe they just want to look at my bottom when I take a pee. Pascal will be up with binoculars." They laugh. Bianca dances? Poses? Not sure. She practices with Annalise, who tells Martin to stop filming. Bianca: Professional. Need some practice. Before we arrive it will be perfect. Sail change (J0 to MH0?) Folding up the sail on the bow. Another boat to leeward. Liz crawling into a sleeping bag in the bow; waves to Martin. Light conditions. Brian: I can see Dongfeng up there has a big lift. So we'll probably be getting that soon... Very shifty at the moment. We can see Dongfeng, and MAPFRE's not far. Got an interesting race on our hand. Brian, on the bow, discusses the latest sched. Lucas goes up the mast to pop the battens through. Flopping with dolphins. Looking through binoculars at Dongfeng. Drone shots of TTToP sailing in light air; flopping. Shot of them passing the drone wit a partially rolled up MH0 as a windseeker. Sunset.

High drone shot of Dongfeng sailing in light winds. Low drone shot. Kevin on the helm: We know we have two groups of boats. One going south in front of the front. Three of us who have gybed. Now we know that the ones who stayed in front of the front are doing better than us. Now we're working hard. We took this position; we'll see. Pascal and Stu argue about effects of current if they bear away or not. Marie and Kevin talking. Horace: Last night was a bad dream. We almost stopped in the ocean. He looks up at the main. "More mainsheet?" Kevin driving. Stu: I find there's nothing productive in getting upset about stuff you can't control. For example, the other guys who are cruising off, with a nice breeze, there's nothing we can do about that at the moment. The best we can do is to sail well with the wind we have. As long as we're doing well with the boats around us, that's all we can do. Might end up a day behind, but it won't be through lack of trying. Marie talks in French. Nav station: Pascal looks at routing. Closeup of a winch grinding. Another boat a few miles away ahead and to leeward: Looks like TTToP (yup; tracker confirms). HIgh drone shot.

Drone shots of AkzoNobel triple-heading. Martine: Today is a beautiful day, with boats in sight. Shot of another boat to starboard. Martine: And we are expecting a gybe for the last 2 days. More wind, so we're going faster than expected. Drone shot. Martine: We're going to have quite a bit of breeze two days from now. So still have to keep our eyes open. And then reaching the UK. So I guess we're gonna have to enjoy this. It's not gonna last too long. Nicho: Should have good breeze for a while longer, then gybe. Have been thinking we'll gybe for a day now, but the breeze hasn't shifted. Drone shot. Nicho: Had a pretty honest debrief after the last leg. And then a bad in-port race, and another debrief. We've needed it for some time. It's a challenge: Step up or get left behind. Drone shot with clouds.

Neti, on the aft pedestal, talks in Spanish. Blair: Sailed well through the night. Dongfeng pulled away from us in the reaching conditions. Just got the sched, Dongfeng is 30 miles away. Rest of the fleet didn't come with us. Massive split. It's a little bit of a worry that Brunel has got separation from us. Because we did well we got further to leeward, and got out of the breeze and gybed. Just one of those things; you've gotta sail the wind you've got. Joan at the nav station, talking to Xabi about when to gybe. Pablo sleeping sitting up. Gybe on deck with Neti and Willy grinding. Stacking. Joan and Rob talking. Rob on the helm. Slomo washing machine. Drone shots of surfing with clouds. Super low-altitude drone shot from just in front of the bow.

Phil: Atlantic is important to us. It's been good at times, bloody difficult at times. Drone shot. Stacking aft. Slomo washing machine. Phil: If we can get into Cardiff we'll be in good shape. Points are irrelevant to us. Showing that we were always here, always a contender. That's more important to us. Drone shot, slomo spray of Phil on the helm. Phil: Just to show to our sponsors and ourselves that we belong in the top few in the fleet. It's gonna be a busy 8 days for us. Drone shot.

Drone shot of AzkoNobel triple-heading under gray skies. Slomo washing machine in the cockpit. Martine gets doused at the pedestal. Below, Nicho, Jules, and Simeon look at weather models on the computer. Jules: Mixed bag performance wise. Had some good spells and some not so good spells. Crossed a bit of the Gulf Stream. Radar, AIS; he was short on sleep all night. Drone shot. Spray by the shrouds. Simeon getting greared up below. Some good moments, some difficult moments. Keep the hammer on. Nicho takes slomo spray. Major whitewater near the mast looking aft. This is when the boats are most powerful. Jules at the nav station looks at routing. "Still a long way to go, changing conditions. The forecasts not really lining up." More slomo washing machine, drone shot of AkzoNobel surfing.

Drone shots of Dongfeng triple-heading. Jack, below: Always hard before the start because you want to leave. And then the first days are hard because you can't sleep. But good to get away. Very important leg for us. Going to push all the way to Cardiff. Gybe in the cockpit. More drone shots. Carolijn: Always knew this was going to be an important leg. Our speed was good overnight. Made some good decisions. If we can just keep doing that, and being smarter and faster than our opponents... Now that we're in front just have to stay in front. Pascal at the nav station. Night shots of the deck. Carolijn pulling a sheet, looking tired. Marie comes below. Marie on deck: It's always good to be first. Horace: We see after a few days who has made a good decision... Main on! Stu: Right now the goal is to sail around 55 to 60, fast. Not lower than 60. Below, Pascal sits in the nav station talking to Stu. "You cannot see without your contact?" Stu shakes his head. High drone shot.

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.

Drone circling Dongfeng in light wind and fog with the MH0. Daryl talks about being pushed off the wheel by a wave. Ended up being fully blown off the wheel. No one driving the boat doing 30 knots, which is fun. Managed to avoid a wipeout. Night shots of light winds. Crew working in the dark with red lights. Jack, talking about the big night: It was ridiculous. Lot of water over the deck. Everyone's pretty wrecked this morning. I don't think anyone slept. Bit weird to be sitting her at 4 knots. Pascal and Daryl look at the computer. Pascal talks about Turn the Tide (presumably about them going around the west side of the exclusion zone). J1 flopping in light wind. Charles looking tired. Everyone looking tired. Marie below, eating. Stu, below, eating: Last night would have to be the wettest sailing I've ever done. Pitch black, no moon, no stars, no reference. In the last sched we were doing 1 knot, and Vestas was doing 20 knots more than us. Jack: We were basically the first to get to the light winds. Should have a better angle to Newport, but who knows? Charles on deck. Everyone looking a bit out of kilter. Carolijn: Seems to be a little pressure here. Charles squints at the foggy horizon.

Drone shots of them triple-heading, surfing fast on port gybe. Washing machine shots from the drone. Dubbed audio to try to match the wave sounds.

Drone shots of Scallywag triple heading. Antonio on the helm in the sunrise. Parko tidying lines. Wake. Peter: About 75 miles south of Bermuda. A few more hours on this gybe. Last few days have been pretty hard. Now we've got the same shift as everyone else. You gotta keep believing you can get into that leading pack. Have to keep sailing as if we're leading, sailing 100%. Witty: 48 hours ago were 235 miles behind. Now 130 miles behind. As we say on Scallywag, never surrender, never give up. Alex: What time is it? Talks witih Ben about how they've been on starboard for 8 days.

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.

Sunrise. Drone shot of Akzo sailing by. Nicho on the helm talking to Nicolai. Justin: Before the sun got up was very light. Wind direction about 145. Waiting for about 165 before we can gybe. Instruments. Justin: On the last sched lost about 10 miles to the other boats. Better pressure before us, and that's just the way it is. Luke, below: We are gybing toward Newport, so moving the stack quickly over. easier to throw things downhill. Nicho on the helm talks about the gybe. Stacking on deck. We see the gybe. Simeon: Heading in the right direction. Busy upcoming 30 hours. Been a difficult leg so far, so hopefully we can have a little luck our way and have a better result. At least we've got a lucky Irish OBR.

Sunrise. Liz hands over the wheel to Frederico. At 13 knots she had just under 10 on the keel; at 15 she brings it up again. She debriefs with him about height-vs-speed tradeoff. Dee at the nav station. "Just got the position report. Probably only about 36-40 hours of sailing left." Closed with Vestas, but everyone else is sailing faster than them. MAPFRE have just moved into view on the horizon, only 6 miles away. "Bloody red boat again... Race for third is full on, between ourselves, Vestas, and MAPFRE." She says she's gutted, but she has to be positive when she goes on deck. Martin steering, Dee comes up. MAPFRE is 8 miles away. Points out Brunel and Vestas ahead. Henry talks with her about the strategic situation. Annalise: Been able to see them both for an hour now. Had our suspicions that it was MAPFRE... A full-on last day into the finish. Hopefully we can finish strongly and be happy when we get into Newport. Drone show from low alongside the bow. Dee: The fight for third place... could be the difference is a rain cloud. Big depression with 35 knots of wind coming through... Boats could change places at the finish line with a puff of breeze. I'm kind of nervous and excited at the same time. Drone shot of them unfurling the J3 to triple-head.

Beautiful sunset drone shots of Dongfeng triple-heading. Includes slomo adn sped-up.

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.

Low-alttiude drone shot. Nicolai: It's all about the last 24 hours. We're coming in fresh. Just go around them. Drone shot from above. Emiily: Passing by Bermuda. Which I think everyone knows by now is where I'm from, because I've been talking about it all week. I haven't been home for a year. So it's pretty cool for me to pass by. Give a wave. Simeon: During the watch we'll come into lighter pressure in the high. Once we sort of 90 degrees with the high pressure we've gotta gybe off. It will be tomorrow before we do that gybe. Drone shot.

Beautiful sunrise drone shot with TTToP below. Drone shots from close to weather as they triple-head in surfing conditions. Francesca drives. Liz at the nav station, talks about still need more speed. Talks about everyone sleeping below. She waves at the crew in the cockpit. Nicolas, at the nav station, talks about the need for more speed. Not sure what it could be. Hopefully they'll stay consistent with the other teams through the finish. Lucas puts in earbuds in his bunk. Liz films herself interviewing Dee. Talks about the belowdecks stack, consistency. Drone shot. Martin, below: Worked on the boat, and got on the same pace as the rest of the group. Hard to say if it's that they're slow, or just unlucky with clouds. Nice to be back on the pace again. Nicolas: Have a high pressure to run. If we're too far east it's good for the shift but bad for the windspeed. If they are too far west it's good for the windspeed but bad for the distance. Have to find the best compromise. Drone shot of the masthead with sunrise behind it.

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.

Fast-moving drone shots of Dongfeng surving on starboard.

Pretty drone shots of AkzoNobel surfing on starboard through blue water and occasional sargasso weed.

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."

Awesome slomo drone footage of Vestas surfing. Charlie on the helm. Drone shots. Charlie, below: Really excited to get to Newport, and Bristol, R.I., where I'm from. They earned and deserve this stopover. Hopefully can improve our position a bit... I learned to sail growing up on Narragansett Bay. It's a place that's gotten a lot cleaner over the years. When I was a young whippersnapper wasn't a great place to go swimming or eat shellfish from. But they've made progress in recent years. He talks about the Ocean Summit that he'll be speaking at. When people come together actions can be taken that improve our waterways. Another reason he's really excited to get home is to see his family. It will have been over a month. He has two little kids, one 2 1/2 and the other 1. He'll be walking... Talks about the family's support. Drone shots of them surfing fast triple-heading. Tony on the helm. Mark grinding. He explains that they got important news from Hawaii, that the local legislature banned sunscreen that's harmful to coral reefs. Drone shot. S-curve to clear weed from the leeward rudder. Drone shots.

Drone shots of MAPFRE triple-heading on starboard in 20 knots of wind. Crew in the cockpit.

Drone shots. TTToP triple-heading on starboard in 18 knots. Weed floating into the cockpit. Nicolas and Dee at the nav station. Dee talks about the legs to and from Hong Kong, and then in the Southern Ocean: for three legs they had the potential to podium, and it hasn't happened. Everyone's nipping at our heels. In the back of my mind: We can't lose it again. High drone shot of them sailing through lines of sargasso weed. Slomo of Francesca wringing out her hair. She talks about trying (again) for a podium position. Slomo of Frederico taking off his foulies. "We deserve it if we get it... The best teams get the results they want because they work hard." Francesca talks about the opportunities in the last thousand miles. "We just need a little bit more lucky." Slomo of Liz on the helm. Liz: At the moment we're in a podium spot, and we're fighting like hell to keep that spot. Dee: 2,000 miles to go... the pressure's on. High drone shot.

Drone shot tracking behind them as they sail fast. Wake. Rudders. Slomo washing machine in the cockpit. Spreader cam. Stacking.

Epic drone shots of Dongfeng sailing fast on starboard, including slomo with bird.

Drone shots circling Dongfeng. Charles, below: Since the doldrums we are fighting for first place with Brunel, who is a bit ahead of us. They are fast... We are also fast. Are still three legs to go. And they are sailing better and better. So we are not only focusing on MAPFRE. Shots on deck; long lenses. Horace in the pit. Daryl on the aft pedestal. Horace sprays water on his face. Slomo washing machine cascade from inside the hatch. Carolijn on the stern, talks about all the boats pushing really hard. We won into Newport last time, and haven't won a leg this time so it would be a nice one to win. Slomo of determined look on sailors' faces. Charles below: Of course winning this leg would be fantastic. This place is probably the best arrival, people love sailing, all the city is waiting for the race. Slomo water in the cockpit with sargasso weed.

Cool drone shots of TTToP sailing fast on starboard. Lucas goes on deck. Below, he tells about his earliest memories of going out on the water. Had some early near-drowning experiences that frightened his mum (he jokes). Slomo shots of Lucas in the washing machine. "It's nine months of nonstop sailing, which is cool. But can also be quite tiring." Pushing on, keeping the intensity. He gets out of his bunk, gets dressed. "This is the worst part. As soon as you put these on you want to take them straight off again." (re: the fouies). Talks about the challenges of the current conditions. He sits at the nav station with Dee. She talks about Lucas: He's a real find... Good in tough conditions. Confident around the boat. Good team player. Good on the helm: a natural surfer. Lucas: I've always looked up to the Volvo, and the guys that have done it. The elite of offshore sailing. Drone shot.

Drone shots of AkzoNobel triple-heading. Slomo spray. Martine grinning on the helm. Crash cam footage. Martine eating below. Brian: Any good? Martine: Hunger is the best spice. Nico comes below, hangs up gear. "One you've gotta acknowledge it's a bad situation you didn't want to be in. 100 miles back from the leaders. You'd rather be neck-and-neck. Trick now is to push just as hard. Hoping for the weather at the end. The nature of the sport is you try all the way to the finish line. I've seen plenty of races where it happens... We need something to happen weather-wise for us to reel in the leaders... But it is nice doing 20 knots roughly toward where we want to go. Might like to take a month to wear them down, but we've got 6 days. Martine: Still very wet. It's not easy. In the first week we had 19 headsail changes in two watches. But we're going to have a lot of this so we're gonna get tired of this. Drone shots.

We see the computer screen showing a graph of rising sea temperature. Charles takes a bath with a tea kettle on the stern. Marie on the helm: "I prefer hot weather. Cold... I don't like that. Because always my fingers and my feet, when I'm cold it's not good." Also, when it's hot you don't wear so much and don't have to spend 30 minutes putting on gear. Kevin: I'm a big like superman. Crew sleeping in the bow. Daryl: If the Southern Ocean were this warm, it would be perfect. Horace: I don't like the warm; I prefer the cold. It's more comfortable... Also, cold is bringing more wind. I like fast! Crew prepares for a squall. Pascal below with a fan. Distant drone shot of Dongfeng sailing under gray clouds. Drone circles as they peel from J0 to MH0 (I think).

Evening drone shots of them drifting in light winds with rain on the horizon. Parko, on the helm: This part of the world is known for a relatively easy crossing. The land breeze helps. Clouds. Peter brushes his teeth. Ben mixes up something in the galley. Bird on ddeck (black tern?) Ben looks at clouds. Trystan says Libby has a good point that looking at the scheds for the next few days will be pretty depressing. But there will be a compression coming into Newport, and that will make or break the leg.

Drone shot of AkzoNobel going through sargasso. "Massive patch to leeward." Emily: Just crossed the equator and have just gotten into the Sargasso Sea. Brad, below, shows the endoscope. Underwater shot of Brad flossing the rudder. Jules: The only way to get it off is to physically stop the boat and make the boat sail in reverse. Drone shot of them doing a backdown.

Drone shot at night of Vestas with flashlight shining on sail. Drone shot looking forward as the drone goes *through the shrouds*. Shot of the position on the mast readout showing them crossing the equator. Dee: We can see Vestas, we can see Brunel. Shot of Vestas to weather. Henry, on the helm: Happy to be in the northern hemisphere heading home. Lucas: I felt a little lost this morning; got up on the wrong side... Everything feels a little backwards. Drone shot. Dee: When you're at the front of the fleet it's harder than being the hunter. She talks about frustrating clouds. A bit of a game of cat and mouse. It's the nature of the beast. Lucas: We knew this was going to happen. The breeze shut down from the front. Annalise talks about the latest position update: Vestas pulling ahead of them slowly. Dee: rest of the fleet bearing down on us. Hopefully we'll be in the trades in a day. Drone shot.

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.

Blair: Getting used to sailing on their own. Broke through a cloud line, and had to stick with our line. Got a bad sched; lost 20 miles on the leaders... Every cloud is very different. Haven't done the best job. The ones that screwed us the other night developed on top of us, and we couldn't do anything about it. Certainly not our best friends at the moment, the clouds. Willy talks in Spanish about the comptetition, the weather. Shots of them sailing on starboard. Drone shots of them triple-heading with the MH0 with clouds and rain behind them.

Night time; red instruments. Sound of water. Stu, below: Sailing at night on these boats... can rely on the feel; sometimes it's even faster. Generally a more serious feel to night sailing. Shots of them sailing at night. Stu calls trim from the foredeck: "A little bit of masthead on." Shifting the stack. Kevin, in the morning: There are not many sports. Not many moments in life you are able to (something) during the night. Pascal comes up and kisses him on the cheek. Kevin: I love ocean sailing. You feel like you're living your life fully. More night shots: Carolijn shines a light on the sails. Horace: Sometimes you're very tired. Normally during the night you're still sailing, fighting, with the other competitors. But it's cool. This is life in the volvo ocean race. More night shots. Daryl, on the helm: "It's fully done on feel, and what the boat's behaving like. It's pretty cool when you get it right. Not so good when you get it wrong." (he laughs) Carolijn: Besides the feel, you use the numbers on the mast. We put them in night-vision mode, so instead of white they're red. To avoid blinding you. We see the deck instrument readouts switch from white to red. Kevin: Jokes about seeing the head torch of Pascal looking out the hatch, blinding them. Marie, below: Yesterday was good because we had a bird for 2 or 3 hours. He just turned around the top of hte mast. Sometimes we had the shadow. It was really cool. Night shots in which you can't really see; I'll take their word for it. Moon, clouds. Night drone shot with light on the mainsail.

Drone approaches Brunel sailing on starboard, goes under the boom and gets caught by Peter, who gives a thumbs-up.

Drone shot with competitor in the background. Charlie talks with crew in the cockpit. TJ steers. SiFi: It's a little different than forecast. He talks about the clouds, the convergence line. Big header coming into Brazil. Squashed hte fleet up a bit. Made good gains on Dee, but Brunel has closed up a bit... Have to see what happens during the day. Land breeze now; sea breeze later. TTToP to port with a rainbow. Drone shots. TTToP approaches on starboard; they gybe ahead to cover. SiFi talks about tomorrow. Crew stacks to weather. TTToP on their starboard quarter. A small fishing boat; Mark waves. TTToP astern in rain. Crew shirtless in the cockpit. Phil showers under the boom. SiFi looks at a tablet to explain the latest sched. Stacey: It's been a busy day; rain clouds and shifts. Gybing. But a good result for us. We're all in a line, going out to sea, bow forward and leeward boat. And we had a shower. It was overdue; it is day 8. First shower of the race. Drone shot of Vestas triple-heading.

Nicolas looks concerned. Maneuver in twilight. Stacking forward. Nicolas: Because the wind is a bit different than expected, we are going to see Vestas. Vestas has just gybed, probably because they can see Dongfeng and Dongfeng has gybed. So now we've gybed. Nicolas looks through binoculars. Nicolas, below, talks about the achievement, racing big boats around the world. Enjoying the moment. Sailing at night. Moon above the mast. Drone shot of TTToP gybing from port to starboard with Vestas ahead of them. Drone shot of them sailing on starboard with Vestas to leeward. Liz rubs her face: A really annoying blue boat catching up. And a really annoying red boat [Dongfeng] catching up. And a really annoying yellow boat [Brunel]. Liz talks about Nicolas being a one-design racer, and his French humor. Nicolas: We had quite a hard night... Lost a lot to Vestas, Dongfeng, and Brunel. But now everyone is within a few miles. It's a bit of a mess with the wind; there are clouds everywhere. Wind very different than expected. I try to understand what's happening now, and what's going to happen in the next hours. Nicolas at nav station. Nicolas talks a below about French sailing culture versus the rest of the world.

Drone shot with container ship in the horizon ahead of them as they sail in light winds. More drone shots of them sailing under the MH0. Pole shots. Trystan, below, explains that they're coming to the northeastern point of Brazil. Obviously not overly pleased with where we're lying. But opportunity ahead with the doldrums and the equator to cross. Guys ahead are easing up, so a chance to catch up. Shifting the stack forward. Stacking below. Peter explains forward stacking below. Bessie stacking below.

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 Dongfeng sailing in the sunrise. Faces: Pascal, Marie, Jack. Drone shot. Pascal works a Rubik's cube. Marie works on it. Jack works on it. Jack summarizes current situation: Nearing the corner of Brazil; need to decide how close to cut it. Lots of work; sleeping less, more sail changes. Drone shot of them triple-heading. Stu on the helm in the morning. "Going to be a very nice day today." Marie: "Yes." Kevin, in his bunk, holds the Rubik's cube and talks about the different strategic questions in the leg. Charles on the helm. Charles works on the Rubik's Cube, talks about it in French. He pretends to solve it quickly, but then reveals he has two cubes, one already solved. Closeup of the winch, with Daryl trimming. Stu, on the helm, talks about winning a competition in school; solved it in 47 seconds. He hands the wheel over to Marie. He explains the solution. Stu explains the technique to Charles.

Sunrise drone shot. Francesca: We're still leading, so this is good. Last sched was not the best one. We can see Vestas (gestures behind her). My parents had a cruising boat, 30-foot cruising boat. I was born in January, and in February I was already on the boat. Slomo of Francesca adjusting her cap. "They had this system of bungee that made a little bed for me." Shot of her left forearm tattoos of elephans. Francesca on the helm in slomo. Learned how to manage herself in the hard moments. Had some hard moments in the Southern Ocean. Was more like mentally tough than physically. Push myself, tomorrow will be another day, it will be better. Instruments on the mast. Dee by the shrouds. Dee: To see Frankie grow from the start of this project to now has been incredible. Came in with no offshore experience; had an Olympic background. But she does make you laugh, because sometimes she says yeah, yeah, yeah. But you realize she didn't understand any of it. [We see everyone in the crew saying hello in their native dialect.] Francesca tells a story of Frederico rescuing a flying fish that hit the board. Francesca: An amazing experience to sail around in the environment I love, with the group of friends. Worst thing: the freeze-dried. The food is not really nice at times. Sunset drone shot.

Drone shot of the rig. Closeup of the outrigger. Nicolai: Talks about one design, same sails. It all comes down to how you set up the sails, small adjustments. Maybe gain 0.01 knots of boatspeed. But over a week that's going to pay off. Shots of the sails. Nicolai explains the outrigger. He explains that it's like an airplane wing: At high speed want it flat, at low speed/low wind want it deep and powerful. Simeon: Look a lot at the heel trim. The longitudinal trim. And the shape, the amount of wetted surface. But also the stability. In light air we're not planing, so we want that fat ass out of the water. So we trim forward. Nicolai talks to someone below about the stack below. Simeon talks about the foils, keel, lift vs. drag. Like how we trim the sails, we basically trim the hull as well. Stacking below, close drone shot. Stacking sails forward. Jules talks about the other boats, and then the instruments, as the gauge they look at. Art vs. science. Helmsman's feel.

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.

View looking up the slot. Drone shot with morning sun. Stu: Lots of nice sailing for today. Which is a nice change from the last day or two, which had unbelievable cloud activity. Talks about having a sudden squall with everything on the wrong side (stack, water ballast, OBR). Didn't work out well; lost a lot of miles. Shots out the cabin at night with lightning on deck. Horace works in red light as thunder rolls. Rain. Kevin reads a sched on the PA. "So we've been the slowest of the fleet except (someone)." Pascal talks in French. A bird (gannet? booby?) flies over the masthead. Drone shot. Carolijn on the helm.

Night shot with red instrument lights. Annalise says they're going to hold on hoisting it because there's only 7 knots [of wind] at the moment. Dee, below, talks about the difficult night. Light wind and lots of sail changes. Felt like they spent all night in the rain. So most of the team was up most of the night. Now they have the J0 and a staysail, so it's a forgiving setup. Just hope that some of those behind them had the cloud issues too. Spreader cam view during the day of the foredeck, the stern. Dee: People are tired, but you get an extra buzz when you're at the front. But it's hard when you're getting hunted all the time. We'll get another position report in an hour. Shots of people sleeping in their bunks. Drone shot of TTToP sailing silhouetted against the sun. Dee comes on deck: We have redeemed ourselves! (Crew cheers.) 50 miles to MAPFRE. Martin can't believe it. Dee: Dongfeng lost a lot in that sched... Vestas is on our tail just to leeward. "We're the leaders of the pack." Annalise: I think I'll take that. Fastest boat in the fleet for no sleep. Lucas talks about it being worth it. Drone shot.

Drone shots as Dongfeng sails under J0. Carolijn: Generally sail with 9 crew. Talks about positions: skipper, navigator, main trimmer, headsail trimmer, pitman, bowman. Talks about Daryl, their offshore helmsman at the moment. Instruments, spray. Pascal reads out the sched on the PA. Carolijn talks about the navigator. "Generally he wears glasses to look really smart, and make smart decisions about strategy." Pascal at the nav station. Pascal: "Lift, lift, lift; strong wind and lift all the time." Kevin trimming the main. Grinding. Carolijn narrates about Kevin adjusting the mainsheet. Talks about the combo of main and headsail trim, and coordination with the helm. Closeup of Kevin easing the mainsheet. Drone shot. Carolijn talks about the pit. "We call it the piano." Pitman organizes and coordinates between the front and back of the boat. Closeup of the pit controls. She talks about trimming the headsail. "If it gets to hard I ask Horace for help and we grind with two." She explains about trim. "At the pointy end of the boat we have the bowman. They live at the front there, and they have a very busy job. It's a very hard job because it's the wettest part of the boat and you need a lot of strength to get things done.... Kevin is Speedy Gonzalez." Drone shots.

Drone shot approaches, goes under the boom, and continues to weather. Sam briefly visible operating the controls in the shot. Heh. Nice.

Drone shot with sunset behind the boat. Crew sailing in rougher conditions. Frederico: Finally sailing on starboard, close reaching, after three days upwind. Did very well. We're the eastern boat. We think it will pay off, but is quite risky. But we are confident in our navigator. We see out the cabin as Dee comes out and relays the sched. Dee explains: We were the fastest boat in the sched. We've got more breeze, which is why we positioned ourselves furthest east. Just need to keep it up and stay focused. Annalise: A lot of upwind, which is slow. Prefer to do 20 knots... but it makes it easier when the position report comes in and we're doing well. Drone shot. Frederico's hand on a winch. Frederico below: The race is quite brutal.... It's just about self management. To take care of your emotions when you are so tired. It's hard, but you ahve to learn how to cooperate with everyone around... It's hard. I think I've grown to be a different man in all the legs so far. When we started very fresh, I never had experience offshore. Now we can sail the boat close to the other teams. I think everybody step up, and we're a really strong team now. Drone shot with rain in the distance.

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.

Drone shots: High overhead, overtaking to weather, circling the bow. Another boat (MAPFRE?) astern and to weather, and another boat astern and to leeward. Shot of a red boat (MAPFRE?) crossing their bow. Witty, on the helm, points out the other boats all around them. Witty: "Let's get the sails over guys." (In preparation for tacking.) We see the tack onto port. Trystan explains the Brazil exclusion zone. Dongfeng ahead, MAPFRE to leeward. Our position with the fleet is quite good. Stacking.

Cool drone shot with low sun behind Vestas. Mark in the pit. SiFi and Charlie at the nav station. SiFi talks about being able to do well with a cloud against the fleet. Partly by luck, he says, they and Turn the Tide got to the east and slipped ahead. It's all about trying to get to the east. So now we're back on port tack, heading slightly south of east. TJ looks at computer with SiFi as he reads off the sched and explains the strategy. TJ: Yeah, it's all good. Good number; heading back on port. Set up nicely for the big long one, heading north. Drone shot from astern with Tony on the helm. Drone shot circling the boat. Sunset. Cool crew shots. I really like Martin's use of long lenses.

Martine explains that no one has slept much because they've had a vew opportunities with clouds. Night shots of them sailing. Scallywag is behind her. Shots of the crew with Scallywag in the distance. Brad talks about having Brunel, Dongfeng, Scallywag, and MAPFRE next to them. Timelapse of the cabin, and then of the cockpit, then the nav station. Nicho: The benefit is lack of sleep. If you enjoy lack of sleep there's a high benefit to being this close to other boats. Drone shot of AkzoNobel and Brunel sailing a hundred yards apart. Shot from the deck of three boats on the horizon. Nicho explains that you can try out mode variations vs. the other boats. In this upwind stuff they haven't been consistently strong, so they need to work that out. "Yeah, we do need to get that sorted."

Slomo shots. Sunrise. Liz on the helm. Drone shot of TTToP sailing into a sunbeam. Liz: Doing really well. Winning at the moment, which is really cool. Upwind conditions, it's really gusty. Shots of Liz working the pit during a sail change. Liz: It's good being first, but then it's hard if you fall back. Hopefully learn from that. Lucas: Ups and downs are hard. But need to keep a level head. All a part of the game. Keep chipping away. Liz: Matching boatspeed with everybody, but you can see clouds coming up. And it only takes one or two clouds and you're out the back door. Sometimes you're at the mercy of the wind gods. Hoisting the J1. Dee: Got a big cloud to weather, increased pressure, so we switched from the masthead to the J1. Shot up the slot as they sail under the J1. Bianca: When the lead is changing this early in the leg, you can't get too wrapped up in it. It's awesome to be at the front, and it does make you feel a lot better, but you can't get yourself down when you're at the back. Liz: Couldn't get much more different from last leg to this one. We're in tee shirts, flat water. But the racing's just as intense. Whole fleet together; quite stressful. Drone shot from close overhead.

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.

Drone shot of Dongfeng sailing into the sunrise. Slomo of Marie grinding. Kevin on the foredeck gesturing. Looks like their going from J1 to something else. Charles, with a buzz cut: "My haircut has been done by a non-professional as you can see. His name is Black. And he tried to do his best. But unfortunately we do not have the good tools. No one can see my hair until Newport. You can Photoshop it. Horace: One of the other Chinese crew has a big injury. I know it is very disappointing for him not to sail the race. And for the moment all we can do is win this leg and sail well. Drone shot. Jack, in his bunk, talks about Itajai being the longest stopover. Hard to get back into the sleep rhythm on the boat. Not too hot yet. Take it while we can. Charles: Quite complicate situation. Lots of clouds, lots of shift... Were in a good position until this morning. Now the fleet is going in a different direction. Next 24 hours will be key. Rain. Crew working the cockpit in the rain. Slomo of Daryl on the helm. Kevin brings up treats. Drone shot of the sunrise again.

Jules: Starting to approach Cabo Frio and there's quite a bit of cloud. Especially this time of day it gets quite active. He and Nicho look at clouds. Brad on the foredeck. Peeling J1 to MH0. Nicho on the helm: Just had a section of clouds, and got a split of Vestas and Turn the Tide on one side of the cloud, and us on the other. So we've had to do a bunch of tacking and stacking... Took a couple of miles out MAPFRE and Brunel. Dongfeng had a nice slot through the clouds, so they've gained. Drone shot with sunset behind AkzoNobel's masthead. Drone shot with sunset and crepuscular rays.

Opens with the same drone shots as their last video, of the burning oil ship with TTToP sailing past. Dee: Today we went through a really busy area off the Brazilian coast, where they're researching new oil drilling, including the ship burning off the oil. She talks about how they still use oil, but with plastic use being reduced, the need for oil might be reduced, and then you look at how much money is being spent on oil exploration, and you've gotta think that should be invested in renewable energy. It's gotta be the way forward. So it's really frustrating to see, and you hope that change will happen. Drone shot flying through the smoke plume with TTToP beyond.

Drone shot of TTToP sailing past an oil platform, and a drilling ship with a big flare-off putting out a lot of flames and smoke off the stern. Deck-level shot of the drilling ship and flames. Martin, on deck: Day 2, in the middle of the pack. Sailing through this oil field. MAPFRE and Dongfeng to weather. Akzo, Vestas, and Scallywag behind us. Good morning. Got a fair bit to go this way, then tack to the north. Drone shot. Martin: It's fantastic to be back after my knee injury. I've been smiling since I started. Doing quite well at the moment; it makes it easier. Martin talks to Lucas about somthing. Dee: It's really nice to have Martin back. The big concern was that he be fully recovered. But he's had his knee surgery. It's nice that Martin comes from previous winning campaigns. So he knows how to go fast. And having his calm experience in the mix... hoping for an even better result. Slomo of Martin trimming, oil ship with flames behind them.

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.

Horace talks about missing the team after being away. Now he's on board again, so he's happy. Daryl and Carolijn discuss tacking to avoid a cloud. Shifting the stack to leeward. We see the tack with Charles on the helm. Pascal, at the nav station, talks in French. On deck, Charles says that MAPFRE appears to be preparing to tack. Daryl, on the helm: A classic upwind slog. Probably 6 days. Everyone back there. (Gestures aft.) Good mood on board. Kevin talks about the clouds and wind shifting. And about seeing a cargo ship in his face while driving in the night. Drone shots after sunset showing the three competitores sailing (Dongfeng, MAPFRE, and TTToP.)

Drone shot of TTToP going up wind with competitors in the distance. Then we see the same shot from deck level with Liz grinding. Bianca trimming. Francesca: I think it was a really good night. Good in-port. Now we are really close to Dongfeng and MAPFRE... we are really close. And at this moment of the race the boats are matching speed. "I think it will be a good fight to Newport." Sunrise. Drone shots. Rain in the cockpit. Light wind; Brunel flopping behind them. Hoisting, deploying the MH0. Dee: "We thought we were in pretty stable conditions, and then..." Squall, rain, all the boats are fighting to deal with it. "Have to sail your boat." Stacking forward. Dee: We've had really good races in legs 6 and 7. Talks about losing the podium in final miles in leg 6. Then finished fourth in leg 7. Want to threaten for the podium. Have had one night at sea, and are still in sight of everybody. And that's how this leg goes. Drone shot of competitors ahead and to leeward. Dee and Nicolas at the nav station. Nicolas explains: they're sailing upwind to Cabo Frio. Then doldrums, reaching in North Atlantic tradewinds, then North Atlantic high. Pretty unpredictable. He talks about strategy. Pretty straightforward in the first part of the leg. Don't want to be too close to the Brazilian coast. Fighting in the middle of the fleet.

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.

Something going on below. Nicho: "No, it's loose." (Keel inspection?) Justin talks about how other boats sailed away from them, except for Vestas. Not sure why. Tried everything. "We wait until dark and then we pull our moves out." Sunset. Emily says the start of the leg was quite nice. A bit frustrating, but nice to be back on the water. Drone shot circling AkzoNobel in the sunset.

Slomo parade. Dockout. Liz on the helm waving at the shore. Frederico talks about the stopover and the next leg from the foredeck as they motor out. Francesca calls "four minutes" in the cockpit. Start with other boats ahead. Dee driving after the start. First mark rounding; good action on board. Dee: "Nice guys; nice." Lowering the J1. Sailing downwind under A3. Frederico calls for the furl approaching the leward mark. He calls to the boat behind them, "No water! No water!" Henry talks about leaving and heading north for Newport. Did a good in-port section. MAPFRE just ahead. Coming into the first light stuff they've had for an opening of a leg. High drone shot of competitors.

Cool nighttime drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing in light wind under a cloudy sky with lightning flashes visible behind them. In the dark, Jules talks with Simeon about it. Jules explains that they have a supercell behind them. Are concerned about the plate on the keel giving way and letting lots of water into the boat if they go over 20 knots. "It's an interesting evening." Nicolai: "I think it's too early for the J2." He talks about getting a proper thunder cell to get them to the finish. More drone shots. Favoriting for the beautiful drone photography, mostly.

Distant drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing with the sunset behind them. Luke, below: Unfortunately we've just found out that the wind has gotten lighter. We're going to be out here another two days or so. At least we're not neck and neck with another boat. Drone shots of them sailing wiht the MH0 in 10 knots of wind. Nicolai on the helm: To be honest I don't mind too much. I'd rather get in and get some rest, but we shouldn't complain. A lot of people had it a lot worse than we did. We've got through this leg in a really good position; we should be grateful for that.

Drone shot of AkzoNobel reaching unde the MH0 in 10 knots of wind. Nicolai, below: The keel situation is not improving, unfortunately. It's gone the other way. Bailing... It's coming in quicker than we can almost get it out. Luke: Everyone's tired at the end of our Southern Ocean leg. Having to bail every 15 mintues. In another 6 to 7 hours it will moderate. Shot of bailing. Nicolai: No rules when it comes to fixing boats in the Volvo. You can do whatever you have to. I went into Luke's crew bag and stole one of his socks... Luke: I'm happy to take one for the team, and do what it takes to get us to the finish line. Sandals!

Rob, on the helm in light air: Got the mainsail back up 24 hours ago. Did a couple of days with no main. Not sheeting too hard; I'd say we're at 95%. Joan talks in the cockpit in Spanish. Rob: Provisioned this leg for 19 days, and are a bit over 20. So basically we're running out. We're all right on freeze dried. But snacks are running out. Going to be a few hungry people when we get to Brazil. Bow. Drone shots as they sail with MH0 and full main.

Beautiful sunset (I think) drone shot, with AkzoNobel coming into view. Albatross in the foreground with crepuscular rays. Are you kidding me? Nicolai, below: You're never going to take it easy. You're going to use the boat as hard as you can, push it as hard as you can. Seeing the other boats doesn't make me more nervous; it just makes me want to keep the boat going. Do the daily checks; keep the boat in one piece. Brad, on the stern: Maybe take it a little more cautiously, make sure we don't come a cropper. Nicolai: Lots of monitoring systems, checking the load of different hydraulics. In the lighter stuff can check everything, including steering systems. Looking up the rig. Brad explains that what you're looking for when looking up the rig. Nicolai: Things break every day. It's just about finding it in time and fixing it before it snowballs. Washing machine shots. Favoriting mostly for that drone sequence.

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.

Below, Joan talks about approaching Cape Horn, and the conditions over the next few days. Trying to find a balance between safety and pushing the boat hard. Vestas and Dongfeng ahead of them; expect to be close to them as they round. Ñeti, below, talks in Spanish. He shows a piece of hardware (mast track car?). Ñeti and Xabi work to repair a fitting. Washing machine shots in the morning sun on deck. Gybe from the stern. High-wind drone shots as MAPFRE surfs. Slomo drone shots of crew working on the bow to hoist the FR0. Drone shots in very windy conditions: streaking on the water as they surf with just J2/J3.

Drone shots of Dongfeng surfing fast, triple-heading, with dark clouds behind them. Stern cam as a big waves washes the helmsman off the whee. Can't see who it was; Daryl helps them back onto the wheel. Crew in the cockpit; washing machine. Night vision stern cam shot with snow/hail falling. Snow collected in the foot of the reefed main.

Drone shots of AkzoNobel surfing fast in big wind, triple-heading.

Drone shots of AkzoNobel surfing big waves in the sun. Slomo of wake peaking up into a geyser of whitewater. Nicho on the helm as they surf fast in big wind. Wake shot with big waves overtaking. Slomo of stuffing the bow and whitewater coming aft over the cockpit; Justin ducks. Slomo big-wave shots. Slomo of crew stacking aft. Nicolai on the helm with big waves behind him.

Epic drone shots of Brunel surfing on starboard gybe while a bird (a petrel, maybe, rather than an albatross? looks a little small for an albatross) checks out the drone. Same configuration as in the previous Brunel-surfing-big-waves drone shots: Deeply reefed (triple-reefed?) main, and then the FR0 and the J3, each sheeted to an outrigger. Makes sense to reduce the sail area of the main for these conditions. More control = faster when the issue is control, not sail area.

Kyle, on deck, says there's a squall coming so they've just put a reef in. "Probably got some snow on the way." Angry clouds. Snow on the main. Nina explains that it snowed; she and Kyle joke. Nina: "Kyle's decided this isn't where you should be." Kyle: "It's a place for seals, and whales, and penguins. And not for us." Nina: "It's too cold." Bouwe eating below. He explains the tactical situation. 1500 miles to the Horn. They're in the lead, which is the good news. Big front coming from behind. Gybe for the ice gate. And then big breeze tomorrow. "I think we can be pretty happy, eh?" We see a handoff on the helm: Thomas to Alberto. Below, Bouwe explains that they have 5 drivers: Albi (Alberto), Kyle, Peter, Thomas, and myself. Peter, below, explains that there's a lot of steering required in the Southern Ocean. A lot of load. On the swells. If you've had a peel, your arms are pretty sore after an hour or so. Can't drive that long. Drone shot. Thomas: Objective is to keep a good average speed. What is most complicated is when you surf a big wave you hit the wave ahead of you and slow down a lot. Peter: "You nosedive on every wave to a certain degree. Had some good ones where they went from mid-30s to 12 or so; had no way to get off the wave without broaching, so you just kind of planted it at the bottom. Held on. Not the nicest. But it's all part of it." Epic drone shot from alongside as they nosedive off a big wave and slow down.

Drone shots of AkzoNobel surfing big waves in the sun. On deck with Nicho on the helm, we see a squall coming. Nicolai: We've got a bit of hail coming. In a squall usually it's rain, but in the Southern Ocean it's hail. Hurts when it hits you in the head. Slomo shots of hail/snow. Martine (I think?) shakes her hands. "My hands are freezing. It hurts." Nicolai talks about easing the sheet, keeping the wind at 75 apparent. More drone shots of them surfing. Below, Martine squeezes water from her pigtails. "For a Brazilian this is very cold. I've never sialed in this cold before. I was freezing my hands outside. It was pretty cool; we had a pretty cool watch." Nicho, below, talks about gaining bearing. How it's funny that if they sail fast it's safer. If you have a breakage and slow down it's more dangerous, as they found in leg 3. [Favoriting for the epic drone shots and squall/snow.]

Blair, below, talks about having passed Point Nemo this afternoon. Pretty cool, but mixed emotions because of the issue with the mast track. Have been struggling to keep up with the fleet. Below, Tamara talks in Spanish. In the cockpit, a crewmember holds a sign with distances to Itajai, Auckland, and the International Space Station. Mast cam view forward as they surf and stuff the bow. Drone shot as they sail downwind in lighter conditions (for the Southern Ocean) as a crewmember aloft just below the first spreaders works on the mast track. Favoriting for that epic shot.

Slomo washing machine in the cockpit. Mark, below, talks about how they're approaching Point Nemo. Halfway between New Zealand and Cape Horn, closest humans on the space station, yada yada. (Sorry. I've heard that bit a lot.) Compass. Washing machine. Hannah: I thought it would feel more remote... Pretty cool that all the boats are so close together. SiFi at the nav station. "Probably one of the world's most remote and inhospitable places. Except that at the moment there's the 10 of us on a 65-foot boat and 6 other boats." Epic drone shots of Vestas surfing in big waves; way high/distant drone shot emphasizing how tiny they are. Mark, below: Talks about how the other boats will come to their aid in an emergency, and that's comforting. Sunset slomo washing machine shots. TJ: "I don't know about Point Nemo; sounds like a long way away from Cape Horn. I want to get there right now." Nick: "The fish named Nemo could not live there, because it's too cold." Favoriting mostly for those drone shots.

Drone shots of Brunel sailing under FR0 and full main. Crew gearing up below. Abby sorting through some gear, putting drops in her eyes. She talks about how everything is wet below, with condensation dripping. "Everything is a challenge." Nina in her bunk with a headlamp. Condensation close up. Thomas takes his gloves off, flexes his hand. At the nav station, Bouwe talks about the dangers of the boat making a sudden stop. He talks about how it's easier for the boys to have a peeing bottle; "for the girls every time they have to go to the toilet. Take their gear off. We just take our willy out and it's easy." Sunset on deck. Peter eating below. Bouwe talks about all the layers of clothing you need to put on.

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!"

Phil, below, talks about how MAPFRE has just passed them, and now Dongfeng is doing the same, so he's got to go on deck and do battle. Shot of Dongfeng sailing off their starboard quarter. Drone shot. Frustrating, but interesting to see that the two teams with the most time in the boat are the fastest. So they'll take this opportunity to study what they're doing and learn from it. MAPFRE ahead of them. SiFi talks about how MAPFRE has consistently been the fastest boat in the race. Creates some pressure on the crew, but you have stay calm and be open to ideas and try things. Slomo of Dongfeng astern of them, with another boat behind them (from the tracker, maybe Brunel?). SiFi: All the boats are the same, so of someone's doing better it's up to you to figure it out.

Closeups in the cockpit as they sail fast. Stacey's voice: "Main on." Grinding. Winch drum. Low-altitude drone shot of Vestas surfing fast. Washing machine. Mark: 50 south at this point. Air temps dropping... Nice day; going around a high pressure to the sun is out. More drone footage. Phil, below, talks about how it's going to get colder. At the moment is 12° air temperature and 10° water, we're probably going to get down to 6° on the water. Quite happy to be cold while we're leading. It's a lot worse if you're coming last in the cold. Mark, in the cockpit talking down into the cabin: "It's not his first rodeo." Tony, getting dressed: "You guys are wearing wetsuit gloves? 2 mil? I'll run my sailing gloves for the last watch before I go wetsuit. I'll go wetsuit tonight." Tony: At the moment it feels like we're just getting south, without getting to Brazil. He talks about how it's the fastest trip from Auckland he's made. Hannah, in the companionway, talks about how they can still see the other boats, and that's helpful. Jokey discussion at the stern by Nick, Tony, and Stacey (I think). Stacey: What happens at sea stays at sea. Nick: I don't think anyone's ever said that. Tony goads Nick into talking about what happened, and they talk about "a bit of a volcanic explosion" in the head. Nick: "Nothing as bad as the great eruption of Mount Mutter." Drone shot. TJ tries to thread a needle to fix some holes in something small (sock? glove?). "Good as new."

Washing machine shot. Witty, below: It's difficult at the moment because everyone's in a straight line. Drag race; same sails. Just boatspeed. Sunset. It will be pretty technical after the Horn; Libby will need to pull a few rabbits out of the hat. Drone shots of them sailing fast on a sunny day. Libby: Champagne sailing, except that the temperature drops steadily. Hopefully they'll get some compression. In 3 days time in 40-45 knots. It's gonna be pretty cold, and I remember from last time when we had 50-55 knots, the waves were just going flat and the wind was firing the top of the waves into your face. We've got the helmets this time which will help. Trystan: Going to get pretty windy, 50/60 knots. Mentally preparing for that. Survival mode I think. Drone shot. Alex, eating: when it's that windy you can't push the boat that hard; just trying not to crash. When it gets shiftier after the Horn, that's when the gains and losses can be made. Drone flyby at masthead height. Alex, eating by the companionway: It's getting colder. Favorited for that last drone shot. I'm a sucker for those.

Cool low-altitude drone shot that pulls up to reveal AkzoNobel sailing toward the drone. Drone shot above and astern, tracking with them. Simeon, bundled, talks about being in first position. Getting colder, good sailing conditions. Every watch you can feel the temperature drop. Jules, below in the dark, talks with Nicho about the wind and models. Nicho in his bunk, talking to Jules at the nav station. Jules: Crossed the dateline. In a different hemisphere. Fleet pretty close together, within a few miles, bar one boat (Scallywag). In 12 hours some big winds, 30 - 40 knots, and then for the next week. So pretty big stuff coming up. Favorited mostly for that really nice drone sequence at the beginning.

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.]

Drone shot of Vestas sailing upwind in 15-knot conditions. Double-heading with J0 and J3, it looks like. Charlie in the cockpit: Good to get back on the water. A little on the back foot, but they'll grind it out. Shot looking forward as the VOR-hired helicopter hovers at low altitude, shooting back toward them. Mark: Lots of anticipation, repair. But the day's finally here. Charlie: All or nothing until the next leg. Vestas sails toward shore with Phil on the helm. Mark: Just gonna have to out work all these other guys. SiFi at the nav station. It's father's day today in Spain, so I have a few little pictures from my boys. Leopard, dragon, dolphin, hippo. Made my day at least. It's the thing I miss the most when I'm away. They're beginning to understand that I'll be away for a few weeks. Nick in the hold swapping a spare electrical panel for the engine; got some water into it. "This isn't a tough thing to solve; it's just annoying." High drone shot with a competitor behind them in the distance.

$Beautiful drone shot of AkzoNobel reaching on port at sunrise. Nicolai types at the nav station. He talks about how they just peeled to a fractional sail. Falling a little bit behind the other boats; looking for speed. Mast cam view of the deck. Jules, on deck: "We're struggling a bit with the reaching setup; the guys in front of us stretching away from us." On the stern, Emily washes up. Peter, on a sheet, talks about how they have some nice waves and are trying to catch most of them without getting too low. Luke talks about how it's frustrating that the rich (ahead of them) are getting richer. Brad, below, talks about the frustrations of leaders pulling away without their being close enough to see their sail setup. (Note: He has a raspberry-colored buzz cut from the equator-crossing ceremony, which didn't show up so far in a video.) Nicolai talks about working hard, not panicking, getting faster day by day. Slomo shot of Emily and Nicho working the foredeck.$

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