Charlie, on the starboard rail, looks forward: "We think we see Dongfeng, having won the Volvo Ocean Race. Nick (I think), jokes: I don't wanna talk about it! Charlie: Apparently we don't wanna talk about it. SiFi is smiling with a tablet at the back of the boat. Jeremie: You don't want to talk about it? Charlie: They certainly deserve it. They've been the most consistent, they saved the best for last, always bounce back, a strong team, big risk. Looking good. TJ, by the helm with binoculars, is talking to SiFi about what he's seeing: Dongers. A bunch of other sailboats.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.Witty, below, puts talcum powder in his foulies. "Look at this: I apply the talcum powder like Bes told me." He shakes talcum powder all over himself. This is the best theory. You just get as much of it as you can, and you just cover yourself. This could almost be for the last time. He pulls on his foulies. About 6 hours to the end of the VOR. The V-O-R. He jokes about throwing beer in each other's faces. Annemieke, in her bunk: It's sure he will do it again.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.Annemike, trimming: Battling here. Don't want anyone between us and Plastics. Very important few hours. Witty: Looks like a photo finish, doesn't it? What other way would you want to finish the Volvo Ocean Race? He describes the position of the boats. Describes the possibilities of how the finish could play out. This has been an amazing mental, emotional roller coaster this race. In 47,000 miles not one thing has changed. As critical as I have been of the boats, and I will stand by that, this is the most amazing round the world race I've ever seen. For a whole bunch of different reasons. Antonio and Trystan grinning on the weather rail.Tony, below: As Nick just said, could be ever. Nick: Not ever. Tony: Who knows? [he laughs] Good and bad. The race has been a blast. Full on. Windiest race ever. As a team we had our ups and downs, had to battle on, come through it... It's my sixth race. Finishing my sixth lap of the planet over 20 years. Nick's just sniggering away up here. He knows I'll be back. Nick: I'm still going back to sleep. This could be my last watch on this boat. Which will have just completed two laps around the planet on, because this was Alvimedica on the last race. The old girl. Tony: I think Nick's gonna buy it. He's gonna put it on a vacant lot somewhere in Newport, and he's gonna live on it. Because he won't know how to live in a house. Stacey: Can put a sprinkler system on it... We joke about it, but I'm a bit like Tony. Hopefully this is my last time. I think I said this last race as well. Who knows what the future will bring I guess. On deck, Phil takes off his neoprene hood and rubs his hair: Last watch. Not gonna lie I'm pretty excited. I really want to get home. Time to start being a dad again, I guess. A few more hours, try to catch these guys, and then get home and start planning the next Volvo Ocean Race. Jena laughs. Tony: She's just dreaming of racing again, next time. Jena: Next time. I will enjoy it, have a little meal with Phil, a romantic breakfast. And then a little lie down in the bunk. You'll probably see me in 5 minutes setting a different sail. SiFi: We are enjoying our last day of offshore sailing. Beautiful sunny day in the North Sea. Not too sunny; if it gets too sunny it will get lighter. Below, Phil looks at a food pack. Eats at the nav station next to Jena. Phil sneezes, says to the camera: Brian [Brian Carlin, head of the OBRs mayabe?], Jena says there's never any mail for her. Charlie, on a pedestal on deck: Miss the most? Waking up every day with one goal. When it's over you wake up and don't know what to do with yourself. The direction is nice. What am I going to miss the least? Water pressure. Stacey: Probably, the challenge every day. And soon enough you don't have that, and you have to figure out what your next challenge is. SiFi: Miss the most? Other than the entertaining conversation with the OBRs? Hanging out with all of these guys I reckon. Working with some good people, learning something new every day. Don't know what I'm going to miss the least. Looking forward to my newfound freedom. Tony: Some of the stopovers were great. I'm going to miss that. Looking forward to going sailing again without getting blasted with water. TJ, on the helm: Miss the most? Like SiFi said, the people of course. Fast flat water VMG sailing. Miss the least? Probably that forward upper bunk. I'm looking forward to never having to climb that one again.Marie, below: Big surprise at the end because we took a different option from Brunel and MAPFRE. So we don't know for the moment. We will have a position report in 40 minutes, so we will see how they are going. So a bit stress, eh? We cross the finger. We have good wind at the moment. We hope they don't have the same. So we wait and we wait. Horace: Almost 42 nautical miles to the finish. Hopefully the weather forecast is like they say, the offshore choice will have less wind. So we can have a chance to overtake them. We still fight for that, and try everything we can, push the boat faster to have the best VMG speed to arrive the finish line. Everything will be happening at the finish line. Always believe it.Annemieke, below: Plan is, we're gonna bear away, and catch the whole fleet and finish first. Simple plan but it will work out. Witty: It's like leg 2 into Cape Town, the middle of the bloody Southern Ocean and we're gybing on top of each other. Nothing's changed. I think the boss is quite surprised at how tight and close it is. 100-footers were close but nothing like this. I don't want to look at the AIS ever again in my life. I'm sick of looking at the AIS. We've sailed 40,000 miles and we're still watching the boat next to us to see if they moved a sail a meter forward or back... I think now everyone's at the realization that tomorrow we never have to get on one of these things again and put ourselves through this. I think everything's coming home to roost of just how agonizingly frustrating and mentally tough it is, and we're now counting down the hours. I think if you thought like this any earlier in the race you wouldn't have been able to get yourself mentally right to do the next leg. Owner talks about the course from the cabin to the cockpit. Annemieke: I think as Witty always said, we're a bunch of good lunatics. But yeah, I think we've really bond. Everyone will not say to each other, but I think we're gonna miss each other. We went through so many highlights and major... disasters. Losing Fish. And I think Fish is a big part of the crew, he's with us, you know. Talking for myself I think about him every day. I miss him, and I think that counts for all of us. I think that's a big thing.Xabi, in the cockpit, trims the main and talks in Spanish about tactical situation. Repeats in English: 70 miles to go, very complicated really. Yesterday we were going east down the Danish coast with Dongfeng, but the last weather forecast changed a little, and we decided that the westerly option was better. Unfotunately they are in front of us, and Akzo. Still a good downwind of 30 miles today, but we will keep fighting and see what happens. Brunel and AkzoNobel ahead of them. Joan at the nav station. Blair on the helm. Willy, Sophie, Blair and Neti on the bow. Xabi: Main on. Hold. Blair's salty hands. Two boats closer in front of them.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.Tanker on the horizon; Dee talks about watching it to see if it changes direction. Dee gets her hat on and goes up. Slomo steering. Francesca, below: It's a real tough leg, it's short, but a lot of corners, different sails peeling, different conditions, full Volvo style, 30 knots, now we are sailing in 18 knots, so it's quite changeable waeather. It's quite nice. We were able to put more distance between us and Scallywag, and we can see Dongfeng in front, so everyone is really close. Bianca grinding on deck. Dee trimming. Slomo grinding by Liz. Scallywag behind them. Francesca: We have to beat Scallywag and put a boat between us and them. We'll try to catch the people in front. Maybe not in our hands; if someone wants to finish behind us it's perfect. Liz, on deck, talks about trying to keep the staysail happy. Nicolas at the nav station. Bianca and Dee in slomo.Pascal rubs his eyes at the nav station. Charles looks on. They talk in French. Pascal: Honestly, for the moment we are far behind, but they have to turn around 40 miles before the finish line and come back. I hope the next wind's on us, a lot. But we will see. It's a bit crazy we have been racing for 9 months and it's only the 40 last miles of the last leg is going to decide who is going to win the Volvo Ocean Race. It's crazy. Charles gets dressed and talks to Pascal in French; something about "a cyclone and we flap flap flap!" He tells Martin: If they get some light pressure we can come back. We win or not in one hour but not two hour (?). Wait and see.Nicolai on the helm. MAPFRE and Brunel in their wake. Nicho: You're in the lead, but they're so close it's not really. Gotta sail as fast as we can, mode the boat, hopefully that will be enough. But it's going to be on, all day; here we go. Hasn't' been much sleep the last few days. Carlo talks to Jules below: Where's the Dongers? Jules explains how they went inside. "Could pay off for them; could not. Models aren't particularly clear." Nav screen shows them entering the little gap in the exclusion zone. He stands in the hatch and shows Simeon the route on a tablet. Simeon: Pretty good. [He sounds half asleep.] "Good feeling to be in home waters." Shots of Brunel and MAPFRE behind them. Nicho: Stress. You can cut it with a knife back there between those two boats. Still have Dongfeng... not as strong a position tactically, but can't tell. He talks about the exciting day ahead.Blair, below: So, real interesting one. Final appraoch to the Hague and the end of the race, and we knew it would be the case, but there's these TSS's that are a massive exclusion zone. Have to make a choice off Denmark which way to go. We were lining up to go on the inside, down toward Germany and along the beaches on the top of Holland; made a late call to go to the west. As a result we lost quite a lot on Brunel and AkzoNobel who had decided to go this way earlier, and doing so we split from Dongfeng who were carrying on down. It's a tricky one, but at the end of the day we have to do what we think is right to get us there fastest, and both the boats we had to beat are going different ways, and we feel this way's fastest. Got Brunel about a mile above us now, so we're gonna have to fight to the end. But that's the way it is. All good really. Wouldn't want it any other way. Not long to the finish now, definitely in the final sprint. Probably no sleep now for sure. Not that there's been much sleep. There's gonna be compression toward the finish as well. Lot of light stuff and gybing... Plenty to play for. Just glad we're here and in the fight. It's been a busy few days, just looking forward to finishing off well. Black and white shot of the cockpit. Mast cam view of lowering the J1. Loud shot of the cockpit. Conversation between Blair and Joan at the nav station. Xabi in the pit. Slomo. Blair on the helm.Spreader cam of the cockpit. Mast cam of spray on the bow. Stern cam of major washing machine. Liz: This is definitely one of the things I'm going to miss about the race. It's pretty cool to spend the last 24 hours like this. It's a good way to end the race. Washing machine in the pit. Stacking. Bagging a sail (?) on the floor of the cockpit. Liz: Gaining on Scallywag the last 2 hours, and everyone's pretty geared up to stay in front of them. So the fight is on. Lowering the J1 on the foredeck.Black and white. Night. Abby works the pit. It's super loud as they surf on starboard; some maneuver is going on. Water cascades into the cockpit. Abby coils. Below, Peter, from his bunk, asks Capey about the sched. Capey: It's half and half; could go either way. Looks like they're going inshore. [Talking about MAPFRE and Dongfeng, I assume.] Peter, in his bunk, explains to Sam: Just peeled to the J0. "So we go the J1 off, which is always nice. AkzoNobel seems to be going pretty quick with the J1, Vestas is down to leeward, a little bit behind. We're not very sure if MAPFRE and Dongfeng are going inside or outside; we're obviously going outside. Hope to find some good speed with the J0 and get to Holland."Dongfeng on port gybe, Carolijn trimming. MAPFRE to starboard. Daryl. Hoisting the J1. Charles grinding on the forward pedestal. Stu on the helm talking with Kevin. Spray. Sunset. Waves. Reefed main. Stacking. Pascal at the nav station. Charles at the nav station. Stu: If we had to gybe it though, we could run one. Stu: We've chosen a path inshore. So there's lots of tricky navigation. Sand banks, separation schemes, wind farms. It's going to be an interesting night.Slomo washing machine from the cockpit. Kyle, below: Just broke the padeye that holds the port outrigger on, lost the forward outrigger, snapped the end off it, and it took a big gouge out of the daggerboard, and had to replace that, which was pretty horrible in 25 knots power reaching. So just spent 45 minutes under water with Carlo trying to replace that. And we did that, and lost quite a bit, unfortunately, about a mile and a half to AkzoNobel and the rest of the guys. Back underway, and hopefully make some gains on those guys soon. Spreader cam shots of Kyle and Carlo working on the broken outrigger. Reefing the main.TJ suits up and goes forward wth a GOPro (Garmin) on him. Working at the base of the mast to put in a reef.. He takes spray in the pit. Crash cam from the stern shows him taking spray; SiFi talks on the PA about an upcoming exlcusion zone. He clips in the reefed tack, comes back to the pit. Spreader cam view of them pulling the main back in. TJ, below, talks about putting the reef in. Charlie comes down: When you have to go up for two seconds sometimes you don't put your gear on. Which is stupid. TJ: We reduced the sail, and then we were like, let's go faster. And put it back up again. Charlie, spraying water on his face: And we were the victims. Us.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.Carlo, below: It's very light. So it's an opportunity to catch up on the two red boats. And on sleep. He gets in his bunk. Peter, on deck: Pretty light. Working our way back up to Norway. Stretching the course, which is good for us... Can see the boats ahead of us, bit of a compression. Kyle, on the helm: Of course the dream is still alive till it's over. Some good gains... Keep plugging away and hopefully catch them in the next 24 hours. AkzoNobel behind them. Dongfeng and MAPFRE heading south. Peter and Capey talk about current and the virtual mark. Peter: Wanna wake everyone up? Two miles? Capey: I think that will do it for me. (Calling layline.) They tack. They come into the virtual mark, with Capey calling the bear away. Abby on the bow talks about them having rounded the mark, and traffic separation scheme coming up. Sam: How is the mood on board right now? Abby: It's good. Still in good spirits. Still a long way to go, gotta keep plugging. As much as we would like to be down there, we just gotta keep trucking. Shot of the two boats ahead of them.Blair preps a sail patch below. "Too many sail changes, and the [something] which attaches the sheet to the sail, went through the J1's... So a quick repair before the next sail change. Endless... He and Neti apply the patch on the sail near the bow. Willy, on the foredeck, talks in Spanish. Repeats in English: If there's another team besides us in this race that deserves to win it's them. We've been stuck behind them for the last 2 days. We had our chances to pass them. We did pass them, but they always come back strong. They're just under half a mile. We're just catching them up now in the next half hour. Compression and transition. Plenty of chances. Blair below tells Tamara, "Two hours". Then says "Nahh..." Maybe he was joking? Rounding the virtual mark, with Dongfeng heading south and dthen them following them. Chasing Dongfeng south with Vestas (I think) approaching them.Dongfeng and MAPFRE sailing south from the virtual turning mark. Jena: MAPFRE! SiFi talks about the approach, passenger ferry. Jena slaps at someting. SiFi checks his tablet. They all seem exhausted. Charlie on the helm. Simon calls it, and they tack to round the virtual mark. TJ: Are we around it? SiFi: Yeah. We were a bit in tight, out wide. Charlie, on the helm, hoists his cup: This is for you Bill. This is for you.Knotmeter on mast reads 5.7. Stacking amidships. Francesca: Of course it's a mix of emotions. You want to push, because it's the last leg, and you want to gain a position on the leaderboard. But in a week and a half it's over, and you need to work out your work plans, dream plans... it's a bit weird for everyone. I think we did some good legs during the race. Maybe we deserve something more than to finish last in the race. This leg seems quite open. MAPFRE and Dongfeng had a big lead yesterday, and they lost everything in this light patch. Every thing is open to the finish line. Everyone is quite tired. But the other boats are in the same position as us. Cannot complain, and just do what we know to do in the few hours we still have of this Volvo Ocean Race. Bernardo: I think we didn't sleep one straight hour... Lucas: My eyes are bleeding. Slomo of Bernardo, Bianca, Bernardo and Lucas eating below. Grinding.Drifting in light conditions. SiFi talks about wind. Stacey: The standard Volvo Ocean Race compression has happeend. We busted our butts to get somewhere and then (hits her hands together) we all end up together. Mark and SiFi looking around. MAPFRE and Dongfeng 3 miles away. TJ talks about a spectator boat motoring out to see them. Nick puts on an abdominal wrap. "I got this from an even older, and more damaged bowman; Neti, right there (pointing). He puts on his foulie pants over it. "Kind of feels like a diaper though." Charlie calls from the bow: Dongfeng looks like they're getting the better of... Nick: High pressure clouds... It's gonna be a good day. Stacy grinds. Tony on the helm points out MAPFRE sailing with strong wind. TJ: They're heeled over. So we compress and now we're expanding. Bungee. SiFi and Charlie talking at the nav station. They all sound loopy as hell.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.TTToP sails a hundred yards away on their port quarter. The boat owner is on the helm again, gripping the wheel like he thinks someone's going to try to take it away from him. Witty at the nav station: Have you realized the boss is the king scallywag of all scallywags? It all flows from the top down. It seems really happy to have him on board for the leg with all we've gone through and stuff. I think we can pass a few boats and get a good result now with him on board. Nav screen showing other boats around them. Witty talks about what's happened in the race with them lately. Still pretty confident. Only a mile between the back four boats. Nothing to get too worried about at the moment; still plenty of passing lanes. One thing the boss did notice, is people just work harder when things get hard. It's a big thing that I'm proud of with this team. We don't give up. Don't throw the towel in and just work harder. Slomo washing machine. Witty talks about the less experienced crew: Pretty big step up for Alex and Nipper, guys like Parko have been fantastic helping them along, teaching them the ropes. Trystan Seal joined us halfway through the race. They're all cut from the same cloth. Bessie is mad as a cut snake (?), the toughest human I know, and the most positive human I know. And a life friend of mine now, for sure. Couldn't be more proud of her. I think she's the only person in 55,000 miles has never said a negative comment, never got angry at me. When you pick people to be part of a team, you judge them on their character before you judge them on their ability. When you go the other way around you might end up with ability, but you don't end up with a team. One thing I've learned you probably can't be all one way, can't be all the other. Probably need to be more in the middle. But the Scallywag family is growing pretty fast, and the boss has plenty of plans, and plenty of boats, and plenty of stuff to do. So I'm sure the guys that are new to the team for this leg will be around for a long time to come. And I'm sure there's going to be plenty more Nippers and Alex's to come along. It's one of the biggest kicks I get out of doing it. Sunset. TTToP sailing ahead and to leeward.Someone (Martin?) sleeping below. Sailing past land in lighter conditions. Nicolas and Bernardo look at Nicolas's tablet. Stacking below. Tacking in the cockpit. Bernardo and Bleddyn on the forward pedestal. Scallywag 100 yards ahead of them. Entering Aarhus. Nicolas looks at his tablet. Nicolas: We are going to go inside the harbor. Winds are very tricky. We are fighting with Scallywag. Three boatlenghts. Have to be ready to do everything. Spectator sailboat motors alongside with Danish flag. Tacking. Nicolas: We are almost layline now. We have to tack guys. Bleddyn, on the helm, calls the tack. Scallywag crosses ahead on port. Sailing past a 12 meter in the harbor. Repeat of earlier Nicolas clip explaining the upcoming harbor transit. Passing the lighthouse. Scallywag exiting above them. Spectators along quay. Tacking around the buoy. Exiting past the crowds. Annalise: A little bit tight in there; wind was a little funky. Had a few messups with our Masthead Zero. Nearly heading to the finish. One more mark by Norway. Loads of people there, which was really cool... I think everyone's pretty tired on the boat. We're now on the home stretch... Sleep when we get to the Hague. Gybe. Scallwag to port. Lumpy furl of the MH0. Liz: Have to drop it. Wrestling with the badly furled sail on the foredeck. Scallwag gybes ahead of them. Lucas fiddles with the sail. Lowering the J1.Sailing into Aarhus as MAPFRE exits below them. Brad on the rail. Nicolai on the helm. Brunel crosses ahead of them. Brunel tacking directly ahead of them; 3 boatlengths away. Entering the marina with helicopter overhead. Rounding the mark right behind Brunel. Nicolai: Amazing day for me, sailing into my home port. Hope we put on a good show. Hopefully we can pay them back now wiht a good result. Brad lowers the J1 on the bow with spectators cheering. Sailing fast on the exit. Emily, below: Exciting to have fans cheering. Shattering; no sleep, and then lots of sail changes. Luke, on deck: Good to have the support of the Danish people. Certainly was full on for us; lots of maneuvers, lots of sail changes. I'm sure they got a sight they can take home and remember for a long time.Sailing into Aarhus (I think). Crew work in the cockpit. Jena. Windsurfer. TJ makes a peace sign at a foiling kitesurfer. Charlie on the helm. Jena: We're here in Aarhus. I'm so excited. So many people are here, and we're not even in the harbor yet. My mom and dad, sister, friends. Close to the new sailing center. Dongfeng exiting as they keep going in. Jena is doing her live interview on the headset. Nick: Anyone want to see MAPFRE? They wave at MAPFRE as they go by. Spectator fleet. Jena grinding with Roy Disney, Jr. SiFi with his tablet: Anyone see the mark yet? Jena waves. Jena: I'm so close to home. Right there! (she points). She waves both arms to the crowd on the quay. Tacking around the buoy. Jena: I'm so happy, so proud to be Danish right now. This is the largest amount of people we've seen at any stopover or flyby or anything. I think it's so spectacular. I'm so moved and so touched. I saw my family and friends. Thank you so much, all of Denmark. It was amazing. Thank you. Mark: Pretty cool, leaving Aarhus. You can tell this country loves sailing, and a lot of support for Jena. Jena wipes away tears on the stern. AkzoNobel and Brunel coming in. TJ coils on the foredeck as they sail past them. "Gotta keep pushing hard. There has been no sleep on this leg."Kyle, on the rail: Approaching Aarhus. Got Turn the Tide, AkzoNobel, and Scallywag behind us. Vestas ahead. MAPFRE and Dongfeng are quite a ways ahead; hoping for a parkup. Not the greatest position, probably 13-14 miles short of where we want to be. We're still confident we can come back in this leg. Pushing hard. Hopefully it will swing our way. Peter below lies down in his bunk. "I'm for a nap." Sam: How we gonna get em, Pete? Peter: I don't know. Depends on the opportunities. Had a bit of a peeling frenzy this last hour: Masthead to J0 to Masthead to J1 to J0. We can see Vestas again. Hopefully the leaders are slowing up. Bouwe, below: So far it has been pretty much as predicted. Have done pretty well against Akzo and the boats behind us who have sailed in the same water. Sam: You're behind the red boats. Does that worry you, and how are you going to get them behind you? Bouwe: It worries me *shitless*. Because they have a really good lead, 11 miles dead upwind. If they turn the corner that 11 miles will be 25, 30 miles again. But luckily we go through the virtual waypoint. Chance of a parkup, and hopefully can catch them up. It will be difficult. After we come back past Denmark there's a lot of exclusion zones, traffic separation zones, wind farms; of coruse we're going to try to sail our own course. Might take a little bit of a flyer because we're relatively far behind. High pressure pushing in, so there's a chance for a buffalo girls sail the outside. So let's cross our fingers that's happening.Dongfeng sails with two RIBs alongside; MAPFRE beyond. Approach to Aarhus, maybe? Carolijn can be heard discussing their sail configuration. Daryl. Carolijn: And then back to Norway. MAPFRE astern fo them. MAPFRE sailing to leeward. Coming into the harbor with helicopter sound Stu asks Pascal if his waypoint is close to the marina. Carolijn shouts a conversation with someone in a RIB alongside. Tack. Sailing into the harbor with cheers. Tacking around the harbor buoy. Passing MAPFRE, who's still coming in. More cheering crouds. Passing Vestas. Daryl makes some comment: "...was MAPFRE and now it's Brunel." Stu: They banged the left corner. That's certainly a challenge when racing 24 hours and we're further away from the finish than when we started. There's something not quite right about that. Pascal: Less wind here guys. Stu: Wait a bit for puff to roll through here, and loose cover MAPFRE? He points out pressure. Daryl: Still a couple of big opportunities for a big parkup. Above Denmark, getting up to the next mark. And then the finish depending on the timing. Can only cover so much; have to keep doing what we're doing for the first part of this leg.Liz steers as Scallywag sails a quarter mile to leeward. Scallywag in front of the wind farm. Francesca grinding in front of Scallywag and the wind farm. Scallywag a hundred hards on their port quarter. Slomo of Scallywag behind them with Dee scowling in the foreground. Liz: Not a lot of ocean going on in the Volvo Ocean Race at the moment. Have to sail into a harbor, sail back out, sail back up to Norway. Not much sleep. Have been dueling with Witty the whole race. [Re: beating Scallywag]: I ould not describe it. It would be perfect. Slomo foredeck, grinding. They look exhausted. Bleddyn, Bianca grinding. Liz stacking with Scallywag behind. Clew of the MH0. Scallywag 100 yards ahead and to weather. Rolling up the J3.Scallywag on their starboard quarter. Grinding. Slomo gybe, steering, stacking. Annalise triming, not even paynig attention to the low-level washing machine. Bianca grinding. Martin: A tight race with Scallywag. Got closer and closer on the downwind leg. Heading over to Denmark. Bleddyn: The main thing for us this leg is not only to defeat Scallywag but get a boat between us. We're ahead of them; try to catch AkzoNobel or Brunel, in front of us, over the next day. Haven't had much sleep. Can sleep after we get to the Hague. Scallywag to starboard. Bianca yawning. Gybe. Stacking.MAPFRE in their wake. Charles: After this mark we go upwind. Charles driving. Carolijn trimming. Stu: Where's this mark?.. What's the bearing... 214? Pascal comes up and looks around. Charles: Can we go up? Pascal answers in French. Jack on the foredeck. So far I've had two lots of 3 and a half minutes (sleep). Went downstairs at one point last night and got about 3 minutes before I got called up. Won't be a chance for sleep for some time. Going into Aarhus; lots of maneuvers. Maybe on our way up to Norway again, we'll get a chance to chill out a bit. But I don't think so.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.Dee explains that they got to the mark close to Scallywag and had a bad mark rounding. Martin in the pit as they round the Norway turning mark. Scallywag next to them inside, then ahead of them as Liz pulls down the J1 on the bow. Dee on the helm: Know the order everyone is in, and sadly we are at the back. Lowering the J1, motorboat following them, Scallywag to leeward and ahead. Sunrise. Dee: A little tour of Scandinavia. She talks about sleep, and people forgoing it, and their positivity. Nicolas talks to Dee about gybing around the TSS. Stacking. Scallywag behind them, a little.Epic slomo washing machine shots with the newly risen sun behind them. Annemieke does a slomo shaka sign.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.Jena trims as they sail upwind toward the Norway turning mark. Hoisting the A3 in preparation for the rounding. Other boats already having rounded. Stacey: Arriving at the first mark on the coast of Norway. It's midnight and the sun's coming up. The cherry red boats have just rounded, and Akzo is just behind us. SiFi points out the buoy. Stacking to leeward in preparation for the rounding. SiFi calls the time to the tack: 1:10. Charlie calls the tack from the helm. Buoy wiht the moon behind it. Charlie calls the deploy. Sailing downwind with the sunrise behind them. TTToP on their weather quarter tacking for the mark. Tony fiddling with the outrigger. SiFi laughs about the midsummer night, relates the events of the beat up. Happy to have got out in third, and slightly faster than the boats ahead at the moment, so it's all good.Tack in the semi-darkness. Mark rounding. Someone (Annemieke?) counts down to the mark. Someone else shouts "deploy, deploy, deploy..." TTToP behind them. Libby: We're just off the coast of Norway. Half a boatlength between us and Turn the Tide. But we did a better peel inside them, so we got better distance on them. Witty gives the owner instructions on the helm. TTToP a few boatlengths astern of them.Night shots of Dongfeng near the Norway turning mark. Powerboat alongside. They round the mark and unfurl the A3 (I assume). MAPFRE rounds just behind them. Daryl explains that things are going well. "We had a wobbly patch where we thought we were caught between the two breezes. But in the end it's worked out really well. Sailed well against MAPFRE in the last little section coming up. Glad they're behind us here, and let's hope it can stay like that. It's going to be a battle, that's for sure. Charles, on the helm, looks at other boats. Akzo, Vestas, Brunel.Sailing into the twilight. Peter says something about the stack. Hoisting a sail on the bow. Vestas passing them with the moon behind them. Ooh; this is the mark rounding off Norway. A motorboat cruises alongside. TTToP passes them still going upwind. Bouwe: Just passed the mark at Norway. Not the position we wanted to be in, but still a lot of the leg to go. I think the sun is coming up again, even though it's 1:30 or 2:00 at night. It's just one of these things that we remember, how fortunate we are that we can sail in these kinds of conditions.Neti, on the rail, talks in Spanish with the sunset behind him. He repeats in English: Quite a tricky afternoon. Lots of tacks, cloud, right-hand shift. Now we have Dongfeng ahead of us, and the others on our transom. So we are in the fight, and pushing. Good stuff for us. We made a mistake on the leeward layline. We took the first opportunity we have... now we have to make the less mistakes possible. Very tricky leg. We knew also with the watches that after the top mark in Norway it's going to be full on. Hopefully we can have some sleep. He interrupts to drop the J1. Other boats to weather: Brunel, AkzoNobel, and Dongfeng. Stacking. Xabi grinding. Slomo stacking. Rob: Lefthand phase still to come, and then it will build right. Is that right, Joan? Neti and Willy on the bow laughing about something. Packing a sail on the foredeck. Slomo grinding. Stacking uphill. Tack. Dongfeng ahead and to leeward.Sailing toward the sunset and clouds. Grinding. Bernardo points out whitecaps coming down. Tack. Stacking below and on deck. Scallywag to port. Sailing into the sunset. We see the blown covering tack by Scallywag from TTToP's perspective. Bernardo: We are sailing upwind with 22 knots. Put us back on the fleet again. Game is on; we have Scallywag really close to us. Time to get our heads up and fight for our position. The game is on. They want to do it the hard way; it's not going to pay off. Shots of Scallywag on their weather quarter. Sunset.Scallywag tacks a boatlength to windward of TTToP in the sunset. Not a great tack; takes a while to get the sail in, and it looks to me like TTToP escapes to the lee bow. Jack, below, describes it. "A mid-ocean lee bow... They came in with plenty of pace; had a bad tack." All pretty tight, with Akzo and Brunel not too far in front. Shot of TTToP on their lee bow.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.Charlie on the helm in the prestart. SiFi: One minute to go. Charlie: Racing! Other boats. Jena grinding. Jena: Goodbye Gothenburg! This is the last leg going into the Hague. Almost 20 knots. Ready to rock and roll! Brunel pokes a bow above them as they round th elighthouse. Charlie: Right on the edge right now. SiFi: A little more high please. TJ in the pit. Stacking. Phil speaks with a fake Dutch accent about going to the Hague. Start was good; a bit of a frenzy. Got rolled by a couple, managed to hold the lane... Bow forward and off to Norway. Rounding the big daymarker; Brunel, TTToP, and MAPFRE behind them. Stacking to leeward. Slomo tack. Bearded guy grinding on the aft pedestal (American accent): I've been following this race since '73. These guys are all heroes to me. Every one of them. Slomo shots of crew.Saying goodbye on shore in a cafe/breakfast tent setting. Abby hugs someone. Bouwe: We're going sailing! Going to the Hague, going home. Parade. Nina, hand in lens: No photo, no photo. Capey on the dock: Time to go. Sam: How great is this part? Capey: This is bad. This is boring. It's dull, isn't it. Hanging around, waiting for the big event. I'd rather get into it. On the dock, Peter and Carlo are talking with Blair Tuke. Peter: I'm dying, I need to get off. Bouwe comes up and shakes hands with Blair. Capey comments on Dongfeng's dockout. Bouwe has to make a big step onto the boat. Peter steps aboard. Dockout. Kyle, below: Five years ago we had a great comeback in the America's Cup. Unfortunately we weren't able to repeat that in Bermuda a year ago this weekend. But we're hoping to achieve a similar thing in the Volvo Ocean Race. Back in Auckland five months ago we were in second-to-last place, since then we've worked very hard. We've had a lot of fun with it, hope to keep the ball rolling, be on top of the podium when we get to the Hague. Nina, looking at MAPFRE motoring out ahead of them: I know that we're gonna beat 'em. Capey: Good people, nice boat, same as ours. So we have to outsail them. Bouwe on the helm: I've sailed around the world two times with them. They're good friends, so it will be nice to beat them. Sam to Carlo: Do you have some nerves today? Carlo: I have a little bit of nerves, yeah. But that's every leg start, really. Usually have nerves for an hour before the start, and then takes about two hours before that's gone. Sam: When you see the red boats what do you think? Carlo: I think good luck, but you're gonna be behind us. Hope you have a good leg as well, just not better than us.Crew is in a room talking about the upcoming leg. Abby asks how far they can go in at (somewhere). Bouwe answers: Potentially all the way inside of the harbor. Bouwe asks if anyone else has anything. Kyle: We've got no pressure on us, the other guys do. The only thing we need to do is keep doing what we're doing. Don't change anything, just do everything a little bit better. Everyone sticks to the process. The woman next to him says, "You can have my glasses because you just did my job." Bouwe has one thing to say, "One final thing. The last leg is always a little awkward. But just kick yourself and say, Fuck, we had fun this race, we did well. And just enjoy it, the moment. The moment you leave everybody goes their own way, some see each other, some don't see each other. These are the last miles we'll sail together... We had a pretty nice campaign. And that might make a difference.Xabi signs a woman's program/magazine. Woman: Good luck. Xabi: Thank you. Woman: Kick some ass. Xabi: We will try. Xabi leaves (hotel?) loads gear into a car. Driving in the car: Xabi: Going to the base now... Looked at the weather. Slept as good as we could. Had a breakfast. Joan is waiting. Have some lunch. Say goodbye to some freinds, and go out... Tamara signs a banner in teh base. She talks in Spanish. Sophie signs the other side of the banner. Neti talks in Spanish near the dock. He repeats in English: Has been quite crazy, all the support. All around the world, especially in my case with the Ñeti fans, since the start of the race, and even more now than ever. We'll push as good as we can. In Spain are a lot of good sailors in the Olympics, but it's true that the Volvo Ocean Race is one of the few things left in Spain. Glad to be part of this, and have the chance to give this trophy to Spain. Xabi and Bouwe talk with someone in a Dongfeng jacket. Dee comes up and gives Xabi a hug. Xabi points to Charles and asks her something. She replies: "Nah. I said, 'You're going down, Charles.'" Xabi hugs Witty. Xabi takes a photo with a woman; she turns him around and points to the "XABI" on the back of his jacket. Team photo on the dock. Xabi steps aboard, waves during the dockout.Carolijn in the parade. Charles in the parade. Dockout; Charles steering, Pascal waves his hat. Jumpers jump off. Fist bumps before the start. Kevin: 45! Start. Stu: Pressure in 5. Higher, slower than Scalliwag. Other boats: Brunel, TTToP, AkzoNobel. Marie says something in French. Mark rounding. Big daymarker/tower. Charles on the helm. Tack. Pascal says something in French. Carolijn below: The war has started. So far so good for us. Had a good start, came out of the Gothenburg river in second place behind Akzo. But obviously the fleet is really close together. Now tacking up the Swedish coast to Norway, battling out the shifts. Going to be an intense afternoon and night ahead.Slomo parade. Simeon, Nicolai, Luke, Martine, Emily, Jules, Justin (carrying a small child). Dockout. Simeon: This is where I learned sailing. It's going to be good fun. Nicolai on the helm in the prestart talking about their approach. Simeon: "3:20!" On the line, Brunel, Dongfeng, TTToP nearby. Jules calling nav on the upwind with his tablet. Other boats: MAPFRE. Dongfeng just behind. Nicho: Just be a blocker for the next 3 days. Good start by Nicolai. Now get up the coast and probably match these guys a little bit. Good start; just keep trying to put the best foot forward. Jules: Going better now, Nicolai. Nicolai on the helm.Pre-dockout mingling and parade. Henry in the tent. Lucas pushes Bianca playfully. Dee brings up the rear. Slomo parade. LIz, Martin, Annalise, Dee, Nicolas. Martin does an interview as he's walking. Dee says goodbye to well-wishers; gets a kiss from a child. Annalise talks with Stacey Jackson about waffles. Dee and Stacey shake hands. Dee: I'll buy you waffles.... Winner buys. Bleddyn hugs someone. Lucas: Final time to dock out for an offshore leg. Their goal: To put a boat between them and Scallywag to move up from last place in the standingss. Martin interview: Fantastic week in Gothenburg. Very emotional send off now. Handshakes in a line as they thank well-wishers. Francesca dances. Lucas does an interview. Dockout. Bleddyn waves. Wisdom steers the boat (courtesy of Liz). Interesting that I thought I saw Henry Bomby hanging out in crew gear, but then he's not on the official site's "Onboard" crew list?Lucas, below: It's about setting goals, and you often have to readjust depending on where you are. To keep the morale up you set goals that you think you can achieve, and you keep chipping away at some bigger goals. We've set targest for each leg, and that's how you get better. Peel on deck. Frederico: Big challenge to manage your emotions while racing so many days in a row, so intensive. So many highs and lows. The very good sailors in this sport keep themselves stable. I struggle a lot; sometimes frustrated when things not going well. Shots of Frederico looking frustrated. Frederico: So yeah, something I've been working on. But the team always has the spirit to look forward, so that helps. Always improving, having fun. Francesca smiles in magic-hour light. Francesca: I'm a really competititve sailor. Short races, Olympic sailing, always to win. This race was different; knew from the beginning we had less experience. At the same time we have ability to sail fast, and have a good finish. Now is the time to show what we've learned and push as much as possible. Liz: Only reason we do this race is because we want to win... We're not going to win; we know that now. We can only do our best, nad we're doing our best against the best. Bianca: I feel really proud, proud of myself, and of our team. We've just sailed around the world in the Volvo Ocean Race. That's not something everybody does. We've proved that a mixed team can compete in this race at a high level. So yeah, I'm super proud.Bleddyn: Tough 24 hours, reach-y J2 sailing. Brunel and Akzo showed us how to do it the other day; it was frustrating to see them go fast. Now we've got Dongfeng just to leeward, so we've gained on them, which is nice. Pushing to gain on them and maybe AkzoNobel. Bleddyn talks with Brian and Liz about the peel and splitting the stack on the approach. Brian talks about leaving the J0 plugged in for the downwind. Bleddyn: talks about looking back over the summer. But when you're in the race you're in the heat of the moment and how to make the boat faster. Out here it's all about the racing.Blair on the stern: Well it's certainly a battle. Brunel on the bow; leading the whole fleet in the 2-sail reaching stuff. Now we both have the J0's on and hopefully claw back a bit, and there's a change of sail and a masthead zero as we make our way into the channel so hopefully that's an opportunity for us. We had to win this leg. If we win this leg and Dongfeng's behind it goes a long way toward us winning this race. We're giving eveyrthing we have to pass these guys. If we don't it's going to be a tie between us and them, and a heck of a last leg. What a crazy leg so far. Good wave right here, real good wave. Here we go... 28. 29. Still 29. Shots of them sailing fast. Pablo on the helm.Stern cam / crash cam of AkzoNobel reaching in strong conditions. Nicolai, on the helm, calls out, "Big wave. Hang on." and a big wave slaps off the side of the boat, sending spray in the air. Martine getting geared up below. "This is what they call summer. I can't believe it. We need winter gloves in summertime. Although we're only two or three miles away from everybody it's very bad visibility, very bad weather." Nicho comes below, talks to Jules: Consensus on deck is J1. Jules talks with him about the course. What's the best compromise? Nicho to Brad in his bunk: Bradley. You know how it's your off watch? We're gonna go to J1 now. Is that funny? Brad: Eh, not that funny. Nicho: I actually think it's reasonably funny. Brad (half asleep): You just doing this for fun? Brad talks about his lucky (red) socks. Kiwis... Nicho, below: We thought we had a terrible watch, not on our numbers, but Brunel was the only one that gained on us. We have the wrong sail up, so probably everyone has the wrong sail up. So we're gonna change the sail. Slomo spray on deck. Jules looks at an actual paper chart. [I love real charts.] Jules: Just about picking your right sail... Barometer's rising now, so the wind's going to shift right and drop at the same time. Exclusion zones... And get around the Skaggerak, which is the top of Denmark. Thread the boat at the fastest speed through a narrow straight line, which should be quite simple, but it's always easy to make complicated.Dee, below: Hard to balance emotions and competitiveness of a project without reflecting on hindsight. We all learn from mistakes. Maybe I need to be a bit more ruthless in how I manage stuff, only have the best drivers drive, but it wasn't how we set out with this project. We didn't have any lead up time, so we did it on the way round. We have confidence in who's better in certain conditions, but we've probably still let people drive who weren't as fast as others. Maybe I should have been more cutthroat, but one thing I have noticed is the team are very much a team, and they've done this together and they're ending it together. I think that's really nice. To see them grow, their confidence, their self-belief as well. They don't need any experienced people on this boat; they could do it all themselves. Facilitating them getting the confidence to believe that has been huge. And that's a really big step. And that's what I'm most proud of. Having them grow as sailors over nine months. Crew in the cockpit. Dee: This is about them showing they can race this boat with the best racers in the world. That's what they're going to take away and remember with this project, and that was one hell of a year and we did a really good job. My mission in this final couple of weeks is to make them have that feeling, so when it's July 1 and the circus leaves town, they're all really proud people. Crew work in the cockpit. Dee describes her fantasy of them passing the boats ahead. "Reality may hit hard."Slomo of helicopter hovering off their stern. Washing machine. MAPFRE is visible a few miles behind them, barely. Below, Peter empties the pee bottle out the hatch. Sam: What's going on, Pete? Peter: That was a refreshing piss I just took. Apparently Norway's somewhere down there (points to port). Quite gray and raining. Can still see MAPFRE; they're 1.2 miles behind. A lot better than 1.2 miles in the front. Sam: How far to go, and how confident are you about keeping them behind you? Peter: No idea how far in miles, but Capey assures me it's about 8 hours, which means I'm not going to get any more sleep... Pretty good. Sam asks him about how he just sends it in the last few hours. Peter: The leg finishes seem to be quite tricky for us. End up in a park up. Hopefully this one won't. There always tricky; heaps of peels, coming back closer to land, and lots of trimming, stacking. Generally means we're awake. Sam: Yeah, but generally your more wired than usual. Peter: Well, you're coming close to the finish, mate. Getting back to land, have a shower, not that the food program's not great on board but you get to have some different food. [Looking forward, presumably at someone prepping a meal.] Sorry. [Continues.] You're finishing the leg. It's exciting. What more do I have to say? It's exciting, Greenie! Sam: So you're admitting that you become like a coiled spring, like a meercat, at the end every single leg. Peter: I feel like everyone is a coiled spring. Very coiled. Later, Peter talks to Capey at the nav station before going on deck. Peter: Do we want to be punchy here, or...? [I guess, making a change they've been discussing quickly rather than slowly.] Capey: Not super punchy. But let's have it in our minds that it could be... [snaps his fingers] Peter goes on deck. Crew in the cockpit in the gray light.Sophie, below: Well, we've been fighting it out with Brunel. The last couple of hours they've been catching us. They're just faster. We've been trying everything we can. Sea state is pretty rough. Making it hard to go fast. They've actually overtaken us now, which is a shame, but we're right on their tail and trying to keep up. In about 60 miles we'll be at the bottom of Norway, and hopefully we'll be putting up the J0 (prouncing it "Joe") and bearing away a little, or getting lifted. And hopefully they don't get too far away from us, and it's not over till it's over. We all realize it's the second to last leg of the whole entire race, there's no point in sleeping. Might as well put in everything we've got to the finish line. Everything's putting everything they've got to get to the finish line in Gothenburg. Shots of Brunel passing them to weather. Looks like they're triple-reefed with J2/J3. MAPFRE crew in the cockpit. Slomo Xabi looking sad. Pablo on the helm, likewise sad. Blair: Sad. Shot of Brunel ahead of htem. Blair looking pissed, blinking the spray from his eyes.Scallywag blasting in windy conditions with reefed main / J3. Antonio on the stern: Come and do the Volvo and see the world! He gestures at the waves. Witty at the nav station: Rubbish. We're last again. Three lasts in a row. Plus a did not finish. So basically we haven't got any points since New Zealand. So since we were third on the table we haven't got a point. Reaching on deck. Slomo wake. Witty: In 196 miles I get a cold beer, and a piece of steak I can use a knife and fork with, and I get a cuddle from Lynnie. Anniemieke on the stern rubs her hands. "If your hands are warm, your head is warm, your heart is warm." Witty: 30 years of yachting. I don't think I've ever seen a harsher penalty for one very small error, that could have actually not been an error as well. [Thought at first he was talking about Fish. :-( ] 10 miles maybe, even 50 miles wouldn't have been harsh. But we lost 100 miles the first 6 hours of the race, and we're going to finish 25 miles behind them. Slomo spray, wake. Witty: Quite a lot of traffic coming into Gothenburg, ships and stuff, separation zones. So my job the last two watches has been to sit in front of the computer and make sure we don't run into a tanker. Because that would put the icing on the cake, wouldn't it? Massive seas, raining, can't see 6 foot in front of you. 195 miles to go man. Slomo spray on deck.Stern cam as they sail in reach in strong conditions. Sam (or at least someone wearing the OBR foulies) is standing at the aft pedestal (which is unusual for the OBR, since he's not supposed to be grinding). MAPFRE is visible on the bow. Title comes up: LOSS OF SIGNAL. Closer shot of MAPFRE ahead of them with double- (triple- ?) reefed main. Looks like Brunel is double-heading with J2/J3. Mast cam footage of MAPFRE, spreader cam view of the cockpit, again with the OBR-jacket-wearing crew on the pedestal (though not in position for grinding; just holding on astern of it). Closing on MAPFRE with intense wind noise. Shot in the media station below showing the video screen with MAPFRE only a few hundred yards ahead of them on the spreader cam; what makes it cool is the noise level below is so intense. Slomo of them passing MAPFRE with the other boat to leeward a few boatlengths away. That's it. That's the race. MAPFRE astern, shot from the cabin, with a crewmember in the OBR foulies still on the pedestal. So that must not be Sam in the OBR foulies. Someone else wearing it. Capey, below: Sort of a luffing match with MAPFRE. We prevailed in the end, and we were losing a lot on the other boats, so they decided to come down. That's all I know about that one. Bouwe, below: Pretty windy for the last 12 hours; 35, 40 knots. But we've done well. Just took over MAPFRE about an hour ago. Took the lead, which is a nice thing. Still a long way to go... Have to see how it all pans out. But it's better to be in the lead than be the chasers. Shot of the cockpit with MAPFRE behind them. Washing machine.Kevin, below: Not the best night on Dongfeng. We've been quite slow. We don't know why. It's been quite windy. 65-80 wind angle. Lot of wind; 30-40 knots. 2 reefs and J2. Slow; hard to know why. Very annoying. We're behind MAPFRE, and Brunel passed us, Turn the Tide, and AkzoNobel. We are now back ahead of Turn the Tide. But still a lot of work involved to come back at least on Brunel and MAPFRE to be able to play something on the next leg for the final victory. Crew in the cockpit. Other boat to leeward (TTToP?).Stern cam shots of washing machine. Shot from inside the cabin of the cockpit. Mast cam view of the stern. SiFi at nav station: It's a little bumpy at the moment. 35, 36 knots, 80 true. So it's not the comfiest wind angle downstairs, and pretty heinous for the guys on deck. Sailing fast but into the waves. Need to find a little pace to get past the boats around us. [Laughing] I'd much rather be involved in the fight for the podium, although I guess it's nice not to have the stress. You can just watch it unfold. Dongfeng have been struggling a bit. Brunel has really found some wheels and has caught MAPFRE up. It's going to be some fairly nervous hours on those three boats. Spreader cam view of the bow; cabin view of the cockpit. Jena comes below, takes off her foulie jacket, pulls up her headband. Phil comes down below, takes off his gloves. "Best way to deal with (something) is just count down the hours. It's pretty wet and nasty out there. It's not too long to go. Counting down. I thought this was going to be an easy leg. It's not easy. It's shit out. Stern cam/crash cam of a wave slapping off the side of the boat.Spreader cam views of very rough pounding conditions. Night shots. Looks like double or triple-reefed main. Washing machine. LOSS OF VIDEO screen title. More pounding.Stern cam at night / low light conditions. Six grinders; doing a peel? (Yeah; hoisting the J2, turns out.) Spreader cam view of crew taking a sail bag forward. J1 coming down on the bow. They're doing it bare-headed after hoisting the (furled) J2. Chart screen at the nav station. Jules: It's Thursday morning. Talks about the their position: fifth, just ahead of TTToP. Two reefs; just did a change from J1 to J2, which is always hard in a seaway. More wind to come; tough 24 hours ahead. Howling wind sound.Night. Capey is getting his boots on (or off?) below. Sam: What's going on, Capey? Capey: Sail-change time. Sam: You were just sleeping pretty soundly... You pretty excited to go on deck? Capey: Yup. Capey at the nav station. Chart screen, which shows their position and other boats via AIS: even with Dongfeng and a few miles short of MAPFRE. Wind strength symbols appear to show them in a building wind, currently at 25 knots. Louis, getting ready below: Wish me luck, Sam. Sam: It's not easy, right? Louis: It's a very difficult peel. Lowering the jib in 25 knots. Whew. Wish me luck. Abby in the pit hoists the J2. Crew (Peter, and presumably Carlo on the bow) goes forward and the J1 starts coming down. Sam loses his balance in the hatch and falls. Sam, under his breath: "Fuck!" He gets the camera back on the crew on the foredeck. Looks like there are at least 4 people gathering in the J1. Stacking the J1 aft. Abby working in the pit. Peter, in the cockpit: Allright; J3 to deply in 2 [maybe? for double-heading?]. Grinding as the sail deploys.Kyle, in the hatch: We've just rounded the north of Scotland. We've got Dongfeng a mile under our bow here. Turn the Tide and Akzo just behind us, MAPFRE about 10 [?] miles in front of us. Waiting for the breeze to build. It's natural when you have good moments, bad moments, that the mood's kind of up and down, and obviously we're up at the moment. We've had a pretty good 6-8 hours, and managed to work our way through the fleet, so we're almost to the front. Sam: You guys still see a chance of winning this thing? Kyle: Like we've seen in every leg, it's not over till you cross the finish line. And we were on the bad end of that in Newport, where we lost the lead with 30 seconds to go. Need to keep a positive attitude. Sam: Any chance of a park up at the finish? Kyle: Looks pretty straightforward all the way from here to the finish. Breeze is gonna build. In the high-speed reaching and downwind, we know that that's our strength; saw that in the Southern Ocean and in the trans-Atlantic.HIgh-wind reaching past a Scottish island. Carlo, in the cockpit: We've been making nice gains on the others. Dongfeng, maybe 1.5 miles [ahead]. We're going around the top of Britain, setting course for the bottom of Norway. It's gonna be pretty windy soon. We'll be peeling to the J2 [from the J1, presumably] pretty soon. Sam: What's the morale on board in the last 12 hours? Carlo: Always good. Intense. Happy. Slightly tired. Nice sailing conditions. Sam: You've put boats behind you. Carlo: You can barely see them, but I think it's Turn the Tide and AkzoNobel. Disappearing quickly. Carlo on the foredeck (witih the J1 up). Bouwe: Top of England, with one more island to go. Got current with us, 3 knots. Sam: What's the intensity like right now? Bouwe: We've got the two red boats ahead of us, we're pushing hard. But Akzo and Turn the Tide about 4 miles behind us. We've done quite nicely in the last 7 or 8 hours. Grinding in the cockpit.Brian in the hatch talks to the helm about Dongfeng and their course. He comes up and talks to Dee at the middle pedestal. Bianca, below, talks about it being frustrating that they don't have the pace the others have. Liz: Always more stressful when you have all the boats around you. Right at this moment we're going pretty bad, so it's been a pretty stressful 4 hours... We're getting overtaken... Bagging a sail on the foredeck. Ratcheting down the stack. Bianca, sounding emotional (or a little seasick. But I think probably just emotional): We've come close to getting podium finishes. Frustrating... As a team we've grown so much. We came together really late, and we've dedicated 10 months of our lives to trying to sail with each other. Really want a podium finish. Failing that, we want to get a couple of boats between us and Scallywag to move up in the standings. It's been fantastic sailing with this lot. And it's kind of sad coming so closely to an end. Have to make the most of these last two legs, because this might be the last time we all sail with each other. But it's been awesome. They're all family now. Bianca sprays water on Liz, then on herself. Helmsperson raises his/her arms. Liz, below: Going pretty good. Gonna be a pretty tough night. Washing machine shot through the hatch. Grinding. Liz: Finishing the race with Scallywag behind us... I don't wanna come last. We don't deserve to come last. We've been quicker on the water; just maybe haven't had as much luck.Crew lying down below: Fabien, Justine (maybe?). Hard to tell in their gear. Maneuver on deck (sail change?); working in the pit. Chalres on the helm. Land to starboard. Jack, below: As standard as we thought it was going to be, it's close and stressful. Brunel was quite a bit back in the morning, and they've been quite fast and they've come back into us. I think MAPFRE's about 2 miles ahead and Brunel's about 1 mile ahead. Pretty close, pretty stressful. We're around the north end of the course and on to Gothenburg. Coming around the island all the boats had a different sail setup... think Brunel has done the best. Long night ahead. Spreader cam and mast cam shots of pounding on a close reach, shifting the stack.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.Slomo shot of Bouwe steering. Below, Sam to Bouwe: Where's your head at right now? Bouwe: In some shelter from the land, made some good gains on Akzo. Sam asks a question about decision-making. Bouwe: We just decision based on where the two red boats are. Have to get past them in the next 36 hours. Sam: How hungry do you feel still? Bouwe: I could have a sandwich. Sam: In terms of winning this leg? Bouwe: Of course. We don't have to win the leg, as long as we beat the red boats that would be an ideal scenario... Reality right now is they're ahead of us... Yesterday we made one little mistake, where we gybed first of the group, gybed back and it worked out all right... Working hard and making gains on the boats ahead of us. Sam: Do you feel any pressure, from sponsors, fans, yourself... Bouwe: Only from my wife. Because she knows how badly I want to win this one as well. That's just a joke. There's no pressure as such. We all just sail 200%. When you sail this many races you know there's always going to be one winner; we just hope it's us.Bianca (I think?) in the cockpit talks about how they're holding onto 3rd place. Liz, on the helm, talks about going to the J0, explaining how they need to run another inboard sheet. "So if we need to furl the J2, let's get the sheet off it... this blue lead here..." I love how she's helming and explaining the maneuver at the same time. Washing machine shot. Slomo with crew at the mast.They're putting in a reef. Frederico comes back and talks to Liz about the maneuver.Xabi wakes up Willy and Neti (I think?) to go to the J0. Spreader cam shots of pulling the sail off the stack, Blair and Willy rigging it on the foredeck. Neti goes forward with the tack, loses it in a big wave, then comes back to get it again. He and Willy on the bow. spreader cam shot of Sophie feeding it up at the mast. Slomo washing machine shots in the pit. Neti on the clew of the main as they reef. Willy coiling in slomo in the pit.Washing machine. Sailing fast on starboard gybe. Spreader cam view of Jack (I think?) on the bow. Foredeck work in anticipation of a sail change. Slomo washing machine in the pit. Spreader cam view of cockpit during a peel. Grinding. Slomo washing machine. Jack (I think) on the bow as the old sail comes down. Folding the sail in firehose on the foredeck. Kevin grinning in slomo. Carolijn takes off her gear below. "The joys of peeling in 27 knots... Just a lot of water. Peeling from the masthead to the J0." Fabien takes off his gear; comments on being wet inside it.Bouwe: Good thing is we're all in sight of each other. Scallywag is behind, but they've made a nice comeback. We are now the most inside boat. Good if the breeze starts building and heading. But it will be all on once we've passed the top of Scotland. Then will be big breeze, and big differences in the (something) going toward the finish. I expect the decision will be falling (?) in the last part of the race. Peter, below: Probably lost 5 miles by gybing first and then the breeze went light. What can you do? Tried to cut the losses by gybing back out. Gonna keep trying to make the boat go fast. It's all we can do. 'Start crying! Yell at each other!' I'm going to sleep is what I'm going to do. Time for a nap.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.Liz on the helm. Vestas 100 yards ahead of their bow. Bleddyn explains that they're all heading out to cross the high pressure ridge. Close sailing. Frederico talking with Brian. Frederico explains the strategic issues of getting across the ridge. Brian: It's all very well beating Scallywag, but it doesn't accomplish what we want. Bianca talks about them wanting to put another boat between them [so they can pass them to get out of last place in the overall standings]. Brian talks about the upcoming rest of the leg. Frederico: I hope we can put all the learning from the last legs together and smash everybody. We have the potential. Gybe. Bleddyn: Pushing since the beginning of the race, but more since Hong Kong. Getting the podium finish would be great. It was super tight going around Fastnet Rock.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!They sail in flat water with TTToP a quarter mile ahead, and two other boats a mile away. Triple heading on port gybe. Phil: Right now it seems like we're 4 knots quicker. So for a bowman, Nick, you're doing a good job. They pass TTToP. TTToP behind them. Jena dances. Charlie gets a jacket on, jokes about watching Netflix. Charlie and SiFi talk about the upcoming strategy. Phil does a pirouette on the helm. Charlie talks about the upcoming wind. Two competitors ahead of them several miles away.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).Tacking with MAPFRE behind them. Three boats inshore of them. Bouwe on the helm. Stacking aft. Capey at the nav station: MAPFRE's planning to go between the two [islands]. Peter, from his bunk: Gonna be quite close with us. Capey studies the screen. You can feel Sam wanting to talk to him, but not doing it because Capey is visibly thinking. Capey keeps glancing up at one screen, then down at the other. He blinks in surprise at something. Peter gets out of his bunk. Capey: Fuck. He gets up. Sam follows him. Capey talks to Bouwe in the cockpit. Peter gets his foulies on, goes up. MAPFRE crosses them on starboard just ahead. Dongfeng and another boat is visible beyond them. Peter is confused: Akzo appears to be goose-winging the jib. Or maybe he's on the other tack; can't really tell. Vestas is parked up here. (We see Vestas.) Alberto: Tricky situation; there's a couple of big islands. We just lost a couple of dozens of meters to MAPFRE and Dongfeng, but I think we have a good opportunity to gain again. Capey and Peter look to port. Peter: Should we go here? Capey goes to the nav station. Capey agrees. Peter: Go now! He starts shifting the stack. Bouwe seems to be letting them make the call. Tack. Abby and Louis grinding in the pit. Nina talks about there being a fishing farm that's not on our maps, so it adds a little stress to the afternoon. Fish farm nets as they sail past. Three boats ahead of them in the afternoon light. Waves on a headland to starboard. Bouwe's face on the helm. Slomo shots of islands, another boat as they sail upwind with the J1. Slomo of Alberto trimming. Sunset. Kyle explains. They had a parkup, then Turn the Tide took off. We didn't do the best job in the islands; kind of got spat out the back. Akzo, MAPFRE, Dongfeng, and Vestas are all ahead of us now; Turn the tide is behind us. We were in a good position, but now our position isn't too good. But going upwind, with some good opportunities, some good splits.Three other boats to weather. TJ points, and makes a happy dance. Charlie talks about the different winds between the two boats. TJ: When we hit that (ridge) there's going to be a big parkup. Hopefully we get into that all right, and get out of it all right, and we're in first place. Jena to Tom: Can you count from 1 to 15 in Danish? Tom does it. Jena: Nice. Last leg we spent 10 days trying to learn to say (something in Danish). Up the hill. That's what this is right now. She has Phil on the helm say something in Danish. She laughs. She gets a licorice from him.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.'Witty reads off a sched while we see shots on deck: Only 13 miles behind... Should be able to almost see 'em. Witty at the nav station: Tricky transition coming. Hopefully we'll do okay in that. Back in the hunt. 970 miles to go. He sounds tired. Witty: All about the next transition, next 3 hours, 4 hours.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.Sailing through islands at dusk. Annalise: This morning we woke up, and I could see Ireland. I think we were able to smell it before we could see it. Fine smell of farming. Sailed along near Baltimore, where I sailed a lot as a kid. Drifted past the Fastnet, sailed around the corner of Mizzen Head, and I think everyone is impressed by the scenery. Brunel. Vestas ahead of them approaching Fastnet Rock. AkzoNobel behind them leaving Fastnet Rock. Annalise: I haven't actually seen it from this side. I've seen it from a Laser, but that's close to the coast. Very special to see it from here. Lost a little to the other boats; going to have a tack-a-thon this evening up the west coast of Ireland. Bianca. Other boats past a headland ahead of them. Annalise, sunset behind her: Grown as a team, gotten better and better. A lot of times we've led during the leg and then not quite done it at the finish. Hoping we can pull together as a team at the end. Show that the 50/50 team works, don't need bucketloads of experience; youth and enthusiasm helps as well. Francesca in the sunset. Crew below. Annalise: Our team, we really want a podium finish. If we could walk away with two good results in these two legs, it would be a massive confidence boost... Either way we have to be happy with how we've sailed. Finishing minutes behind teams with 20 times the experience we have... The results don't show it, but I know, and we know, we have sailed well. We've made mistakes, but generally we have sailed well. Hopefully we'll be rewarded. Land.Drifting conditions near the Irish coast. Jack: I don't think we're making too much headway on the land. Other boats visible behind them, including Brunel. Drifting. J1 flopping. Fabien: I don't know if we are lucky, but we are ahead of the fleet since the beginning. But now we are in the light spot, with Brunel and MAPFRE behind... We are very close to the shore, with no wind. Expect northeast wind at the corner, which is one mile. But we have no wind with current. It's not easy. Charles looks under the sail at Brunel and mutters. Shore is just a few hundred yards away. Tacking the MH0. Pascal talks with Charles in French. Charles on the helm. Intensity. Sailing with more wind, tacking the J1. Brunel and MAPFRE to starboard. Another tack. Sailing toward land in the sunset. Charles and Pascal. Jack on the helm. Charles talks with Pascal in French. Charles: Okay we tack. Pascal: Tacking guys! They tack. Black on the rail. Vestas crossing them. Crossing MAPFRE. Another tack next to the shore. Carolijn trims, moves to pedestal: Someone come with me please? Later, Carolijn: Vestas is coming upright. Much less breeze. Coming back into the breeze now. Sunset. Black comes up from below. Daryl on the helm. AkzoNobel crosses behind them. Another boat ahead of them.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.SiFi, with his tablet, calls the course through the upcoming islands. Land. Sunset. Phil: What we're doing? We're interrupting my sleep is what we're doing. A tiny little gap between two islands, we've decided to go through that gap. Nick: We've got this shit. Nick: We're playing it very hard corner, to basically shoot this gap through these islands. If the breeze manages to hold we'll squirt right through, but it's a big call. We see them going through the island. Nick: Jurassic Park. MAPFRE looks like they're a little low; Dongers is short-tacking through. So could potentially be a big gain for us. Then they're sailing in less wind. Nick: Basically Gitane's the only boat that's got us at this point. They sail in lighter conditions. Nick: It's just gone light, and now there's some doubts. Charlie: Little gust here to the right. Lauhs and smiles. Mark: One little puff in 10. Dongfeng on their stern. Mark: Any time you get close to land it's always a little scary. We'll see; Akzo went on the other side of this island. Tony: There's a little gain. Akso's over there. (He points.) Wait and see how Brunel comes out. SiFi, at the nav station: We saved some distance. Brunel went all the way around, Akzo had a light spot. A pretty good move; put us in the lead I guess.Shifting a sail on the bow. Three competitors to port. Coiling in the pit. Bird (gannet?). Working on the foredeck. Charlie on the helm: Pretty puffy. A competitor a quarter mile away. Stacey: I was asleep for four hours and I wake up and we're in the lead. Pretty happy. Tony: We came off the start line in first, then went to last all in one day. And now we could be back in first. We'll find out when we tack over. Hero to zero and back again. SiFi and Charlie talk about when to tack with the island coming up. Jena smiles on the rail, talks about how beautiful Ireland is. Sunset. Charlie steers through the tack. Stacking in preparation for the next tack.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.Sailing faster with Vestas behind them. Liz on the helm, getting headed. Bianca on the grinder explains what's going on with the other boats around them. Mentioned that Gitana sailed past them this morning. Shot of Gitana sailing past them. Oil rig. Vestas on their hip.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.Knotmeter reads 1.0. Libby at nav station: We're going backwards. We're building the anchor. And the rest of the fleet is still going forward at 10 knots. It's not exactly how you want to start a leg off. Assembling the anchor in red headlamps. Libby: it all happened very quickly. Never really managed to get back into the same wind as them. Anchor assembly. Libby: Nearest boat is 13 miles. She talks about the tide. It's kind of a double-whammy. As my friend says, if you're not winning your learning. Whole pot of learning going on right now. Anchor goes over. Ben, in the dark: We've just dropped the anchor. Waiting for the breeze to build or the tide to change direction. Knotmeter reading 0.0. Ben: I think the tide will probably change first before the breeze fills in. We see the anchor chain with tidal current flowing past it. Ben: You're definitely not going anywhere. So time to hit the rack I think.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.Dock out. Dee waves. Liz steers. Looking at the chart below. Brian explains strategy before the start. Dee plays air drums on teh wheel. Bianca's boots and socked feet. Lucas goes up the rig to kick battens/look for wind. Grinding. Start, with Scallywag ahead. Cool shot out the pit. Francesca waves the protest flag; judge's blow whistle and penalize Scallywag. Watching other boats with helicopter noises and they slowly sail out.Scallywag flopping in the sunrise. Slomo flopping. Annemike: I see not so much wind at the moment. Hopefully some breeze later on. Not really what we expected. Rolling up the MH0 as a windseeker. Radio forecast with light variable winds forecast. Libby: Right now we're somewhere off the southwest tip of Ireland, not far from Fastnet Rock. Alex is excited about rounding it. Leaders are finishing; we're about a day behind. Unfortunately with these shorter legs you can get behind and not have a chance to catch back up. Later: There's Ireland! Sunset. Dolphins. Alex: Sun's going down, plenty of dolphins on the bow. Just need Fastnet Rock over there. Just two more nights and we'll be in. Nice afternoon sail. Fun. (He nods to himself.) We see the light on Fastnet Rock (I guess?) blinking.Night shot of the moon. Instruments. Marie trimming, silhouetted by the moon on the water. Kevin, in the galley: 2 hours for the finish line. For the burger it's 5. We have no more food. He talks to Pascal at the nav station in French. Charles: Will it be a good or a bad surprise? Who knows? Pascal reads the sched: windspeed and distance for the boats ahead. Jack does an interview at night on deck: So we are currently t-minus 20 miles from Cardiff. (Marie's voice: Tacking! Tacking!) Jack raises a finger and gets up to help with the tack; Jeremie chuckles. We see them tack the MH0. Jack: It's quite light; quite upwind. But we have the current with us now which is great. Still pretty tedious now, actually. He and Carolijn talk to Jeremie on the bow. Carolijn: Hopefully, Akzo will catch Brunel. Jack: Turn the Tide catch MAPFRE... We're golden. (Carolijn laughs.) Carolijn: Scallywag... Jack: Scallywag roll everyone. Charles with a headlamp talks to Jeremie: Would have been better to be first. But Brunel and Akzo did a better leg than us. Sometimes in the Volvo it's not the best offshore team win the leg, eh? We have seen that in Newport. Jeremie: Maybe you should do more inshore sailing. Charles: Maybe. The Volvo is about the last 20 miles. Pascal: I don't know why but I think there is more wind here. It is more dark. Chuckles. Tacking in the dark.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.Bouwe: Beautiful sunny day in Wales. Normally it's raining; something's wrong. AkzoNobel is visible on the horizon behind them. Peter on the helm. Bouwe: Roughly 100 miles to the finish. Current is with us now, but will be 3 to 4 knots against us by the end. So a restart. Not what you'd expect for an ocean race. And AkzoNobel 0.8 miles behind us. If the score stays the way it is now, we have a good chance of winning the race. So let's hope it stays the way it is now. Abby looks through binoculars at Akzo on their starboard quarter. Bouwe: It's like any yacht race. You're competing for winning. I've sailed it 8 times; 3 times I've been second, so it's time that we win. Alberto: All I'll remember of this leg is the pancakes. Carlo: It's stressful with Akzo not far behind, and Dongfeng not far behind. Going to be like Newport. Everyone's a bit on edge because of that. Below, Capey at the nav station: No more. Sam: Why do you say that? Capey: I don't know; I'm still young and good. Enough's enough. I've been lucky. Had a good run. Sam: Do you say that at the end of every Volvo? Capey: No. Never. This is a first. You've done a lap of the planet. Sam: How many laps have you done? Capey: Eight. Sam: And you really think this is it? Capey: Yupo. Stick a fork in me. Sam: Do you have any reflections you want to say? Capey: It's been a great run; met a lot of nice people, had a lot of great times. But I think it's time to put a line under it. Sam: Do you have any closing remarks? Capey: No. None. Go Team Brunel. Sam: It's a team effort. Capey, nodding: It's a team sport.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.Flopping in glassy, lumpy conditions. On bow, Emily jokes about how they're no longer going for the 24-hour speed record. It's weird to think that a day ago she was wearing her crash helmet. Though she could use it now to not be hit by the (flopping) foot of the jib. Simeon, on the bow: Quite radical, from some pretty good conditions to basically nothing now. Clouds. Bouwe is right next to us. We see Brunel a few miles away. Justin: It's actually quite pleasant. And everyone's getting it (i.e., the other boats are stopped too). On the helm, Nicolai: It's not too bad. We've been in it before... You can't stress about it. You're not going to go any faster if you hoist every sail on the boat. Have a cup of tea and go again tomorrow when the breeze fills in. Pretty sure no matter what happens, Bouwe's not going to do 600 miles in 24 hours. I'll take that.Washing machine shots out the hatch as they sail fast. Moving below. Epic washing machine on deck. Alberto getting geared up below. "It's too hard, to find the balance. Trying to put the gear on. It's only a few days." Slomo washing machine shots out the hatch. Bouwe, below: This isn't normal. Just putting your jacket on is difficult. Sam to Bouwe: What are you thinking about right now? Bouwe: About going outside. Peter, below: It's beautiful. Nice and warm. Slight slamming motion now and then; makes it hard to walk. But hey the boat's going fast. So it's what we live with. Abby, in her bunk: Impossible... Lurching around. Doing about 25-30 knots of boatspeed. Constant acceleration, deceleration. Just moving around the boat it's pretty hard work just trying to do anything normal. Abby bailing in the stern. Alberto: It's very dangerous. It's very easy to lose the balance. Peter and Abby move trash bags below. They get out the research buoy and deploy it. Sam: Oh no; the cable. Peter below getting geared up. Epic shots out the hatch, super loud, as dusk falls. Slomo washing machine from astern looking forward. Nina carrying a bucket and emptying it out the hatch. Kyle gets in his bunk. Abby eating. "Nothing on board is normal. I'm eating my meal. Someone could be on the toilet 6 feet. Kyle's just had a pee behind me. So nothing's normal. It could be worse. Could have been Nina the other day who got the poo bag exploding all over her." Shot from behind of someone peeing into a pee bottle. Carlo chuckles: "Life at the extreme."Surfing in big wind. Sophie trims on the stern: "Main on!" Neti grinds for her, then (I think) passes a piece of something to eat. Major washing machine shots. Slomo of Sophie making the shaka sign and grinning. Neti hugs the pedestal to withstand the water. Later we see Neti driving, Willy standing behind him, and Sophie sitting down behind the steering platform, facing aft, to drink from a water bottle. Favoriting mostly for that one slomo shot of Sophie.Crash cam from the stern as MAPFRE surfs in big wind. Suddenly Blair, on the helm, points forward: "Whale! Big whale!" Neti jumps up to look, and they pass the whale, which surfaces a half a boatlength to starboard as they surf past. Someone (sounds like Tamara) shouts a greeting to it. Ridiculous!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.Dee, below: We're in the last of the 30-knot stuff. And tomorrow it's going to be like hitting a brick wall. Trying to figure out where to cross the ridge. Tomorrow life will be very different on board. No more hosing on deck... Is a bit on the edge, and a bit tricky to do things safely both on deck and down below. Going to need to dry out the front of the boat. Because we're going to be sleeping up there. Bernardo and Liz getting geared up. Goes up with goggles. Liz: I don't think we've seen the sky in, like, three days. Learing it's Friday, she jokes about going dancing. Brian joins in. Dee: It's Friday night, party night, we're going out dancing. Shot out the hatch of the boom being dragged through the water. Liz: Whoa; action! She runs out. Bianca waves from the cockpit. Squeegeeing off Bernardo's goggles, Martin's camera housing. Intense stern cam, spreader cam shots of major washing machine. Annalise (I think?) bundled up on the stern holding the mainsheet. Bernardo explains that the Cunningham on the main broke, so theyr'e trying to use a second one. Liz at the mast works on it. Lucas and Martin getting geared up below. Sounds so violent! Dee looks out the hatch; they joke about how Bernardo (I think?) is gripping the wheel. Bernardo eating below; Liz says something and he laughs.Brad, at the nav station, grins and gives a thumbs up. "Beauty! Just got the 24 hour record Just got the confirmation from the boss." Simeon, in his bunk: Let's see if we can get over the 600. Brad talks to Nicho in the cockpit about beating Ericcson's record. "You gotta give me a fist for that." He holds out his fist. Nicho pulls his fist away and they laugh. Nicolai in his bunk: This is what it's about. It's hard and exhausting, and you're tired but it's why you want to do the race. Go as fast as you can for days and days, there's no limits... She's a fast boat, this purple bus. She's got some pace to her. I like it. She's a good boat. It's pretty cool; I didn't know that. It's good news to wake up to. Our main focus is still the leg. Gotta keep ourselves in line for the podium. Helmsperson raises his fist, make a peace sign, then a thumbs up. Martine laughs on the pedestal.Slomo shots of rough seas. Martin on the helm exercising his cold hands. Bernardo scowling. Winch drum. Liz in the pit getting soaked. Everyone in neoprene hoods. Lucas in a helmet with faceplate. Dee on the pedestal. The usual "slomo washing machine from the hatch" shots, but the slomo and the focus on the faces really works well. Bianca coiling in the pit. Bleddyn ducks to take whitewater over his head. Dee and Liz are heads-up, keeping their eyes on everything. Great stuff. Bernardo comes below, pulls off his hood. Bernardo: "It's pretty wild. We just came out of 30 knots, did a peel to the J0, and the waves are quite messy. Just sorting everything out. And get ready to go back on the bunk for a 2-hour nap." Bleddyn: Do I enjoy it? Yeah, it's good! It's nice to get a bit of breeze... This has been the breeze we've been waiting for for a while, will take us most of the way there. Cardiff here we come." Shots on deck of the big seas. Bianca dancing at the pedestal. Liz joins her, dancing on the helm. Bernardo, trimming on the stern, pulls his hands across his eyes John Travolta-style. Liz, tucked under the coaming, does her tube stance. "This is a barrel tube!" More washing-machine shots. Crash cam shot of a triple wipe-off: Helm, trimmer, and pedestal all knocked down by the wave. Epic!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.Slomo line-handling in the cockpit. Horace in the pit: Amazing! This is an offshore race. Very strong weather, downwind. Never stops. Intense. And fast! [He raises his fist.] Slomo washing machine shots in the cockpit. Stu and Horace grinding in the pit. Carolijn below: Very, very wet.Stern cam, spreader cam shots of sailing fast with massive washing machine. Nick on the face plate: It was pretty fogged up. But I think he needs it. I think we all need it. Slomo washing machine. Nick: We are totally miserable out here. He points out other crewmembers. Not sure where they are right now; picked up a meander in the Gulf Stream, probably. Sea state worsened. Tony on the helm. He gets off the helm, faces aft. Takes off his face shield: "Here you are. Good for nothing." Talks about it being 45, 46 knots of wind. Tony comes below, talks about how his life preserver inflated. "Well, the automatic part works." SiFi at the nav station talks about playing with the Gulf Stream. Helps push them, but also messes up the sea state a little. Pretty cool phenomenon, the Gulf Stream. Apart from saving Europe from being a frozen icy tundra. Also gives us a lot of current to play with when we're racing. Charlie: Because sea surface temperatures all over the world are rising, there's less of a gradient, and the Gulf Stream is flowing slower. Which means it is pulling less water out of places like Chesapeake Bay. Will contribute to sea level rise there over the next 100 years. Slomo of crew falling down in the cockpit. Nick, in the cockpit: We stand here, basically 2 hours at a time, getting the [blee] beat out of us, all for a freeze-dried meal.Slomo washing machine. Slomo of Nicolai's face with red eyes. Nicolai below: It's fast and furious these two or three days now. running and reaching with big sails. Brunel is doing it the same. Are pushing it. Full on. Driving is a little bit hard, and your eyes are bleeding every time you go off watch. But that's part of it, it's good fun. The faster the better and the more fun it is. Hopefully one more day of fast sailing before the wind drops off. Slomo washing machine. Nicolai: Currently sitting in second, fighting with Brunel. And it's the same on the leader board. They're not going to give up and neither are we. Footage from the stern cam, mast cam looking forward, spreader cam looking at the cockpit, as they sail fast. Nicolai takes his clothes off below. Nicolai: It's pretty heinous on board. It's actually worse down here than it is up there. You don't want to walk around; you'll get hurt. Get some food and jump in your bunk pretty quickly. Nicolai eating, getting in his bunk. Simeon at the nav station: Everyone is in some good breeze. Last 6 hours we did 147 miles. So that's pretty big for these boats. We're going pretty well; had some current with us that helps a bit. At the moment the boatspeed doesn't drop below 24 knots. This is the last chance in the race. After Cardiff won't be doing this. Nav station.Rough, windy conditions as they sail fast on starboard with the stack aft. Washing machine. Brad grins. Martine gets food. Luke: Fast and furious. In the mid 20s. Flat sea state, so no big nose dives. Fun. More shots of driving fast on deck. Martine gives an "okay" sign. "Brazilian weather. But not." Luke, below: Ideal conditions for us. We've got some good fast drivers on board who like to send it. And perfect conditions for that. Reefed main drags in the water. Luke: Holding onto Brunel. They are notoriously fast in these conditions. Spray in the pit. Man it looks fast. Luke: I think it's a bit like childbirth. You must forget about the bad bits to do it again. Kind of sad now getting to the end. Just enjoy every moment of it and see what happens.Peter and Capey talk at the nav station. Capey rubs his eyes. Peter: We were just discussing the plan for the next two days. We just need to sail slightly quicker than the other guys for that period of time. There's a big low forming to the west of us, giving us some nice downwind conditions. Just deciding what sail configuration we're most likely to run. Also a good chance of a 24-hour speed run for the race. Should be interesting. How to best get through it, making our lives nice and easy... Same concerns as everyone else: Going from the quickest portion of the race to pretty slow, where everyone can see each other again. Then light upwind to the end. If you can get a small lead, can probably protect it. Go quicker than the boats behind us here, and get over the top of Dongfeng, and then protect the lead into Cardiff.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.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.Tony cleans a dish in the galley. He explains that it's the lasagna dish, which is the messiest because of the cheese that sticks in the bottom. He mentions that he owns the 24-hour monohull record and the transatlantic monohull record from sailing Comanche. Charlie puts his boots on. SiFi at the nav station. Charlie and he look at how they're doing against AkzoNobel, which makes them happy. Charlie talks about doing a fair amount of trans-Atlantic racing in the past few years. In the cockpit, we hear SiFi read the latest sched. He starts with the most exciting news: Dongfeng, MAPFRE, and Dee are all in 5-7 knots. Nick: That's so disappointing; I feel so terrible for them. Mark talks about having done two previous transatlantic crossings with this team. He points out AkzoNobel about a mile to leeward. Is actually the 6th transatlantic this boat has done; he's done all of them with Charlie and Nick. Tony, he says, has done 17 transatlantics. Tony, below: I reckon I've done the transatlantic this way 16 times. Every time is different. I'm still looking for the perfect crossing, but I think I've already had it on Comanche. We see him finishing his dishwashing.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.Bleddyn: 24 hours after the start. Lots of fog. Haven't seen other boats. Split this morning; we've gybed heading more northeast. Other guys are still going southeast. Expect they'll come north at some point. We're in lighter breeze, but we're going in the right direction, which is a positive. Crew in the cockpit talks and laughs about Welsh. Bleddyn gives langauge lessons to Bianca. Lucas, trimming the main, talks about hearing Bleddyn talking on the phone in what he thought was English, but then not being able to understand any of it. Lucas: "Wave. Main on." Surfing. Lucas sings "Surfing USA". Dee comes up with the latest sched. Everyone else is still sailing together in the better pressure. We fell out of the pressure, and we have the shift so we had to gybe. Hopes they'll come together and have a restart. Lucas talks about going north, and splitting, which will be cold. Annalise: Not looking forward to the cold. So it better work out for us. Bernardo working in the pit, tidying lines. Stacking forward. Liz slaps Bernardo on the back. Liz: "Nice one." Bernardo: I started sailing in Portugal when I was 8 years old. I wanted to start before that but my parents didn't allow me. So when I turned 8 I started straight away sailing the Optis. My background was always dinghies: Optis, 420s, 470s, a bit of Laser, then did the Olympics (London 2012) in 49er. Then did Youth America's Cup, World Match Racing Tour, and chasing a little bit this world, more big boats. I tried to do the last race. I couldn't make it. And fortunately this time I got my chance, my opportunity. And this is a lifetime opportunity, a dream come true. Not only a challenge, the toughest race on earth, but it's a ride with a big team, where the teamwork makes a big difference. Most is how to manage yourself. It's a challenge in a lot of different ways. That's what makes me wake up every day. Best memory: Arriving in Lisbon, in my home port. Getting home on the first leg of the Volvo means a lot. Toughest moment: When we lost John Fish. It's hard to believe and understand that he's gone. That was a really hard and a sad moment. Liz: Why did we choose Bernard? Mostly his good looks. We needed a charmer on board. Someone who could sell ice to Eskimos... Needed people who have their mind on the game, looking for the next step, on the right side of the shift. A key person to have around.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.Kyle before the parade, talks about the fog and cold and wind. Peter gives a peace sign. Abby in the parade. Bouwe in the parade. Kyle eating a burger. Peter unpacking gear below. Docking out. Jumper jumps out during the motor out (due to fog, I read on the SA forums). Start with Peter on the helm. Good start on starboard just above MAPFRE. Other boats near them. Ducking Vestas. Spectator fleet, bell buoy. Sam: How was that start Abby? Abby: Probably not our best. We sandwiched ourselves a bit and couldn't build up speed. Split on the run, crossing ahead of AkzoNobel. Calls starboard on Dongfeng. Brunel rounds the leeward mark in the lead. Going under the bridge. Spectator boat chanting "Bru-nel". Bouwe on the start: Basically got out of jail. Sam: What's next? Bouwe: Have to clear a couple of marks. And as you can see it starts getting foggy... Then we'll be out on the ocean.Drone footage *in the fog* of Brunel sailing upwind. Go Sam! Abby coiling in the pit. Capey with a tablet by the aft pedestal. Closeup of the chart showing routing. Peter calls up: MAPFRE's only half a mile behind us. Below, he talks about the fog, exclusion zones. Dongfeng in front, MAPFRE just behind. Low-altitude drone-in-fog shots. Now Sam's just showing off.Parade. Dockout. Annalise waves. Bleddyn: Pretty exciting leaving Newport. Can't wait to get home. Gonna be exciting. Start. Scallywag below them. Gulls (Great Black-backed Gulls?) Close action upwind. AkzoNobel crosses them. The close tack with Vestas. I think they were always clear astern. Nerves of steel, that Dee. Going under the bridge. Dee on the helm. Going into the fog with Scallywag ahead. Slomo bow work. Dropping the J1 in spray on the bow. Martin does something at the clew. Bernardo, below: Start worked pretty well. A nice beat. Made a mistake on the top mark, delaying the tack too much and we had a penalty, which took us to the back of the fleet. And it was hard to recover. Still in contact; keep our heads up, move forward. Hopefully we can catch up with the fleet. Liz: We're completely lost in the fog; we have no idea where we are. Brian, at the nav station: It's a complete mystery. We're in the Bermuda Triangle. Sailing in the fog. Brian: Cold front behind us. Can choose to stay with the wind ahead of the front, but eventually that wind will die out. It's a balance between taking the light air earlier to get the new wind earlier. Watching how it develops. That's north vs. south in the routing.Slomo dockout. Mark talks about it being a double-points leg. Weather tricky in the first few days. Nick: it's incredible looking at all the boats given the weather. Start. Dongfeng crossing behidn them. Yelling starboard at the weather mark. (Looks like TTToP was clear ahead to me.) Setting the A3. Lowering the J1. Rounding a buoy. MAPFRE luffing them; F-word from Mark. Stacking aft in the fog as SiFi tells them 12 minutes from turning up. SiFi: Hectic start. Fog cleared up to do the lap in the bay, but now it's socked in. Near the other boats; fast reaching to Nantucket Shoals. "Gonna have to stay on our toes."Libby and Witty at the nav station. Peter watches. Sched. People smiling. Everyone is looking forward to the leg being over, it looks like. Ben: Expecting the pressure to build. 30 plus knots. We'll be reaching into Newport in the early hours of the 8th. Slomo washing machine with crew smiling at the back of the boat. Sunrise with crepuscular ray.Parko sees Bermuda: "Land ho!" We see Bermuda as they pass to weather of it. Libby uses a sextant: "Plan B." Stacking below. Libby: Yeah; FR0's the next sail. Gybing. Ben: Lost 20 miles to a couple of boats because they gybed earlier. Still gotta stay positive. We all have the same reason to do the race. It's an awesome team to be a part of. Just like going yachting with your mates, really.Flopping in foggy conditions. Another boat's red light (maybe?) in the fog. Instruments: going 3.3 knots. Slatting mainsail in the night. Pascal at the nav station. Moon in the fog. A flashing red light on a buoy. MAPFRE, illuminated by a powerboat spotlight. Morning: Kevin explains that arriving at the TSS they were first. And now we are fourth. Fourth. Behind Vestas. (He sounds devastated.) But nothing is done. Nothing is done. Carolijn: It does happen a lot, actually. The classic one... in Lisbon, similar situation, where the boats in front stop, and the boats behind come in with the breeze and just drift past you. Finishes like this, in a drifter, are always a little bit hard. But it happens in yacht racing, and you have to deal with it. Instruments: 0.3 knots. Flopping in the fog. A slack-hosited J1 flops. Carolijn: Which way is the finish? Over there? Here we go. Charles scowls. Pascal looks at his tablet. Crew sits motionless on the bow.Xabi and Joan talk at nav station. Neti, on deck, reads out latest sched. "MAPFRE (us): third." Rob, on the helm as they sail in fog in light winds: Last sched sounds pretty good. Talks about the strategy getting through the front and timing their tack right. We were hoping just to get to fourth. Now we're up to third and Dongfeng isn't that far away. Got 200 miles to go. Gotta keep fighting. Blair, forward, clears a halyard. Crew working in the cockpit. Slomo grinding. Sail change. Pablo on the helm. Rob, gesturing to port: "Brunel's down here 17 miles." Pablo, below: The last sched was better than we hoped. He talks about the boats ahead. Will be very tricky at the arrival in Newport, light wind and current. Anything can happen. So go MAPFRE... The weather forecast opened a gate for us. It was a tough night, but we sailed very good, so we softened up some miles to the leaders, and then the compression was very good to us. Neti, on deck, talks in Spanish about thier change of fortune. "Vamos MAPFRE. Vamos MAPFRE." Crash cam footage from the night before of them broaching. Spreader cam view of the cockpit. Sail change on the foredeck: Hanking on the J1. Hoisting the J1 inside the J0.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.Xabi, in the cockpit talks in Spanish. Wind is about 12 knots. Talks about Turn the Tide and AkzoNobel, the approach to Newport. Repeats in Spanish: The last 24 hours we knew would be very tricky. Last night had winds up to 35 knots downwind. Now we've passed the front and we're going upwind with 7 or 8 knots. Going to be a compression. Managed to pass Turn the Tide, and made some distance as well with AkzoNobel. Are now 8 miles from Vestas. Still some hope. A lot can happen. Crew stacks to leeward in anticipation of a tack. Working the jury-rigged keel turing the tack. Joan, Xabi, and Neti clustered over the nav station, talking in Spanish. Washing machine from the cabin looking aft. Rob on the helm; Xabi on the pedestal. As it gets dark, wind is lighter, Rob looks to starboard through binoculars. Willy forward for a sail change. Looks like going from MH0 to J0 or vice versa.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.Slomo of water on deck, Charles on helm. Gybing to port in the high. Carolijn near the bow. Carolijn, on the stern, asks Pascal what's going to happen tonight. Pascal answers that there will be wind, and speed. He discusses how it will get 10 or 15 degrees colder in a few hours. Slomo washing machine. Cool sound editing. Charles: We are more afraid of what's going to happen when the wind drops. It's a tricky situation. We are in a good position, but we know the back of the fleet will come back. So it's stressful. MAPFRE is very close, and Brunel is doing a fantastic comeback. Lots of washing machine shots in the pit. Daryl, below: 33 knots, so it was good that we did the peel; was 28 when it started. Jack: Just starting to get dark, so it's going to be quite entertaining.Sam, to Kyle, below: What's it like on deck right now? Kyle: Wet. Nav screen shows strong winds they're sailing in. Kyle gets geared up. Sam shoots from the cabin as crew works in the washing machine in the cockpit. It looks wild. And loud! The sound editing really works here. Shot of the instruments, with the boat going 28 knots. (Update: I learned from Matt Knighton in The Boatfeed that this is using an infrared light source to backlight the crew. Very cool.)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.Rob, below, talks about how they've been holding off AkzoNobel for the last day. They're to weather of them. Won't really know for 24 hours until they gybe. The scheds have been bouncing around a lot. 5, 10 miles gained and lost. They've generally done well on the guys ahead. 1000 miles to go and we're sitting in 5th or 6th, but 4th's not that far away. Third's not likely I guess. Front coming in might help. A point's a point. Anything we can salvage will be good. Blair on deck: Beautiful tradewind sailing the last few days, but we've been doing it from 5th or 6th position, trying to catch the guys in front. Keep working. A couple of opportunities ahead. Crossed the outbound track to Capetown. Gonna keep fighting, gonna win this thing. Tamara grinding. Surfing. Blair grinding in slomo. Tamara, on the aft pedestal, turns away from the spray. Xabi uses a hand-bearing compass to look at a competitor to weather. "82/84 I would say... 7 miles."Beautiful sunset drone shots of Dongfeng triple-heading. Includes slomo adn sped-up.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.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.Epic drone shots of Dongfeng sailing fast on starboard, including slomo with bird.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.Simeon: Have been 70% of the way around the world, and haven't seen any wildlife. Just a few random dolphins. 12 or 13 years ago I remember a lot more; orcas, big whales... I don't know, it's the time of year or could be we need to find a biologist and get a proper explanation. Nicho, on the helm: You always hope it's better than it is, but the impact... The difference is quite scary. In certain areas you'd see schools of dolphins, 200, 300 of them. Albatrosses, dozens of them circling the boat in the Southern Ocean. This time it's been scary how little. Martine: 15,000 miles of sailing, and haven't seen... Nicho: It is a worry. Hopefully up here in the Gulf Stream we'll see rapid improvement. Nicolai: Main reason most of us do this race is to see the world, see wildlife, see the cities. But seeing pollution is dramatic. Hopefully we can turn the tide. Martine: Talks about the loss of wildlife. Emily: This is how nature resets itself. Probably won't happen in our lifetime. Seeing a huge decline in animals on land and out here. We're messing up, bigtime.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.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 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.Libby explains that pushing north early was a bad call; punishing them now. David and her as the decision-makers can make a mistake and it's a big loss. The crew can make a mistake with a bad peel, and lose a few miles, but this is more frustrating. Struggling to find the answers to get back in the race. Nav station. Flopping mainsail. Libby explains her idea: tactical motoring. Everyone has a fixed amount of fuel, and they can choose when to motor. Trystan and Ben talk about how non-fun it is to have no wind. Stacking forward.Working on the bow. Crew laughing in the cockpit at sunrise. Charlie comes up from below to report on the sched: "Generally a little higher and quicker than those guys." He goes on to discuss strategy with Tom. Phil, on the helm, talks about his knee being sore, which is why he's standing on one foot. TJ does pushups. TJ, below, washes his shirt in a bucket, then wrings it out of the forward hatch. Shirt drying on a pedestal. Tom steering. Someone going out to the MH0 clew to put a new sheet on for the gybe; stumbles coming back over the rail. (Maybe Nick?) Tony, on the helm, explains that dongfent has gybed, so now they're going to gybe to protect their position. We see the gybe. SiFi looks through binoculars to starboard (presumably at Dongfeng), talks about them being on port tack.Sunrise 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.Vestas sails toward a squall. Charlie reads the latest sched on the PA while the crew in the cockpit (Tony driving, Mark grinding, Stacey trimming) listens. "Hooray." "Thank you." Tony explains: Just got a sched in; last two were interesting because this morning we were in 30+ knots of pressure and sort of scattered the fleet. Now it's tradewind sailing. We weren't the fastest, but we're at the top and we held our height. "What's my secret? My secret is being heavily caffeinated." Then he talks about crackers: "They're a savory treat for us." Beautiful sunset clouds. Stacking aft in the dusk, "Two, six!" Sailing wiht the instruments illuminating. Tony on the helm (Tony's always on the helm.)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.Stacking on the foredck in light air in the early morning. Jack talks about how they have a very different mix of nationalities and backgrounds. Kevin talks in French about the same thing. More stacking. Carolijn: Language can be a barrier sometimes; have a lot of frogs, a lot of Frenchies, on board. Kevin talks in French. Daryl: Can be challenging at times to get the right message across. But we've all worked really hard on that in thte training, and we all get on well together. Crew grinding. Sunset. Jack: I think we've found quite a good balance to make it work for everyone. No real egos, which is really nice. Horace in the pit. Horace: We from different part of the city and speak different language. It's not about a different country. It's a human. Everybody learn... Charles in slomo on the helm in the sunset. More pretty closeups in slomo with the sunset: Carolijn, Daryl. Kevin talks in French. Horace: Every person is like a different book. Like a different weapon. And you learn how much you can. Pascal talks in French. Carolijn translates: Scallywag's got 12 knots. Stu's face. Sunset slomo of Carolijn.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.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.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.Witty: If the support we got is any indication we should win by a week. It's a little strange for me; this is the first time in 12 years I've sailed a yacht race without Fish. Libby: It's been a bit of an emotional thing for me; I've struggled quite a lot. Pretty hard.Pre start. Libby calls time. Brunel close astern. Witty: We're gonna go under Vestas. They tack right after the start, head to the right side. Trystan calls wind. Close tack under Brunel. Close duck of AkzoNobel. Lowering the J1 with four boats ahead of them. Ben: Always a bit of a frenzy the first lap before going offshore. It's a bit lighter out here than what it was inshore. Just peeled from the J1 to the MH0. Next stop: Newport. Stacking forward. Light conditions.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.We see the start again. Carolijn calls tactics. I think this must be Carolijn's GoPro/Garmin. (Update: I learned from Alan Block and Matt Knighton on The Boatfeed that this is actually a chest cam.) That's whey we have another view of the start. Cool! "Okay; Pascal: Yours." A3 hoist: "3, 2, 1, hold trim." She calls "port primary", "starboard primary". "I don't know how far to go... I look.... Okay; trim's good Kevin." Gathering in the J1. "I go back."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.Blair, in the prestart, talks about the upcoming leg. Rob calling tactics at the start. Brunel sailing down on them. Sailing away from the line with the best start. Neti: "Dongfeng is tacking." Grinding. Leading the fleet around the weather mark. Dongfeng right on their stern. Lots of cool sailhandling footage. They're doing a good job without Sophie. Neti: Start was pretty good for us... Now comes the tricky part, which is the leg. (He repeats in Spanish.) Rob recaps the start. Learned their mistakes from the in-port race. "A long port tack now and try to stay in front."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.Liz, in the morning, points to the high pressure to starboard. "That there is the center of hell." Elodie says "good morning" as she climbs out the companionway. Lucas steers. Bianca makes a face. Bianca: "Pain. Lots of pain." Elodie: "Happy morning, Freddy." Liz does a puppet show with two red gummy animals (dinosaurs?): "Hello. I'm a diplodocus." "I'm a dinosaur too, but I don't know what kind I am." She eats one of the dinosaurs. "It's all getting a bit weird out here." Bleddyn eases the runner, making a loud noise. "Sorry Henry." He does it again. "Sorry Frankie." Bianca: "Cape Horn feels like it was weeks ago... As long as we beat MAPFRE it's fine." Below, Dee and Liz get the latest sched. Dee: "They were doing 5.1 knots." Liz (excited, dancing in her seat): "We were doing 9.6! We were doing 9.6!" Dee laughs. "Ah. How sad for them." They both laugh. In the cockpit, Elodie and Bianca ask Sam about the position report. Elodie: "How is it?" Bianca: "Are you gonna tell us how it was?" Lucas, on the helm: "MAPFRE, 20 miles in front." They laugh. Lucas: "Another 10 days out here, Sam." He pumps his fist. "Yes!" Dee comes up from below, putting on her sunglasses to try to hide her expression. She laughs. "I can't hide it. I tried to look really sad but I can't do it." She claps. "We were twice as fast as them!" She summarizes the current distances. 99 miles ahead of MAPFRE with 660 miles to go. Dee, below: "Nice to have some good news." She and Liz talk about AkzoNobel; Dee doesn't think they're going to get them. Rainbow, sunset.Dee, in sunrise: It's Easter Sunday. And if we're good boys and girls we'll get Easter Eggs. But what we really want is a working rig on starboard. Lucas: New rules of the boat: Can't sail on starboard. Only on port. Sort of like a one-legged duck. (he quacks) Liz: we can't sail with the full main, cant' sail with any masthead sails, can't slam into any waves, can't say the f-bomb on deck because someone might think we've just broken the mast. Bleddyn: [Something about poo bags. Probably just as well I can't understand.] Liz explains she'll go up with a spanner and try to get the spreader back in while someone on deck leans on the stay to try to pop it back. "Someone biggish." They look at Frederico. "It's not going to break?" They laugh. Liz goes aloft. Gopro (garmin) footage. "Strops are on." She uses a grinder on deck to shave down the wrench. Bleddyn: We have a grand total of 1/4 turn. So about 40 steps to go. Frederico bounces on the stay. Dee and Brian talk by the wheel; Liz cheers from the mast. "Dee! It's done!" Dee: "Now that's an Easter chick if ever I saw one." Liz: This spanner is going into the Hall of Fame. Henry: 2018 years ago, Jesus rose from the dead. And we've just resurrected our mast. Liz, in the dark, talks about the screwing in. Below, Franscesca: "It's a miracle." Dee: "The race is back on." "1000 miles to go you guys." Gopro shot of liz signing the mast with a white pen: "01/04/2018 Rig = 0 // Liz = 1 !!!" Plus a tongue-sticking-out happy face.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.Stern cam / crash cam shot of MAPFRE sailing on port gybe. There's a bang, and the boom drops and the main flops. This must have been when the head of the main tore free. A crewmember shouts: "Aaaaahhhh!" GoPro (Garmin) shot from the crewmember up the mast (Ñeti?). "¡Un poquito!" There's glue and stuff on the mast. The torn upper edge of the lower part of the main is visible. They approach their support boat at anchor. Drone shots of them rafted alongside. Someone on the shore team talks in Spanish. Pablo: In one sense we were lucky to break so close by. Ñeti, covered in glue, talks about the attempt to repair the mast. He's more concerned about the mainsail. It's in two pieces. Quite a tricky repair with the material they have here and where they are. And it's quite cold, so curing is hard. In the dark, Xabi talks in Spanish about the repair attempts. I think he said departing in half an hour. Shots of them working on the mainsail. Glue, hot air gun, cluing the mast track. Time-lapse shot of them working on the mainsail repair. They pull away from the support boat in the night with wind howling around them.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.Night-vision crash cam view; looks like they stuffed the bow and did a round up. Slomo of two sailors in the cockpit (I think maybe Rob and Sophie?) giving a peace sign and a thumbs up, respectively. Willy and Blair by the mast setting the outrigger in epic surfing conditions. Slomo of surfing. Crew in the cockpit. Wake shot, surfing. Ugo's out in it to get these shots. Good stuff. Blair, below, his breath and steaming body backlit from the companionway.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.Nick, eating below with his shirt off (which, huh? I thought it was freezing?) says he's one of the original bailers. Started it in the 2011-12 race. "There are three principles to bailing on a Volvo 65. 1: never chase the water. Let it come to you." He demonstrates. "Rule #2: Embrace the hate." "Rule #3 about bailing these damn boats: Employ a bilge hose. It's way easier." He demonstrates. "That's it. That's all." Get random bits of debris; need to remove those. Charlie comes below, dripping; they joke about how he's a non-bailer. More bailing shots. Favoriting this one, too. Jeremie actually found something new to talk about, and did it well.Annemieke, trimming the main on the stern, and Ben, steering, shout, "Point Nemo!" as waves wash over them. Below, Annemieke explains about Point Nemo: Farthest point from land on earth. Fish, below: "Not many people come to such remote spots on the planet. So, you know, it is a weird thing, but it's not something we dwell too much on to be honest." Washing machine shots on deck. Fish: "The cold is one thing that affects people in different ways. Some people struggle and go crazy with it. Others battle through. I think Bessie's used to the harsh winters of Holland. She seems to always be with a smile on her face. Which is quite infectious. But others are struggling, to say the least. The Antipodeans, they don't like it." Witty, below: When I grew up my mother had three brass monkeys on the windowsill in the kitchen. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. "And it's that cold, it's frozen the balls off a brass monkey." Alex talks about how it was 3°. "Bloody cold." Talks about spending short little stints down below, 15 minutes, to have a breather and warm up while on watch. Washing machine shots of grinding in the pit.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.]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.]Witty, below: "We had a Chinese gybe, at about 53 South, at 3:00 in the morning, pitch black, with freezing water." Ben, below, talks about the incident. He was on the helm, and someone went down to leeward, but he didn't know the person was down there, and was sending it down a big wave when he caught a glimpse of the person to leeward. Tried to fall away to flatten out, because you don't want to risk someone getting washed over the side. And pulled away a little too hard and ended up doing a Chinese gybe. Crash cam footage of the gybe. Witty, in voiceover: "Initial reaction is to go through the process, look after the people, make sure everyone's on board. And look after the boat... But once you get through it, get back up and running again, you understand the enormity of the job all the skippers in this race have got. Skippers in any race have enormous responsibility for all the people on board. We'e tipped it over in the middle of the Southern Ocean and the closest thing is a satellite." Ben: "No one got hurt; no boat's broken. It could have ended worse I suppose. You have a Chinese gybe or someone fall over; you'd rather have a Chinese gybe." Witty (?) off camera: "If you fall over the side you're dead, right?" Ben: "Yeah. So, one of those things. Live and learn. Hopefully won't let it happen again." Witty: "More importantly, I just feel for the guys on board. Because it was a pretty big thing. We've had a breakage. Our guys don't give up. They just keep working harder. They deserve a result in this race... To go through all this and never give up. They deserve a result." Fish dances a merengue in the cabin as the crew laughs.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.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.Rob, in red light below, says as expected wind has built to 35-40 knots. Borderline survival conditions. Willy, below, talks in Spanish. Pablo, below, talks in Spanish. Something involving his gloves. Sophie, below, says when you're holding the mainsheet it's always wet. "For me that's the coldest time for my hands. It's basically painful." The other thing about doing the main, she says, is that you're not really moving. "So after an hour and a half of that you get pretty cold." Willy talks in Spanish. Rob: In previous Southern Ocean legs got massive torrents of water through the boat, wiping out the helmsman. So we've built a wave breaker, which is on leeward side now so it's useless. Slomo shots on deck. Shot of the "wave breaker" (a mesh on the railing in front of the wheel) on the starboard (leeward) wheel.Slomo washing machine in the cockpit, with camera being washed into th wheel. Below, Stacey: "It's hard work, actually." Surfing and plowing into the waves brings water over the deck. It's cold, and 45 knots. More slomo washing machine shots. Someone on the stern (I think Phil?), trimming the main, has a whole discussion about how bad the conditions are, how it's cold and no one's talking. "Am I scared? No. A little bit bored and friggin' cold." This isn't his idea of an ocean race to Brazil. "How many days is it to Cape Horn? Four." He calls out to TJ on the pedestal: Which would he prefer: the doldrums or this? TJ: "Neither!" Nick: "We went from 8 miles behind Dongfeng, took our mainsail down, and somehow ended up 3 miles behind them." Jeremie laughs; "maybe take the main down!" Nick: "That's what we said; make it way easier." Slomo washing machine. Favoriting for Jeremie's getting out in the elements and getting such good personal stuff; really conveys what it feels like to be in the cockpit on these boats in these conditions.Rob, in red light below, says as expected wind has built to 35-40 knots. Borderline survival conditions. Willy, below, talks in Spanish. Pablo, below, talks in Spanish. Something involving his gloves. Sophie, below, says when you're holding the mainsheet it's always wet. "For me that's the coldest time for my hands. It's basically painful." The other thing about doing the main, she says, is that you're not really moving. "So after an hour and a half of that you get pretty cold." Willy talks in Spanish. Rob: In previous Southern Ocean legs got massive torrents of water through the boat, wiping out the helmsman. So we've built a wave breaker, which is on leeward side now so it's useless. Slomo shots on deck. Shot of the "wave breaker" (a mesh on the railing in front of the wheel) on the starboard (leeward) wheel.Slomo washing machine in the cockpit, with camera being washed into th wheel. Below, Stacey: "It's hard work, actually." Surfing and plowing into the waves brings water over the deck. It's cold, and 45 knots. More slomo washing machine shots. Someone on the stern (I think Phil?), trimming the main, has a whole discussion about how bad the conditions are, how it's cold and no one's talking. "Am I scared? No. A little bit bored and friggin' cold." This isn't his idea of an ocean race to Brazil. "How many days is it to Cape Horn? Four." He calls out to TJ on the pedestal: Which would he prefer: the doldrums or this? TJ: "Neither!" Nick: "We went from 8 miles behind Dongfeng, took our mainsail down, and somehow ended up 3 miles behind them." Jeremie laughs; "maybe take the main down!" Nick: "That's what we said; make it way easier." Slomo washing machine. Favoriting for Jeremie's getting out in the elements and getting such good personal stuff; really conveys what it feels like to be in the cockpit on these boats in these conditions.Epic drone footage of Brunel surfing big waves in 35-40 knots in the Southern Ocean. Looks like they're under the FR0, J3, and a triple-reefed main. Bouwe, below: Of course the sailing is really fun, but it's hairy because if you do something wrong it can go terribly wrong, so it's always to find that balance. He says that if they'd been closer to the ice gate conditions would have been worse, so they played it a little safer and the rest of the fleet did the same, so positions are the same as when they entered the ice gate.Sunrise rays through the clouds. Double- (triple- ?) reefed main and no headsail. Crew in the cockpit works on repairing the runner block. Witty, below, explains that as they were gybing for the ice gate the runner got twisted and the block broke. "We were lucky. We could have snapped the runner and lost the rig." Managed to jury rig. But now they're 110 miles behind. "Happens." "You can deal with little setbacks, but when it sort of the final nail in your coffin for aspirations for a good result in the race, that you've spent years trying to do it, how do you think it feels? But we never give up, got 4,000 miles..." Keep pushing, maybe when we get around the Horn... We were 100 miles behind and won into Hong Kong, and were 100 miles behind and finished second into New Zealand. "Plenty of fight left in this dog." Closeup of jury-rigged runner; washing machine. Witty below: "I think when you consider yourself a reasonable level of yachtsman, you've gotta do this leg. And you've gotta get through this leg... I'm gonna finish the leg and I'm gonna do well and give it a good go. That doesn't mean I'm gonna wanna do it again though, I'll give you a tip. Bloody horrible." Crash cam footage from the stern of someone (Witty?) being washed off the wheel by a wave.Sam asks Lucas, on the helm in fairly mellow conditions at sunset, "How does your Southern Ocean song go?" Lucas sings: "I am an albatross, and I fly across the seaaaa!"Epic drone footage of Brunel surfing big waves in 35-40 knots in the Southern Ocean. Looks like they're under the FR0, J3, and a triple-reefed main. Bouwe, below: Of course the sailing is really fun, but it's hairy because if you do something wrong it can go terribly wrong, so it's always to find that balance. He says that if they'd been closer to the ice gate conditions would have been worse, so they played it a little safer and the rest of the fleet did the same, so positions are the same as when they entered the ice gate.Sunrise rays through the clouds. Double- (triple- ?) reefed main and no headsail. Crew in the cockpit works on repairing the runner block. Witty, below, explains that as they were gybing for the ice gate the runner got twisted and the block broke. "We were lucky. We could have snapped the runner and lost the rig." Managed to jury rig. But now they're 110 miles behind. "Happens." "You can deal with little setbacks, but when it sort of the final nail in your coffin for aspirations for a good result in the race, that you've spent years trying to do it, how do you think it feels? But we never give up, got 4,000 miles..." Keep pushing, maybe when we get around the Horn... We were 100 miles behind and won into Hong Kong, and were 100 miles behind and finished second into New Zealand. "Plenty of fight left in this dog." Closeup of jury-rigged runner; washing machine. Witty below: "I think when you consider yourself a reasonable level of yachtsman, you've gotta do this leg. And you've gotta get through this leg... I'm gonna finish the leg and I'm gonna do well and give it a good go. That doesn't mean I'm gonna wanna do it again though, I'll give you a tip. Bloody horrible." Crash cam footage from the stern of someone (Witty?) being washed off the wheel by a wave.Sam asks Lucas, on the helm in fairly mellow conditions at sunset, "How does your Southern Ocean song go?" Lucas sings: "I am an albatross, and I fly across the seaaaa!"Epic drone footage of Brunel surfing big waves in 35-40 knots in the Southern Ocean. Looks like they're under the FR0, J3, and a triple-reefed main. Bouwe, below: Of course the sailing is really fun, but it's hairy because if you do something wrong it can go terribly wrong, so it's always to find that balance. He says that if they'd been closer to the ice gate conditions would have been worse, so they played it a little safer and the rest of the fleet did the same, so positions are the same as when they entered the ice gate.Sunrise rays through the clouds. Double- (triple- ?) reefed main and no headsail. Crew in the cockpit works on repairing the runner block. Witty, below, explains that as they were gybing for the ice gate the runner got twisted and the block broke. "We were lucky. We could have snapped the runner and lost the rig." Managed to jury rig. But now they're 110 miles behind. "Happens." "You can deal with little setbacks, but when it sort of the final nail in your coffin for aspirations for a good result in the race, that you've spent years trying to do it, how do you think it feels? But we never give up, got 4,000 miles..." Keep pushing, maybe when we get around the Horn... We were 100 miles behind and won into Hong Kong, and were 100 miles behind and finished second into New Zealand. "Plenty of fight left in this dog." Closeup of jury-rigged runner; washing machine. Witty below: "I think when you consider yourself a reasonable level of yachtsman, you've gotta do this leg. And you've gotta get through this leg... I'm gonna finish the leg and I'm gonna do well and give it a good go. That doesn't mean I'm gonna wanna do it again though, I'll give you a tip. Bloody horrible." Crash cam footage from the stern of someone (Witty?) being washed off the wheel by a wave.Sam asks Lucas, on the helm in fairly mellow conditions at sunset, "How does your Southern Ocean song go?" Lucas sings: "I am an albatross, and I fly across the seaaaa!"Night-vision shot in the cockpit looking aft. Bow-cam view at night; someone is hauling the tack of a new sail forward. Mast cam view of the foredeck crew getting buried in a wave. I see Kevin; not sure who the second person is. Cockpit crew grinding. Jack, below, talks about the cold conditions. The air is heavier, so the wind is "windier". And you're a long way from anywhere if things go wrong. Much more dangerous. Really for the driver to take as little away as possible. Doing the work on the foredeck as quickly as possible, but you want to be safe. Hurt my arm a couple of days ago. Had my arm on the forestay, and got lifted horizontal by a wave. Have to be very wary. More nighttime foredeck work. Favoriting for the epic foredeck shots.Epic sunset Southern Ocean drone shot.Blair talks about just going around East Cape. A pretty tough 24 hours. Crash-cam footage of their close cross when they almost collided with Scallywag. Xabi, below, explains what happened: MAPFRE was on port, at first thought they were crossing, but then decided to bear away, and Scallywag was already bearing away. So they got everyone on deck and did two penalty turns. Blair: "Lost quite a lot on that." Then we see more crash cam footage, as they almost lose a sail on the stack where the front of the sail went into the water. To lose that sail would have been a big deal, Blair explains. Then Joan did a great job on routing and they retook the lead. Now heading south in a nice position. Favoriting for the great crash-cam footage.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.Nicolai handles a sheet, takes spray. He talks about J0 vs. MH0. Talks about how it's good getting south; he doesn't mind the cold. "Must be close to Dongfeng though?" Slomo spray. Surfing fast with Nicho on the helm. "A week of pretty full on with 30 to 40 knots, maybe gybing along the ice gate. Need a bit of gybing practice anyway I reckon. Be all right this time. I was doing plenty of gybes coming into Auckland with everything up. Won't be doing that bit of drama again, guaranteed. Slomo washing machine. Martine below getting her foulies on, stretches her neck. "It's already pretty wet, and we haven't even got there... It's not going to be easy, but looking forward to the highway that takes us all the way to South America." Slomo of her taking spray. Favorite mainly because of that brief interview with Nicho talking about gybing.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.]Slomo foredeck action beating out from Auckland. Slomo grinding. Slomo sunset, headland. Witty, below: Had a bad start, so pushed really hard to catch up. Haven't had any sleep, really. Slomo shot of land. Witty: We can see everyone. At the top of the Bay of Plenty. Drone shot circling Scallywag as they sail upwind. Ben, below: Upwind for almost 24 hours. No one's had much sleep. Get right into it, huh? Ben stacking below. Like the Cape Town start. He talks about Tom, the new crewmember: Tommy's great. Unreal. New bit of fresh energy for the team. Tom: A bit of a baptism of fire. Nine years since I did the last race. Not as fit and agile as I used to be. Shot of him moving he stack on deck. Drone shot of Scallywag pounding to weather. Tom, below: Balance between not dropping off the pack, yet not busting the boat. High drone shot with East Cape (I think?) in the background. Favoriting mostly for the first drone footage of the leg, flying the drone in stronger wind.Slomo foredeck action beating out from Auckland. Slomo grinding. Slomo sunset, headland. Witty, below: Had a bad start, so pushed really hard to catch up. Haven't had any sleep, really. Slomo shot of land. Witty: We can see everyone. At the top of the Bay of Plenty. Drone shot circling Scallywag as they sail upwind. Ben, below: Upwind for almost 24 hours. No one's had much sleep. Get right into it, huh? Ben stacking below. Like the Cape Town start. He talks about Tom, the new crewmember: Tommy's great. Unreal. New bit of fresh energy for the team. Tom: A bit of a baptism of fire. Nine years since I did the last race. Not as fit and agile as I used to be. Shot of him moving he stack on deck. Drone shot of Scallywag pounding to weather. Tom, below: Balance between not dropping off the pack, yet not busting the boat. High drone shot with East Cape (I think?) in the background. Favoriting mostly for the first drone footage of the leg, flying the drone in stronger wind.Sailing toward a headland with a detached island. Full main and J2. Pascal talks about something. Tacking with the sunset behind them. Rough conditions close to land. Birds (shearwaters, I think) flying between them and land. Reefing the main. Favoriting this one because I just really like how it puts me on the boat in these conditions.Sailing toward a headland with a detached island. Full main and J2. Pascal talks about something. Tacking with the sunset behind them. Rough conditions close to land. Birds (shearwaters, I think) flying between them and land. Reefing the main. Favoriting this one because I just really like how it puts me on the boat in these conditions.Final approach to New Zealand; MAPFRE behind them. Kevin explains: Very tight with MAPFRE, 3 other boats ahead of them. Hard to believe in a few hours they'll have 25 knots of wind gybing for the finish of the leg .Will have to push to keep them behind. Daryl trims. Black, on the bow, talks about strategy. MAPFRE alongside, 100 yards away. MAPFRE ahead of them and to leeward. Charles: Can see Akzo and TTToP. They're in a light spot. Dongfeng and MAPFRE are offshore, fighting again. Jeremie explains that there's only 112 miles left. Some maneuvers. Need to be quite focused. MAPFRE now ahead of them. Keep working, keep focused. Everyone slept a bit today, so they're fresh. No mistake and hope for a good result. Sunset behind land. Moon. Carolijn, looking forward: "MAPFRE looks really soft at the moment. Stay high."They sail in light wind very close to some rocks. Alex, trimming: "I think we should get closer to these rocks." Talks about how the whole fleet is right here. Trying to eke out any advanage. Marcus, on the helm, points out possible new breeze line. Witty from the foredeck: "085, mate; 085!" Marcus jokes about needing to avoid having the rock named after them. Witty: "Can't believe Donfeng and MAPFRE are here. No justice in that." Libby and Trystan talk about 5 boats being within a few miles of each other. Great shots of the land. Trystan talks about the boats around them: TTToP, Brunel, MAPFRE, Dongfeng. Witty does play-by-play commentary. "Got some breeze back." 1 mile behind Akzo, 100 miles to go. It's been a tough day. "More than happy to take a second and then run away and hide." Ben on the helm; Witty on the PA: "We have gained one tenth of a mile." Ben talks about how intense it is.Antonio looks through binoculars at AkzoNobel, sailing in light air a quarter-mile ahead of them. AkzoNobel a quarter-mile to leeward. Witty calls for crew to get out of the forepeak and right on the bow. At the nav station: Witty says "238 miles of this rubbish... Wait for the right opportunity. Patience..." Sailing alongsisde Akzo. Alex trimming. Witty: "Just press in the puff." Trystan: "Full on, isn't it? We'll keep changing watch; keep the fresh people going... They just got nudged ahead." Libby, looking at her tablet, calls the angle on the other tack. Tacking the MH0; AkzoNobel three-quarters of a mile ahead of them. Antonio: Tight to the end. Libby looking through binoculars: "Pretty patchy out where Dee is." Libby explains that they got too focused on Akzo, maybe, and didn't pay enough attention to TTToP. Marcus discusses whether they'll be able to stay ahead of TTToP. 100 miles to go. "Not having a meltdown just yet." Shot of TTToP on the horizon.Sailing in light air in the moonlight. Witty at the nav station talks about how anything could happen. "It is entertaining and it keeps us all awake." Sunrise: We see AkzoNobel on the horizon. Crew talks about how it's insane that they're a mile away. "We've been further away in in-port races." Trystan on the helm talks about the competition. "It's all on." Shot of the land as they sail quietly past. Marcus: Almost there. "Cool sunrise." Annemieke on the foredeck points out AkzoNobel. "21 days of sailing, and you're in a match-race battle... Can't be more beautiful." Shots of AkzoNobel drifting a mile away. Witty trimming witih New Zealand shore behind him. Quiet, intense sailing.One word: Louis: Disappointment. Peter: Brutal. Kyle: Difficult. Carlo: Very disappointing. Sally: Risk? Alberto: I'm sad. I don't even know what to say. Everybody's disappointed. [He shrugs.]. Sunset. Capey at the nav station. Someone eating in the red light of their headlamp. Instruments. Kyle: We're still fighting. Stranger things have happened. Looks unlikely. Performance seems like it's been better this leg, but slipping away from us. It's tough. Sunrise. [Favoriting this because I just think Yann does a really good job with narrative, and his videos really work for me on an emotional level. I've felt this since the last edition of the race: His videos aren't just videos; they're powerful short films. All the awards for Yann.]Sunrise. Crew talks about Akzo being 6 miles north of us. Foredeck. Crew smiling. Morale seems good. Fish on the helm. Just a lot of cool shots without a lot of dialog; just the crew being happy, moving well. Relaxed.Peter: Bonjour. We're in France. [Yann chuckles.] France is just over here, 50 miles apparently, can't see it. Bouwe: Here we are in stealth mode. Is quite light. Have to punch through the light air. Below, closeups of the engine (?), galley stove burner, tea kettle, someone sleeping as loud hydraulics noises can be heard. Peter talks about using earplugs to sleep. How easing the runner is so loud. Sally: Ear-piercing. Alberto, on the helm, talks about how loud it is. Closeup of the runner being eased slowly. Sally, in her bunk with earbuds, tries to sleep. Peter talks about how loud the runner is. Also the engine. Closeups of cranking. Peter listens to it below. Pedestal grinding. Alberto tries to sleep in the bow. Flopping at night with the sound of the sail filling. Sound of rain on deck.Awesome high drone shot showing Dongfeng sailing past an atoll. Pascal at the nav station. He explains that they are near New Caledonia, passing a small atoll. It's name is "Surprise". Drone shot traveling over the reef, then returning to Dongfeng. Daryl talks about passing the atoll, part of New Caledonia. They then pass another atoll, this time on its leeward side. Time-lapse shot of Kevin on the helm as evening falls. Favoriting this one for those cool reef shots from the drone.Shots of instruments. Sally talks about instruments and what she looks at when she wakes up: Speed. Heel angle. The heel sucks. Canting cockpit floor would be fantastic. Peter, on the helm: Boatspeed and true wind angle are the ones you look at the most. Carlo: True wind speed. Louis: Polar percentage of the last 10 minutes. Kyle: Depends on your role, driving or on the main, differs. The number I look at the most is my watch. And distance to finish. Carlo: This is our fucking watch captain. Bouwe, below: Sailing is trimming and sails up and down. But numbers don't lie. If you have the answers it's in the numbers. Capey: Down here is where it really happens. Numbers down here. Boatspeed, windspeed, a lot of things to monitor. Bouwe: My favorite number is polar percentage. Always trying to beat that number. If you're at 103 a lot of the time, that will become your new target. Always trying to keep improving. Capey: Only one number as navigator, and that's position. Trying not to hit anything. And heading: Are we going the right place. Shots of the nav station computers, instruments, VHF with channel 16 showing. Computer screenshot: Adrena Pro Carbon Edition, with strip charts.Beautiful sunrise drone shots. Dee points out Brunel on the horizon ahead of them. Brian talks about how they've held onto Brunel, and gained ground on Dongfeng and MAPFRE behind them. Closing in on Brunel. Drone shot showing both boats in light air, with rain cloud in the distance. Drifting conditions with Brunel a few hundred yards off their bow. Nicolas talks with Brian as Brunel drifts a hundred yards off their starboard beam. Brunel falling behind them, then just ahead of them. Dee, on the helm, about how it's crazy to sail three and a half thousand miles and be side-by-side with their buddies. Suddenly wind is ahead of them. They cross Brunel on port, with Liz giving a "woo hoo!" on the helm. Lucas talks about how good it was to gain and cross ahead of them. Brunel crossing behind them. They wave.Carlo wears the Peter Gabriel cam on the foredeck. In the cockpit, Kyle says, "I hate it. It's the worst place on the yacht." Peter: "Occasionally you get absolutely soaked." Kyle: You're gonna get hammered. Have to have all your kit on, or just know you're gonna get cold and wet. Carlo, on the PG-cam, checks the hanks on the J1. Back on the stern, he talks about being the bowman. "I didn't really choose it, but we started as a team, and the position was open, and Bouwe just sort of pushed me into it. I had no experience on the bow at all. And through a lot of mistakes and patience of my teammates, I think I've got a pretty good grasp on it now." Bouwe, below: I think all great sailors have been a bowman at some point. People come on the boat and get stuck there, and strangely it's a key position. If you make a mistake it affects everyone. Carlo: I like it. Slightly dangerous, but I guess that makes it a bit more fun as well. Carlo on teh bow in the PG cam in slowmo. Peter: I don't think Carlo has a substitute for his role up there. Kyle: It's a bit of a Mexican standoff to see who's going to be the other one to go forward and help him. It's usually Pete, Louis, and myself who go forward to help him. And Capey. It'd be nice if he was a bit more independent, and didn't require so much help. [He grins at Carlo, on the helm behind him.] Bouwe, below: He's taken a job, a responsibility, and he does't make mistakes anymore. PG cam footage of Carlo on the bow gathering in the J1. Capey, below: I was a bowman once, about 35 years ago. I know what goes on up there. Bouwe: I could probably do the bow again on a small boat, a 30-footer. Capey: That's a job for young fellows. Fit young fellows. Carlo takes off the helmet cam and hands it back to Yann.Yann talks from the media station in French. We see him going on deck with a GoPro (Garmin) attached to his helmet, Peter Gabriel "Digging in the Dirt" video style. We see him going out in the cockpit in the washing machine and shooting photos.Trystan on the helm (might have been mixing him up with Marcus; would be nice if the Volvo site team page had photos for either of them). Drone shot of Scallywag sailing toward the sunrise on port gybe. Witty and Libby laughing at the nav station. Witty: "You're starting to come around!" They seem happy about how they're doing on the other boats. Witty talks to Ben about how it's a balance; they've got "fugazi" (pointing to Libby) and "non-fugazi" (himself) and it works out pretty good. Witty: "We have just absolutely smashed them." He laughs. "All these other guys do the fugazi, and listen to the computer, and we sort of point where we want to go, and it seems to be working quite nicely." In the background, Libby is rocking back and forth, laughing silently. Witty: "It's only yachting mate, it's not science, it's not that hard... Libby Greenhalgh, she's done it again! We should have shares in Libby Greenhalgh!" Libby reads the sched on the intercom: MAPFRE doing 6 knots. (Meanwhile, they're sailing at 20.) Alex, on deck: "I heard a little rumor going round that we've actually done well. Apparently we're in front. We've got a better line down here... Long way to go. Fingers crossed we can keep on gaining... Still gotta go through the doldrums." Shot of sunrise. Drone shot of them shifting the stack on the bow. Sunrise drone shots.In light winds they sail downwind. Charles calls below to rouse the off watch. Kevin gets dressed, goes on deck. Crew grinding in the cockpit as they peel to the MH0. Marie grinds, wearing a foulie top that says "Liu". Oops. Kevin on the bow lowering the old sail. A competitor (MAPFRE?) is visible ahead of them. Kevin eats. GoPro shot of him removing and clipping into a halyard, then he goes to the clew of the MH0. He attaches a new sheet, checks the leech line, and gives a thumbs up to Marie, who secures his line so he can pull himself back to the deck. "Merci." Below he takes off his foulies and gets back in his bunk.Night shots of them sailing on starboard. Another boat in the background. Kyle talks about how all night they've been within a mile or so of the other two boats, pushing hard. Cool night/dim shots. Dongfeng. Kyle: "Nice to be fighting with the leaders." Gives them confidence. Kyle cleans up lines in the pit. Stands on the outrigger to adjust the J1 leech cord. Cool drone shot in dim light of Brunel going to weather with Dongfeng in the background, a quarter mile away. Kyle on the foredeck. Another sweet drone shot, circling them to show both Dongfeng to leeward and AkzoNobel ahead and to weather. Kyle goes below with his toothbrush. Bouwe sits at the nav station, looking at a chart. Kyle gets in his bunk.Louis eats below. Someone (Peter?) is mic'd. Later, Louis is mic'd. It's pretty cool gettting good audio. Louis talks about the other boats, pulling away from them. Talks about sailing into the lee of Taiwan. "Always good to see them getting smaller, for sure." Going to sail into lighter wind, then increasing to 30 after they peel to the J2. Still fresh; only 24 hours into the race. Sally: The J1 peel is one of the hardest ones, and most annoying I think. On the bow getting hammered by waves. We see them in windier conditions, slomo of spray coming over the bow (with the J2 up). Sailing to weather in big waves and wind as the light fails. Epic stuff. I don't know quite what it is, but I love the cinematic look and feel Yann gets.Peter talks about their mode: "Generally have more heel than anyone else." Below, he talks about Dongfeng gaining recently. Talks about ballast tanks, different set ups. Have made a gain compared to earlier on. Shot of Dongfeng a few boatlengths ahead of them. Bouwe below, talks about having good speed, and suddenly getting slow. Had a big plastic bag on the rudder. Did two tacks to clear it. Lost some distance, but are making gains again. Peter clears the rudder. Dongfeng ahead of them and to weather. Bouwe at the nav station talks about the feeling in the China stopover being good. Talks about Peter being competitive (as they all are). "But it feels good on board." Night shot of AkzoNobel and Dongfeng to leeward as night falls; a boat astern of them with green masthead running light showing. Side note: I love Yann's use of longer lenses. Gives it a really different, more cinematic/epic feeling.David Witt talks to the crew in the cockpit. He sounds like the caffeine is really kicking in. "We're gonna have to just take this on, right? I don't know what's gonna happen. We're just gonna have to take this on all night." Alex talks about the routing being different than reality; some big choices on how to route through the Phillippines. Witty talks about Parko saying a smart thing before, you have to think about what SiFi will do on Vestas. He doesn't know where we are, he doesn't know we're still leading. He'll want to say in front of "the Feng". I think he'll want to put himself between them and the finish. Witty: "And I just completely confused myself again." Discussion in the cockpit. Fish-eye shot from the bowsprit looking aft. Witty below at the nav station obsesses over the chart, current, strategy. "About 20 minutes from our final gybe into Hong Kong. Getting close." Stacking below. Witty: "It'll be the greatest yacht race I've ever won if we can pull this off. For a whole bunch of reasons... A smart man told me once that the way you win yacht races is you eliminate the ways to lose them. And we kept coming up with ways to lose it and then fighting back. That's probably what will make it the most special if we can pull it off." Witty on the helm; washing machine. Witty and Libby at the nav station. Witty announces the sched over the PA. Dongfeng is farther back in the latest sched, so he thinks it's a fair bet Vestas (who is in Stealth Mode) is further back, too. Witty: "Our rate of improvement is pretty amazing, really." Talks about the amount of hard work. "You've gotta believe in yourself first if anything's gonna happen."Yann, below, explains that he's going to try to fly the drone, even though there's a bit of water on deck and it's pretty windy (about 18-20 knots). There's a reef to windward, and he's going to try to get the reef in the drone shots. (Not sure who's videoing this, but you can see their shadow in the shot.) He's getting everything ready there, then he'll give the drone to Jens, who will take the drone to the stern and launch it. Yann stands in the hatchway, being filmed as he talks to someone on the stern. "Whenever you think it looks okay you come and pick it up, with the camera looking... this side [he gestures toward the stern] so that it doesn't get any spray on the lens." Jens comes and takes the drone; carries it aft through the cockpit. From the mast cam we see him take it onto the stern. Then we see Yann's GoPro (really Garmin) head-mounted camera view as he walks toward the stern with the drone controls. We get a shot over Yann's shoulder as he talks to Jens. We see the drone launched, then see the launch again in slomo, then see the drone's view as Jens releases it and salutes it as it flies away. We see the GoPro (Yann-cam) view of the person videoing him, who I think might be Kyle? Yann: "Now it's just a matter of doing some, uh, nice picture... Shouldn't be too dangerous if I don't get too close to the boat." Shots of Yann on the stern operating the drone controls. Drone shots circling the boat. Yann: "We can maybe stop for a while, saving the battery for landing... I don't see it [the reef]... Where is it?... Now I'm making pictures, actually... Sally [who's driving], if you feel you are going in a big surf you tell me before?" Cool drone shot from just ahead of the bowsprit. Drone view as it approaches them from astern. "Okay Jens... A bit more to leeward if you can." Jens, with goggles and a protective glove, catches the drone. Slomo shot of Jens catching the drone, then a mastcam view of the same thing. Below, Yann debriefs: "Just finished with this little drone flight in the morning. We did not see the reef, but we got some nice pictures, so it was not for nothing. It was worth it."Sunrise. Vestas sails toward a raincloud. Nick, trimming the headsail: "We are coming into a cloud line; the morning rollcall of clouds." He points back to where AkzoNobel and Dongfeng have been closing in on them. Radar screen showing clouds, and with what I assume are the AIS positions of two boats to their southwest, 2 and 4 miles away, respectively. Shot of AkzoNobel and Dongfeng a few miles away. Nick and someone (Tom?) in the cockpit in the rain. At the nav station, Mark talks about how they're stuck in a cloud with no wind, while AkzoNobel, a mile away, is doing 11 knots. "Pretty annoying. Build up a nice lead on them overnight, and it's evaporating very quickly... Let's go." Shot of Akzo in the rain. Shot of routing software. Drone shot of Vestas bouncing with no wind in leftover chop. Someone on the foredeck. Shot of the mainsail looking up, with Stacey standing next to it. SiFi at the nav station, looking at what I think must be the 2018.01.12 01:00 UTC sched, in which MAPFRE had surged north well to the west of them. "Wow." He eats. Amory: "Brutal." SiFi, as he eats: "They probably got in the western edge of this. But they're only in 3 knots [of wind]. So they've gotta deal with the wake [?] as well. The hope is that we break out of this first." SiFi comes up on deck: "Yeah. As scary as we thought it would be." Tony: "Those guys sailed around?" SiFi: "They're due west of us, about 26 miles. They're only in 3 knots, but they are in an easterly." They peel to the MH0. Hannah sits on the lowered J1, tying it with sail ties. "Just put themasthead back up, and got breeze from closer to the direction we're looking for." SiFi: "Pretty painful morning. A cloud moved through last night and decimated the wind field... Filling in now. Got 8 knots of breeze from 060. And it's northeasternly, which is the future. And actually it's gonna continue lifting." As the wind builds we see them unfurling the J3 to double-head with the MH0. Wake shot with them moving at 10 knots.Annalise stands on the bow with a glassy sea and clouds around her. Shot of raincloud behind them. Frederico points to port. "We have a twister. It's somehing new for me as well. And this one is connecting to the water already. It's not as big as the other one we have, but it might have a lot of breeze... Wait and see." Shot of the funnel cloud. Rain falling; crew rushes into the cockpit to shower. "Give us some soap!" Francesca, on the helm: "Main on. Someone!" Dee interrupts washing her hair to grind. Slomo of Martin grinding, grinning at Dee. Shots of dolphins under the bow. Dee, sitting in the forward hatch, points out where the different boats are. "It's the first time we've been clear north of everyone."In the morning light, Ben stands on the boom to look through binoculars ahead of them. Ben: "We've seen a sailing boat with a square-topped mainsail and a masthead sail, so we think it might be one of the other Volvos." Have been following them in the sched, and now have seen them in real life. Below, Libby calls out the latest sched. Sounds pretty happy. "Spotted Brunel about 40 minutes ago off our windward bow." Crew eats breakfast on the bow, talking about it. Witty: "One or two days ago we were a hundred miles behind the leaders." Ben: "We had to fucking work pretty hard the last two days." John talks about how they've worked hard, so to get where they can actually see and identify a yacht is cool. Witty talks about not giving up, keeping trying. "It's a really important leg for us. It would be catastrophic to come in last." Night shots of lightning. Witty on a PA tells the crew about Brunel being 9 miles away on AIS. "We're winning the sched for the first time, so well done lads." Talks about a rain cloud. "We've got this rain cloud which looks [BLEEP] horrendous." Beautiful shot of the waning gibbous moon rising through clouds behind the helmsman, silhouetting him. Next day, Witty talks on deck sounding despondent about getting stuck in the rain cloud with no wind. We see Libby at the nav station with Grant looking at Expedition's "Strip Chart" display. Libby: "True wind angle's at 120 here." Grant [pointing]: "So all this is starboard gybe..." Witty talks about losing 50 miles when they got stuck in the cloud and the other boats didn't. "probably lost 10 of the 30 miles there, and then we lost 20 of the 30 miles sailing 170 degrees off course... "We just did one of the stupidest things ever and now we're 30 miles behind running last again... We're the ones letting ourselves down. It's not bad luck; we're just being idiots. And we deserve to be here at the moment. And I'm just concerned that you don't get too many chances in this quality fleet to go from 30 miles behind or 100 miles behind to back in the lead. Somehow we've got 3,000 miles to figure out how we're going to do it. Again." He and Grant sit on the bow discussing it.High drone shot showing Dongfeng in the foreground and AkzoNobel in the background. It's a pretty distant shot, and makes me wonder: The OBRs haven't been using this opportunity to get drone closeups of their competitors (which they did, a little, in Leg 2). I bet there was some kind of agreement to limit that, presumably for competitive reasons (i.e., an extension of the "OBR shall not contribute to the racing" concept, such that they shouldn't be potentially helping their crew steal info about setup on the other boats). Anyway, Sam's voice is lapped over the shot: "Nicho, tell me about the art of sailing through the doldrums." We see Nicho, who tells a story about meeting with a meterologist who talked about clouds all day, and he asked him how to tell a good cloud from a bad one. "There is an element of luck... I"m lucky I enjoy it." Luke talks about being stuck in the doldrums, playing cat-and-mouse with Dongfeng. Overlapped with a time-laps of the drone shot of the two boats - which I realize now shows a third boat, Vestas, ahead of them both. Simeon, on the helm, talks about trying to sail from puff to puff. Shot of Dongfeng ahead of them and to leeward. Luke talks about how he thinks Dongfeng is probably tense on board, with their close competitor MAPFRE close by. Shot of a rain cloud. Drone shot from astern as the sun is setting to port with a competitor on the horizon while Brad is hoisted up the mast. Drone shots circling him at the masthead showing rain clouds and the other boats around them. Nicolai talks about them sending Brad up to look for the beeze, having 5 boats in the same area. Simeon, shirtless with the low sun on him, talks about being pretty happy with the situation. "Fighting, you know, every single watch and hour." A shot of them approaching a competitor (I think; unless it's a low-altitude drone shot of their own boat) with the sunset sky behind them. We see the other boat just a few boatlenghts away. Someone says, "There's somebody standing on the prod." [?] Brad (I think) calls out to them: "Who's the monkey on the bowsprit?" We hear the response. Something like, "Go back to Kerikeri, mate", which makes Brad chuckle. [Brad and Blair Tuke are both from Kerikeri, NZ.] I think this must be the super-close approach they had with MAPFRE around 2018.01.10 08:20:10 UTC, so that would make it either Blair or Louis who's answering. Brad, invisible in the dark: "It's nice to talk to somebody from another boat for a change. As much as I love these guys, it's nice to hear a different voice for once. Especially one from Kerikeri." Awesome drone shot passing AkzoNobel at low altitude, flying toward MAPFRE. Lightning-flash illuminated shots of them sailing in the squall that night.Night, in the rain. Lightning flashes. Heh. Brian Carlin beat Martin by less than 8 minutes in getting his video up from TTToP. The crew works in flashes of lightning. Kevin, shouting: "Ease up the luff, Jack!" I kind of love this one, and love the contrast it makes with Brian Carlin's on TTToP, in terms of each OBR's different filmmaking style. Ima favorite both of them, though I'm not sure I would have favorited either by itself. My tags, my rules. :-)At night, in the red light, we see rain coming down on deck as the crew trims the sails. There's a flash of lightning and almost immedaitely a crash of thunder. Brian [Thompson], who was in the cockpit in his shorts getting a shower, heads below. "Instruments went down." The camera follows him to the nav station, where Dee is sitting. "We just lost everything... I think it's coming back on. Whoa; the computer's just went funny. Okay; it's coming back on." On deck it's pouring rain. There's another flash, and several seconds later the thunder. Brian, looking at the radar screen. "Half a mile. We're getting out of it pretty quickly."Frank on the helm at sunrise. Justine trims. Doldrums. Franck, on the bow, talks about how the doldrums is a very large area compared to the Atlantic, and the course is set requiring them to go through it. Now there's a weird wind from the southwest, which is impossible according to the model. Just have to push the boat and use the wind you have and be very concentrated on tuning. Remember is it's a game, and the finish line is very far away. We were in front of the fleet a long time, but the important part of the race is now. And the first boat to catch the wind, and then 1,000 miles to race. The goal is to stay with the fleet, not take too much risk, and we have the good speed to be in the front when the wind is stable. Don't be stressed. Shot of AkzoNobel ahead of them, then next to them. A whale surfaces near them. Has a small dorsal - sei whale? Horace talks on the bow about the heat, and having patience when trimming. Talks about having passed AkzoNobel. "Next target: Vestas. Let's go. There. Not too far." We see Vestas ahead and to port. They sail faster in a bit of a puff. Concentrating. Looks like all hands on deck. Then: drifting again. From below, Horace calls out the latest sched. Jack, the sunset behind him: "Day of snakes and ladders... This afternoon was quite nice. Had a big cloud come. Had more than 10 knots of wind for the first time in 3 days, which was a real pleasure. Made a bit forward, but it wasn't very long. So there's still a lot of work to do." Amazing low-altitude drone shot, overtaking them from astern with the sunset and AkzoNobel (left) and MAPFRE (right) to port of them. Then another drone shot from the opposite angle showing Vestas closer to them, to starboard. Favorting this one, too, mostly (again) for the drone work. Nice job by Martin.Kyle, on the helm in glassy conditions at sunrise, talks about how slow it's been. They've been going 1 knot; "with 3 and a half knots now it feels like 20." Jens trims, chuckles. "Hot. Hot and slow." Yann's longer-lens closeups are cool-looking. Sally: "Torture." Abby sleeps in her bunk. Closeup of a fan. Sam, at the galley sink: "Frustrating. Extremely frustrating and slow." Awesome drone shots of Brunel sailing upwind with a giant, dark rain cloud behind them. They peel from J1 (I think) to the MH0 while the drone videos them. Abby looks through binoculars at their competitors. "I see a boat with red sails, so could be Dongfeng or could be MAPFRE." Jens: "They're still ahead of us, but catching up just now. Got some good breeze now." Then a shot of them slatting in no wind again. Fish breaking the surface. Sunset. Favoriting this one just for that drone sequence.Crash cam footage from the stern cam: They're sailing in light wind and heavy rain in a squall. There's a flash of lightning and a loud crash. Rome, on the helm, jumps off the helm platform to crouch down in the stern. They laugh. Rome: "Holy shit!" Below, Kyle and Sam watch the footage on a laptop. Kyle: "He's very easily scared, that Rome-y. You'll walk around a corner and he'll jump. Very easily frightened." More of them watch and laugh. Rome: "Shat my pants it was so close." Sam, on deck, talks about having the lightning strike quite close, feeling the static through their bodies. "Bit close for comfort. Lucky we got out with the instruments unscathed." Night shot of distant lightning. Shot of the mast instruments at night. Bouwe at the nav station. Closeup of the compass dial. Slomo wake shot. Shot of passing Ghupuna; drone shots of passing Ghupuna. Sally, with a Scopolamine patch behind her right ear, looks at land. "Nice. It's a little bit of something besides blue water." Jens: "It's always nice to see land. It's only halfway, looks good. Have a couple of boats we want to catch." Yann, to Bouwe on the helm: "You like the green you're seeing, or...?" Bouwe: "No. I like more the beach, actually. I'm more a beach man." Shots of the island. Abby and Sally working in the pit. High drone shot of Makira behind them.High drone shot of Scallywag sailing on starboard gybe with a small island 3 miles to port. Think it's Mwamwako, the island just south of Ghupuna. Parko, shirtless in the cockpit, says it's quite a good milestone for them and the fleet, going past the Solomon Islands. More high drone shots, now showing the rest of the island group the boats rounded: Gupuna, Makira (San Cristobal). Parko: "Not many people ever see this spot." Trystan, on deck, talks about how being in this race has been a long-term goal. Says there are the big three: Olympics, America's Cup, Volvo. Hopes that after they get to Hong Kong he'll be able to stay with the team. Witty: "He worked in the boatyard, he knew the boats very well. He was a big strong guy. And for me, he was a rugby player... Nine out of ten guys I've ever played rugby with always put the team first." Witty talks about how the sailing is as grueling on the body as he thought it was. The demand for teamwork is even more than he expected, and he always knew it was the toughest team sport in the world. Parko: He enjoys the challenge. Special memories. John talks about growing up, loving sailing, seeing the Whitbread start at the Solent. "It isn't for everyone but you should always challenge yourself." In a rain squall, Witty takes a shower under the boom. Grant, on the wheel: "Needed to clean up his act a bit." John explains that they were able to have a quick freshwater shower in the squall when the wind was light. Witty explains that it's hard to find a great sailor and make them a great person. Easier to find great people and turn them into great sailors. "That's what we do on Scallywag."Spectacular drone shot of a whale feeding in a school of fish, turning on its side and opening its mouth wide as it charges through the school. More shots with Vestas approaching in the background with the late-afternoon light and clouds behind them. Stacey talks about sailing past the whale feeding. "It's pretty spectacular, and something you don't get to see every day." Nick talks about seeing it. Tony, on the helm. "I've never seen anything like it. I can't wait to see the footage." SiFi at the nav station talks about sailing along in light air, trying to gain some bearing on the guys to weather. "One of those really nice moments when you're reminded how lucky we are... A nice reminder as well of how important it is that we're spreading our message of sustainability and keeping the oceans clean and preserving nature... Hopefully... maybe when my kids are my age they can see the same thing and we aren't dealing with a sitaution where there's more plastic in the ocean than there are fish." Ends with more drone shots of Vesas sailing past the feeding whale, and then sailing away from the drone.Amazing high-altitude drone shot showing AkzoNobel far below and a number of islands, clouds, and I think a rainbow in the distance. Pretty sure that's Ghupuna closest to them. Jules explains that they're at the east end of the Solomons. In third place. "Still a long way to go." Drone shot with island behind them. Nicolai: "Solomon Islands. Beautiful place. One of those places you don't get to go often that you probably never will come back to." Shot of whale surfacing on their starboard quarter. More islands. Drone shot of purse seiner ("Southern Seas No. 302 SI-LV110") fishing as they pass in the background. Drone records them pulling in what looks like a struggling blue shark. Detail of the fishing boat's mast, with multiple crow's nests with what look like spotting scopes mounted on them.Kevin, on the helm, whistles some music. Martin guesses the name; Kevin points his thumb at him. "He got it." Carolijn asks what it is; I think Kevin says Claire de Lune? But he translates into English at Carolijn's request as "the sound of the moon" rather than "the light of the moon"? I dunno. Guess it kind of sounds like Debussey. Maybe it's something else. Carolijn's turn. She laughs at her inept whistling. She asks Jérémie is he's a good whistler. Jérémie: No. Kevin whistles again: L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Habanera) from Carmen. These European folk are so damn cultured! (I did recognize this one, though, despite being an ugly American.) Ima favorite this one, just because it's so cool how they're hanging out at the front of the fleet, just chillin'. Reminds me of that scene in The Natural when the team's firing on all cylinders and Pop and Red are sitting in the dugout playing basically the same game.Time-lapse of from cabin looking aft of sunset, night. Below in red light, Nick explains that a cloud headed them, but they don't want to give up their weather gauge so they're switching to the J0 to stay high. View of the nighttime sail change from the cabin area looking forward; stars visible ahead of them. Crew in the cockpit, foredeck work. Tony: "Nice one! That was awesome!" Later, Mark steers while SiFi sits next to him talking about it being a nice opportunity to get some experience with that sail. In the dark, Nick talks about how the peel went well. "Damn; it's a beautiful night." View up the mast of Taurus, with the Pleides and Hyades.Justine trims. "Main on." Jérémie grinds. We see a series of closeups: The chain drive in the pedestal turning. The drive linkages and drive shafts. The winch drum. The drum turning. The sheet coils on the drum. The mainsheet block. The mainsail, looking up. Time-lapse view of the instruments on the mast. Fom top to bottom: Boatspeed, True Wind Direction, Relative Wind Angle, True Wind Speed, Heading (degrees True). Speed gradually builds during the time lapse from 16.3 to 18.9. Shot shifts to slomo as spray comes over the bow. Shot of the keel bulb under water to weather. Kevin working the bow in spray. Crew in the cockpit: Carolijn on the helm, Horace trimming, Daryl on the pedestal, Franck standing to leeward. A small ship is several miles away to leeward, approaching on a collision course. Kevin looks at them through binoculars. Charles talks to them in French on a handheld VHF. Kevin explains that Charles talked to them, and they said they were happy to bear away a bit so as not to cross in front of them. Kevin: "Charles told them that was very nice, but that if they can also grab AkzoNobel to leeward of us that's perfect as well." Martin asks if they could be pirates. Carolijn laughs: "Very friendly pirates." Kevin explains they are laying cable or a military vessel or something like that. Carolijn makes a lanyard-pulling motion (like "honk your horn!"), then waves to the ship, which is approaching them a half mile away on their leeward quarter. She gives a thumbs up. Carolijn: "Looks like something military. They are French-speaking, so I'm guessing something to do with New Caledonia." Slomo shots: Carolijn and Justine grinding on the aft pedestal, someone trimming, Franck on the helm, spray, Carolijn taking coils off a winch, Horace giving a thumbs-up from the clew of the J3, Carolijn spraying her face from a water bottle.Drone shot of AkzoNobel with low sun behind them. In the audio we hear Jules announcing the latest sched, with distances to other boats. Switches to closeups of him talking in the companionway. Below, Brad talks to Nicolai about "Master and Commander". On the foredeck, stacking, Martine slips and falls. She sits in the cockpit and talks about "Master and Commander": "It feels like Master and Commander. We are chasing the French boat." Below, Jules talks about doing 11 gybes in 11 hours. We see the zigzag line on the chart screen. Nicolai, on the pedestal, talks about how they've been chasing Dongfeng, choosing to stick with them. Martine and Simeon talk about it as a battle. Martine: "It is fighting a battle but no guns. Just a lot of trimming the sails." We see a closeup of Cécile's finger (the little finger on her left hand) with a nasty slice as she bandages herself. She explains how she cut it on the handhold when she was thrown off-balance. In the cockpit, Brad, invisible in a balaclava and sunglasses, jokes about wanting to cut it off and cauterize it. "I wanted to do it today but she wouldn't let me." He explains that the pirates used to do it all the time. References Master and Commander again. Nicolai talks about Dongfeng and trying to learn from their moding (whether they sail high or low) and the sail combinations and setup. We see Dongfeng in the distance. Closeup of Cécile's hand with the bandaged finger as she trims. Great drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing fast, triple-heading with the A3.Drone shot AT NIGHT of AkzoNobel silhouetted against the trail of the nearly full moon on the water behind them. Masthead red running light is visible, also four different white lights. Not sure what's up with those. Sail-illumination lights? Brad, on deck: "Beautiful night out here." Talks about chipping away at Dongfeng, who crossed them by 2.5 miles, and are now 5 miles away. Gybe coming up; hope to make more gains there. Simeon, at nav station below, nods to Sam. Simeon: "Yeah. Pretty happy." Luke, on deck on the wheel (I think): "Warm water. Full moon. Doesn't get any better... Great company. Go the A-team on here." Shot of Orion standing on his head next to the shrouds. Shot of the helmsman from the cockpit, then pans up the backstay to show the Southern Cross. Drone shot close to the boat from to leeward, illuminated by moonlight.Jules, at the nav station, talks to Sam. "How would I describe myself? Tired?... I think I'm pretty easy-going, most of the time, except when I'm tired." Sam: "How do you think the crew would describe you?" Jules: "Miserable. Quiet." On deck, Luke answers the question: "Uncomplicated, I would say. [laughs] No; he's a good rooster. Very rarely gets it wrong. It's only us getting it wrong that makes him look bad." Looks like this was shot as they were beating out of Port Phillip Bay on the first afternoon. Closeup of Jules at the nav station, rubbing his head. Shot of the computer showing weather. On deck, Brad points out Green Cape. "Everyone knows it's one of the most southeastern capes of Australia." Shot of the cape with its lighthouse. To the left is another boat, barely visible; I'm guessing it's Vestas. On deck, Simeon talks about needing to choose whether to play the coast or go offshore. Shot from the cabin of Jules (below) talking to Nicho (on deck). Simeon crouches down as water splashes over him. Simeon: "[something] stay in touch with the other guys. Otherwise you'll lose them." Jules discusses how the fleet is splitting. Also there are three different tidal models that disagree as to where the eddy is. More discussion by Simeon: gybe or not? Conversation with the three of them continues below at the nav station. Nicho: "If you gybe back, you're pretty much committed to playing the shore." Sam talks to Jules: "How would you describe the decision-making process on this boat?" Jules: "Not very clear. Because not everyone knows the full implications of everything they're talking about. You often get into situations like this where it's a tossup, you gotta trust one weather model or the other. Or you just do the conservative thing and stay with the fleet." Nicho, below, eating: "You've gotta kick it around. Kick it to death. And then make a gut call, usually. There's a fair bit of science involved... I think in the end for this situation, we're on a good heading with great pressure. More breeze than inshore." Sam: "How would you describe the decision-making process on this boat?" Nicho: "Plenty of input from everybody. At times this is Simeon's boat. I certainly from my side I feel like I can make the decision and live with it perhaps a bit easier. It's not a difficulty, it's just how it is. I guess we've kind of struggled and grappled with that sitaution a little. But no; the actual process I think is quite good. No one's angry or frustrated or anyting like that. It's just trying to weigh up all the pros and cons, come up with a decision."Drone shot of Scallywag triple-heading on starboard with a low headland behind them. Alex, taking off his foulie top below, explains that the routing has had them gybing along the coast. "It's just been a gybe-a-thon." Drone shot from before continues, showing Scallywag gybing to port. Audio has engine start (for keel ram hydros) and winches; I think it might actually be live audio recorded on the boat edited in with the drone footage. Which, if so; nice. Annemieke grinds. Closeup of a winch during what looks (from the wake out of focus in the background) like a gybe the other way (from port to starboard). Below, Alex talks about how his watch was lucky, because the gybing was mostly happening while they were on-watch. But the off-watch got basically no sleep at all. Slomo spray on deck. Washing machine. Below, John says, "Five days in Melbourne and everything seems rosy, and then you get back on board and go, Oh my God; what am I doing?" Talks about having missed off watches due to gybing. He preps some food, shows it to the camera. "Looks like baby food." He tries it. "Not too bad." Another drone shot of the gybe aftermath.Dim moonlight shot from the cabin of the cockpit as TTToP sails on starboard gybe. On deck, we see the crew stacking with the new-risen full moon ahead of them. Working on the stack, Bernardo talks about how with the moonlight it's helpful; almost need sunglasses. They can see what they're doing, see the swells for surfing. Shot of stars (planets?) low to the horizon to starboard. Shots of the moon. Bernardo: "Let's see for how many days we have this lucky and beautiful moon."Awesome drone shot circling TTToP under (I think) A3 and J3 on starboard gybe. A headland with a lighthouse is behind them. From the Tracker that looks like Green Cape lighthouse, with Disaster Bay in the background, at 2018-01-03 0420 just after TTToP gybed to starboard. Drone shot following them on their starboard quarter as TTToP surfs.Capey in the cockpit at (I think) the start; a woman's voice is counting down on a radio. We see a closeup of Rome's face looking forward; behind him we see Kyle, who's calling mainsail trim, I think: "Little build here. Give me a little twist." Closeup of Abby looking over her shoulder at Scallywag. Now we see Kyle on the aft pedestal. He calls to Sally: "Leeward trav! Leeward trav! Sally? Leeward traveler!" Closeup of Kyle's face as he stacks. Shot of MAPFRE ahead and to leeward of them. Kyle: "Doing really well on Scallywag and Akzo. Vestas is okay. Tiny bit higher than the guys behind us. Good mode though." He explains the start to Yann: "The start was okay. We were a little bit behind, started on port and had to duck the fleet. So started off behind, but then we got a nice shift. Currently in third place, pretty close to Vestas. So it was a pretty good start." Below, Kyle pulls off his foulies. Rome talks about getting "firehosed" setting up the strut going 20 knots. "Other than that it was good. Going well." Slomo shots of Rome getting firehosed setting up the outrigger. In-the-action washing-machine shots by Yann near the mast. Dongfeng visible to leeward. Below, Sally talks about being back on the boat. "It feels like coming home. I was telling Abby; everything's set up just the same. Like riding a bicycle." Talks about start tactics, and the race since then. "It's intense. A new team, so you have to stay on your toes and pay attention, but yeah. A good time." On deck we see Dongfeng (I think?) ahead of them and to leeward.Night shot of the cockpit. Crew on the pedestal grinding with red headlamps on while the full moon illuminates clouds and the ocean behind them. Another boat can be seen a hundred yards away on their port side; TTToP gybes. Looks like the gybe they made around 1445 on 2018-01-02, which would mean that's Scallywag next to them. We see Scallywag sailing in the moonlight on their port side. On their starboard quarter we see what I think is South West Island with a light on it (FL 4 sec?).On the stern, Bianca talks about helming the VO65. "I've had experience helming all sorts of boats. The biggest one I've helmed is about 220 feet. So this is a bit like a dinghy compared to that. You can really feel any wave hitting the side of the boat." She talks about the thrill of sending it down a big wave, needing to have trust in your fellow sailors. "It's just such an amazing feeling, the adrenaline's really rushing in you. I'm pretty sure the whole time I was steering I just had a massive grin from ear to ear. It's awsome." Martin: "It's important for evyerone to have a go. You can't go through the whole Southern Ocean without touching the helm. It was quite good to see Bianca; she did a good job. It was not easy for me to make the decision to let her drive as well. Might be a few more opportunities for her in the future." Below, Elodie says, "It's really important to try to involve everybody... for example, Bianca is working hard to learn to trim the mainsail every time I'm driving, so it's nice to give her the opportunity to drive a little bit too. It's important for the trimmers to understand how it feels when you are driving." Shot of Biana taking the wheel. and steering. Yeah, she's grinning. View from astern as she steers; rainbow on the horizon. She hands off the helm to Lucas, gives a big thumbs-up to the camera, and a fist-bump to Martin on the mainsheet. Cloud with crepuscular rays.GoPro head-mount shot of someone emerging from the cabin, slapping the selector button on the side of the forward pedestal. Who is that? Hand on the hatch coaming at 0:05 looks like relatively slender and not too grizzled with age; maybe Támara? It's not Blair, Sophie, or Willy; they're all identifiable in the shot. Oh, he says "Ready". It's Louis. Thanks (again) for accents. We see the gybe from his perspective as he grinds on the starboard side of the middle [sic - he's now on a different pedestal. possibly a different gybe?] pedestal, opposite Willy, as they gybe from starboard to port gybe. We see the gybe again from the perspective of the spreader cam. "Runner made!" We see a gybe (a different gybe; only one person is on the middle pedestal) from the stern cam. It might be that the spreader cam and the stern cam can't both be recorded at the same time, so these were separate gybes. Bow cam shot of the J2 being unfurled. Slomo shot of Willy and someone else on the forward pedestal, grinding. Xabi, below, talks in Spanish. He repeats in English: Last day has been crazy on MAPFRE. Almost 30 gybes along the exclusion zone. This morning, another 10 or 12. "We have to go south; it's a goal... It's pretty hard but it's pretty soft, but finally we're free of gates, and can send it south all day and night, before heading north towards Melbourne."Spreader cam view of AkzoNobel sailing in 10 knots of wind under MH0 and J3 on starboard gybe. Slomo shot of which being trimmed. Below, Nicolai talks about his second Volvo being different than his first one. "Still having issues and battles, and that's part of the race... Not where we want to be right now, and we're in a tough position; we know that. All sailors... are used to being in deep holes, and having to dig their ways out." Slomo closeup of Nicolai. He talks about how you always have to put a huge amount of effort in just to be in the race, to compete. "Of course it's a bit painful that you don't get the result you aim for, but you gotta keep your head down and keep putting in the effort, because it will change eventually... You can never regret putting in the effort, no matter how it turns out. That's just the way you do it. You'd rather aim high and fail rather than aim low and hit." Slomo shots of him. Slomo shot of the helm, the horizon.Sophie, below, stands close to the companionway. She is turning her head under a blast of air associated with the running engine, maybe? "I just found my hair dryer. It's so good. Ah! Who needs the hairdresser? For the first time getting dry hair. It's getting pretty cold out actually. I'd say the water is 5 degrees or colder. The Southern Ocean's awesome. We are making a lot of miles very quickly. We're going good I think. The albatross are pretty cool. There's like 10 of them following the boat. It's super cool. But it's pretty wet and a little relentless. It's what we expect I guess. It's a little crazy." Intercut with shot of the cockpit, slomo washing machine, albatrosses behind the boat. Nice portrait by Jen of my unproblematic fave.Oh wow. My jaw literally dropped watching that. Drone footage of AkzoNobel sailng under FR0 and J2 (I think?) with no main, as two crew members up the mast repair the track (I'm assuming). Epic low-altitude shots with Southern Ocean waves heaping up between the drone and the boat. Sheerwaters or albatrosses (gotta get a field guide to identify those better) swooping right past the drone multiple times. Final shot of crew working on the mast, then pulling back and climbing to show AkzoNobel surfing alone through the Southern Ocean. That's, like, the shot of the race for me right there.Crash cam footage from stern camera. AkzoNobel is preparing for a gybe in high winds from starboard to port. They gybe happens, but goes too quickly (?), the main slams over, and there's a loud bang that sounds very ungood. We switch to handheld camera on the stern as crew is shifting the stack to port. They send someone aloft, where we can see the main has some major luff-car issues (?). Shot of the helmsman (Nicho?) on the port wheel with a nasty-looking squall beyond him. Awesome shot of him surfing the boat as a wave breaks on their port quarter; shot pans forward to show the crew working around the mast. We see them lowering the main, which has been detached from the mast with lines on the cars to help control its descent. Below, Nicho explains what happened. Had to gybe in 35-40 knots. "Had a bad one. Thought we had a good wave to go down, and as we went down the boat slowed up, stopped; I should have pulled out. We probably would have broached..." But what did happen is they slammed the main into the runner, breaking the battens and pulling the track off the mast. Getting the main down was tricky, with a 50-knot squall happening at the same time. Now just have a jib up, doing 16 knots in 45 knots of wind. Plan is to get the track screwed/glued back on, repair the battens, over the next day or two. But it's going to take time to get to 100%. And they have to be careful.SiFi sits at the nav station looking at a routing screen on the computer. His breath is visibly fogging due to the cold. "It looks like we're walking the line between speed and safety reasonably well." Slomo of his breath fogging. With low sun behind them as they stand on the stern, Charlie and SiFi talk about a problem with the main. "There's so much friction on it on the spreaders and shit it's probably not going anywhere." Nick talks about a couple of squall lines came through, up to 45 knots. And going onto the third reef the headboard of the mainsail isn't going onto lock. Mark: "Well, we've got 44 knots, and if you look this way there's a massive cloud, and the water's more white than blue." Charlie jokes about not saying "white squall". Slomo. Sam to Mark: "How is it being down here?" Mark: "It's everything you'd expect. Windy, cold, we've got 48 knots right now. Look upwind. It's crazy. Doing 30 knots of boatspeed. It's pretty crazy, but somehow everything's still in control." Slomo wake.Opens with a drone shot from behind of Vestas sailing on starboard gybe. A dark seabird (a shearwater, maybe?) is visible trailing the boat; the bird turns and flies RIGHT PAST THE DRONE. Overlapping audio of Sam asking SiFi, at the wheel, "Any second thoughts about sailing into this low?" We see Simon on the helm. "What's that Sam?" Stacey sits in the foreground chuckling. SiFi: "Second, third, fourth, fifth... Lots of thoughts... About how to get through it safely, and hopefully ahead." Below, Nick's face is mostly shadowed as he eats. "I guess I keep coming down here because this is where you're pushed the hardest, mentally and physically. And so far we're seeing the beignning of that with definitely the mental side pushing us hard, and the physical side is just about to start. Latest routing shows us doing about 1 million gybes between here and Melbourne. So we're going to try to figure out how we're going to make those as smooth as possible." On deck, Tom leans on the middle pedestal. "When it gets hard; hard, wet, and tired; it's hard, wet, and tired for all your mates on the other boats as well. Like Kyle Langford, the big seagull. He's gonna be tired. Pete Burling, Blair Tuke, Willy, Louis... everyoe's in the same boat. It's hard for everyone." Another shot of the shearwater buzzing the drone. Kyle: "It's hard for everyone. Sail fast. We're going to Australia. Heading home." He grins. "Heading home." Sifi is at the wheel as the boat barely moves in light wind. "Calm before the storm... Not really in the forecast, this light stuff." Below, Charlie tosses something round and blue in one hand, and says something I can't catch. "It's hever going to be easier than right now." (?) Wake as they sail fast under scary clouds. On deck, Charlie: "So far, so good." He grinds, gets a slap of water in the face. Mark talks about how they just put the second reef in, and have some water in the folds of the main, so they're trying to get it out. We see someone doing that with a boathook, getting hit by spray. Charlie talks about where the other boats are, geometry of trying to figure out where to aim to come out ahead of the other boats. "We've got more options up here. Whether they sneak around our bow remains to be seen." He talks about "separation anxiety", I assume because they're north of the other boats. "We'll know more in 12 hours I guess." Slomo washing machine, wake.Charlie and Simon at the nav station looking at routing (I think?). Charlie is eating. Charlie jokes about how when the wind gets high enough there's no sail in the sail chart. Charlie: "It's just like, good luck. Bare poles?" Simon chuckles, jokes about how you don't bother with some data points: "100 true, 1,000 knots." They talk about apparent wind angle. Simon: "You can reach down; this is where you end up on the ice gate... Then it passes over and you're back to running again." Charlie: "Realistically is the J1 getting hanked on? Probably not." Simon: "No." Simon says J2, probably. "A bit like the Trans-atlantic, probably." Charlie: "It would be pretty tough. 25 knots is when the J2 becomes a realistic outrigger sail." Charlie: "So how are we going to get the A3... We could to the J0 for a little bit. J0/J2, something like that?" Tony, from his bunk: "How much wind you got in that low?" Charlie: "In the center of it?" Tony: "No, in the route." Charlie: "The part that affects us? 37 in the listed result." Tony: "So that's a good chunk into the 40s." Simon: "Yeah." Charlie, lookng at Sam: "We've gone higher." Tony: something I can't understand, like: So when you (something about being on the A3?) you get the (something) down there quick." (?) Simon: No, exactly. Tony: "Actually faster at 25, 23, 20 boat knots of breeze." Simon: "Yeah." That's a lot of experience talking there.Dockout. Simon crouches on the rail, saying goodbye to a young boy holding a Wisdom plushie; behind a younger child with a pacifier is held by a woman. Simon: "Be good!" As Vestas pulls away from the dock they all wave to each other. Below as they motor out to the start, Simon has put on his foulies and talks to Sam about the crew, how they combine youth, experience, lots of races, people in for the first time. "For the next leg the experience is good." Threading the line between sailing fast and breaking the boat. Sam: "Do you get nervous before these legs?" (I bet Sam is nervous.) Simon: "The hanging around the dock's the most stressful part for me. Saying goodbye to the family. But once you're out here there's not much time for nerves to be honest." In the cockpit as they sail before the start under main, Stacey talks about how yeah, a little nervous, going into the Southern Ocean with the forecast. Tony says it's his tenth time going down there. Shot of just after the start as the fleet sails on starboard tack. On the foredeck, Nick wrestles with a furled sail; it appears to be hung up in the rig above him. Nick, to the back of the boat: "Keep easing!... Are you easing?" He struggles to free the sail. Nick (under his breath): "Fuck it." To the cockpit: "Somebody come up and help me." Tom runs forward to help pull on the sail. Sam is right in the action as they wrestle with the sail. Nick: "Okay! It's good! Start hoisting!" Shot of Scallywag right on their stern, diving below them, TTToP and AkzoNobel further to leeward. Chuny is steering. Scallywag comes in beneath them. Shouting back and forth between the boats. Sam is RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ACTION, leaning out to leeward, practically touching Scallywag. We see the OBR on Scallywag (Konrad Frost) filming Sam as Sam films him. Protests. Shouts from Vestas about the overtaking leeward vessel not having rights to luff above proper course. Later, they sail in less wind, the shore visible to port. TTToP and Scallywag are visible to leeward. Chuny, on the helm, appears to still be talking about the Scallywag incident. Chuny: "I saw him (gestures) luffing against US." Slomo shot of crew reefing the main. Sam: "Hey, Chuny. What happened at the start with Scallywag?" Chuny explains the rule, that Scallywag came in from behind and started luffing, and how it's not safe, it could have broken both boats, at the start of a leg like this. "I was angry... Because it's not safe." We see them putting in a second reef. Charlie, on the aft pedestal, grinding and talking to Sam. Subtitles (added by Sam), because he's barely understandable. "Ah you know everyone puts a lot of stock in the start. But it's kind of more how you finish."Kevin (yay!) on the deckhouse gathers the main as they reef it. Below, Marie talks to Kevin while Jack puts on his foulie top. Kevin, to Martin: "Good weather to be back. Good weather to start the new leg." Talks about strategy. "We are the first to tack to be back inshore... Second place, I think. Just in front of MAPFRE and just behind Brunel." He talks about how they have 35 knots of wind, which you can hear howling in the rigging. Says it should decrease all night, and a reach tomorrow morning. He goes on deck. Marie, below, talks about the conditions. Sunny, should have a good sunset with the Cape of Good Hope, a bit bumpy. "I had last night a filet of beef with french fries. It was awesome." Talks about the good fresh food they still have. PBJ. Sunset behind them. See them coming in toward shore beating on starboard tack, shifting the stack to leeward in preparation for tacking. MAPFRE ducks them on port SUPER close; whoa! Slomo of the duck. Below, Fabien changes out of his foulies, talks wiht Martin about how he's completely wet. Up to 40 knots at times, he says.Slomo shot up the slot as TTToP sails on port talk toward the sunrise. Drone shot from astern with AkzoNobel a few miles directly ahead of them; drone then circles TTToP and we see Scallywag a half mile astern of them and slightly to weather. Henry, in the cockpit with Scallywag visible behind him: "It's been all right. Pretty intense. Scallywag breathing down our necks, trying to catch AkzoNobel." Close drone shot as TTToP sails past the drone. Martin is trimming. Martin: "Traveler up... Hold." Sam: "How's the intensity, Martin?" Martin (glancing astern): "A bit too close for comfort I think. It's going to be a long, long day with this setup with three boats within two and a half miles. It's going to be an interesting finish." Drone shot of TTToP from bow with Scallywag close behind them. Henry, laughing: "Three boats have already finished, so it isn't that close. Nothing like fighting for a wooden spoon." He sticks his tongue out. Henry: "Never fought so hard to be not-last in my life. But if you're not first your last so it doesn't matter!" Francesca, on the helm, makes a face. Another drone shot, slowly circling to show Scallywag behind them, AkzoNobel ahead.Drone shot of TTToP sailing on port under the MH0 with low clouds behind. On the horizon behind them and to weather we can see Scallywag. Off-camera, we hear Sam: "Hey Dee." "Yeah?" "Twenty days, how many thousand miles, you've got a race for 5th place. What's going on?" Dee: "It's cool..." We see Dee talking in the cockpit. "There actually hasn't been a day in the southern ocean when we haven't had a boat in sight or on AIS. It's awesome racing." Liz, on the helm, talks about how long they've been fighting with Scallywag and now fighting with AkzoNobel. High drone shot of TTToP sailing away. Henry, below and looking out the hatch, smiles as the crew in the cockpit cheers. Henry: "That is the level of excitement we get every single time we get a good half-hour average." He talks about the tight group of three boats and how the whole leg will come down to this for them. High drone shot. Henry: "Boatspeed. Boatspeed, boatspeed, boatspeed." Liz, on the helm: "Nobody wants to come in last." Dee, pointing ahead: "I want to take them [she points aft] and leave them behind." Shot of the cockpit. Drone shot of the top of the rig, flying in close. Someone (Annalise?) standing in the hatch waves to the drone, then points forward. The drone pulls back and climbs.TTToP, sailing on starboard gybe, is silhouetted against the dawn as they approach Scallywag, on port. Scallywag gybes in front of TTToP. (Same gybe we saw from TTToP's perspective in their video from 08:40:01 today.) Steve, with TTToP visible a few boatlengths behind them: "Sort of can't shake them off at the moment; they keep coming at us. But that's all right. It's good two-boat testing." Witty, on the helm, looks over his shoulder at TTToP even closer behind them. Steve talks about how when they were reaching toward Cape Town it was easier. Now, running, the strategy is more difficult. He explains that they're both sailing away from Cape Town at the moment, and TTToP is technically closer to the finish than they are. Steve: "Technically they're ahead of us. Which seems a bit bizarre." Awesome first-light drone shot from astern of TTToP looking forward to see both boats. Steve: "There's a very clichéd saying in sailing, boatspeed makes you a tactical genius. And it does. If I can sail away from these guys it's not that hard. If we were a little bit quicker, my job becomes quite easy." More awesome two-boat sunrise drone shots.Drone footage of MAPFRE sailing in fog. They're on port in about 10 knots of wind, triple-heading with the MH0. Sped-up drone footage that transitions to slomo as the boat passes the drone. Drone shot of the stern, someone (I think maybe Ñeti?) waves.Holy crap, what a drone sequence. Sam gets drone footage of TTToP and Scallywag sailing neck and neck a few boatlenghts apart with a crossing tanker/container ship *in the foreground*. What must they have thought on that ship? Footage in deep dusk aboard TTToP, sailing on starboard gybe, with Scallywag visible to starboard with their port red (or maybe stern white?) masthead light visible. Woman's voice on TTToP: "They're gybing, woo!" We see Scallywag gybe onto starboard. Then we get drone footage from ahead of Scallywag, passing back past them with TTToP a few boatlenghts behind them. Footage from TTToP with Scallywag even closer, ahead and to weather of them. High-altitude drone shot with both boats visible below and the sunrise behind them. Liz, on the helm, in the morning light. Sam asks her what's happening. She explains that Scallywag gybed to windward of them, trying to get through them, can't get through and waiting for a lift. Liz: "We're just trying to stay as close to transom of them as possible so they don't get away. Every time they've come within distance we've let them get away, so we're determined to keep them this time."With Charles at the helm, Dongfeng gybes from port gybe to starboard as dawn is breaking. Slomo of the crew working in the cockpit. We then see them gybing back to port? Sunrise. Then they're on starboard again. Jack, sitting in the cockpit, talks about the tactical situation and the remainder of the leg. "We'll find out in two hours at the next sched report. Everyone's a bit anxious for that." Pascal, at the nav station, looks at the latest sched. He rubs his face. On deck, Dongfeng is sailing on starboard gybe around midday. Marie, sitting on the cabin: "I think it is not really good. We did a mistake, maybe, gybing too late. It's not a good moment to talk to Pascal. We have to let him... alone." Pascal stands in the cockpit, reading from a piece of paper. Marie and Horace stand close to him; Daryl steers. Pascal: "MAPFRE is 89 miles at 244." Marie: "Eighteen, uh, eighteen, uh..." Daryl: "Eighty-NINE." Marie: "Eighty-nine!" Pascal: "We are fucked. [beeped in FB video] Daryl: "We are what?" Pascal: "We are fucked. We are completely fucked." Stu: "Well, well, well. Three holes in the ground. I've seen some very strange stuff happen out here on the ocean. It's never over till it's over... Nothing we can do about it now, except keep sailing our boat. Who knows what might happen." [NOTE: This video does not appear in the Raw Content feed. I'm taking this from the version posted on the VolvoOceanRace YouTube channel, and taking the time of it from the time of the two stills posted to the Raw Content feed showing the same events.]Drone shot of Vestas doing an inside gybe of the MH0 from starboard to port. Drone shots of Vestas and Brunel, including a shot of Vestas crossing ahead of Brunel on port gybe, with Brunel on starboard gybe, triple-heading, in the foreground of the shot. That is, it's another shot (like Konrad's of TTToP from Scallywag) in which the OBR flew the drone beyond their competitor, then got a shot of both the competitor and their own boat with the competitor in the foreground. That is some kick-ass drone work.Sunrise (wonder how many more OBRs are going to open their video with that shot?) Witty on the helm, John on the mainsheet. They seem kind of glum. Below, at the nav station, Steve talks about the sched with someone off-camera. Steve: "We were one mile further on Akzo but they were five degrees higher, but other than that we had the equal/worse run. The Plastics have the best run again of the whole fleet." Steve, to Konrad: "We had pretty good vision on them yesterday, and then they started moving really quickly. And we've just been bleeding miles to them ever since." Steve talks about TTToP having more people, making them heavier and that might be helpful in current reaching conditions. Witty, below, looking tired: "We don't have enough time in the boat, sailing at certain angles. Costly lessons." Witty pours hot water into his insulated bowl. Witty: "It's a new place for our team to be in, getting our head kicked in sched after sched and not really knowing how to fix it, not knowing what's wrong. Just gotta keep trying, mate. Becoming a little bit embarrassing. Hopefully the next sched will be better. Just gotta keep looking forward. Stop the bleeding, and then think about how we're going to gain. It's quite hard. Bloody hard, this race. And the opposition are bloody good." Oh, Witty. Don't make me have feelings for you. Witty sits at the nav station and puts on his reading glasses.A+ drone work from drone-master Sam. High drone shot of TTToP, looking down. Fast tracking low-altitude drone shot, overtaking TTToP from their port quarter and passing astern. The boat is sailing with a lot of heel and a close reaching angle under Masthead 0 and a J3 staysail, backdropped by a beautiful sunset and crepuscular rays. Drone shot from ahead of the bow as Liz scoots out on the bowsprit and fixes some velcro fairing (?) around the tack of the Masthead 0. Shot slows to slomo as Liz looks at the drone.Really pretty drone shot, approaching from high altitude as Vestas sails in about 15 knotes of wind, triple-heading with the Masthead 0 on port gybe. In the cockpit at sunset, Mark and SiFi talk with Mark (off camera) about strategy; staying to the east to get further south vs. gybing west. They know (from the 1900 sched, which presumably just came through shortly before) that Dongfeng has gybed to the west. Charlie: "But you don't want to be soaking in 10 knots." Mark talks to Tony Mutter, on the helm, about whether a cloud they've been watching has dissipated. Charlie, gesturing to starboard: "I mean; we can cross MAPFRE by fucking 8 miles right now." Discussion of the current wind direction. They decide to gybe. Includes discussion of whether to peel to the A3 as part of it; Charlie decides to wait until after the gybe. Martin asks Simon to explain; he gives a summary. They're feeling exposed being to the east of everyone; are going to gybe over to give up some lead but get further from the eventual wind shadow of the Cape Verde Islands. Below, SiFi explains to Chuy, who's getting his boots on, why the maneuver is happening. Stacey shifts her bunk to starboard. On deck, as it's getting dark, they gybe, then sail on starboard toward the sunset.Drone shots of TTToP sailing under the Masthead 0 on port gybe in what looks like about 15 knots of wind. We see the crew shifting the stack to starboard in preparation for a gybe, then we actually SEE THE GYBE FROM THE DRONE! Go Sam! Shot ends in mid-gybe as the boom is swinging across, which I'm pretty sure wasn't the plan, but it's awesome anyway.Liz on the helm at sunrise with TTToP surfing on starboard. Sam: "How's your hydration, Liz?" Liz: "My hydration? Well I've been drinking a lot of salt water. My tongue feels like it's twice the size that it should be. I think I'd prefer to be drinking beer than salt water. But I've got a little issue with my water bottle, because I managed to wash it with industrial soap and it tastes pretty bad. Now we're just sending it down a wave; wow!" Henry on deck: "Because it's been so wet on deck I've been drinking a lot of salt water, so my lips are feeling pretty dehydrated. It's hard to drink enough." Annalise on the stern with the dawn behind her: "When you're tired and you're cold you don't really want to drink anything, but you definitely need to... I'm keeping the electrolytes high: every time I get hit in the face with a wave... like now." Frederico, hanging onto the running backstay with the sunrise behind him, deadpan: "I'm a very lucky man. I'm having the time of my life." Henry, laughing: "Don't say it with such enthusiasm!" Henry is heading below; Liz, on the wheel, calls out to him, "Hey Bomby!" He turns around. Liz: "Um, just wait. Hang on a second." (He gets hit with spray.) Liz, laughing: "I just wanted to get you with a wave." Below, Annalise fills her water bottle in the galley. From cabin, shot of the crew on the stern in the washing machine, then pans to Henry drinking below. Annalise, below, sprays water on her face from a spray bottle. Henry, below in long underwear, holds a plastic pee bottle; after filling it he dumps it into the cockpit. Crew on the stern: "Oh, no! You're kidding!" Sam, standing in the hatch filming himself, to the crew in the cockpit: "I'm gonna throw up" (He does.) Sam: "No more breakfast." Sam, to Henry, below: "Why do you do this?" Henry: "Do what? Do the Volvo? Because when you're driving on deck downwind at 25 knots it's about as good as it gets. So it's worth the other stuff. [shrugs] And you get to eat porridge every morning as well."Crash cam footage of Scallywag surfing on starboard gybe toward the setting sun, then broaching to windward as the boat heels and the headsail flaps.They recover quickly.Martin on the stern as TTToP surfs on starboard gybe. Martin: "This is one of the best moments in the race. We've just left all the marks, all the shit (?)... stack is up, and now we're sending it; 30 knots." Major washing machine shots looking forward into the sunset, looking aft, mast-cam view of the stern and the wake with the person on the helm (Francesca?) working hard as they surf. Bianca on the cockpit sole being helped up by Liz after being washed off the stack, which inflated her PFD. Bianca, panting and dripping under the coaming: "So I just went to windward to go and get the halyard to tie it off, sat in front of the winch to try and clear it, just as the wave came and took me out. But I was clipped on, mom; don't worry." She laughs. Slomo shots of sending it, wide-angle shot showing Dee on the helm and another boat (Vestas?) crossing their bow; then changes to slomo shot of spray. Liz clipping in and climbing out the sheet to the clew of the Fractional 0; Martin helps her back on board. Slomo washing machine shots in the cockpit. Slomo spray and grinding with sunset in background. Epic stuff.Witty, on the rail: "I'm looking forward to Lisbon... It's been our training camp. Looking forward to seeing Lenny on the dock. Looking forward to having a nice dinner with Lenny, and having a load of cracked pepper. After dinner. For dessert." Jérémie: "You're looking forward to get on the podium as well, right?" Witty: "Yes, yes; we'd love to get on the podium. But we'd love to just be fourth or even fifth at the moment. We just don't want to go back any more... A smart man told me once, Jérémie, it's not the first hundred yards that counts. It's the last hundred yards... No one's going to win the race in Leg 1... MAPFRE are fast. But I think throughout the race there will be lots of race winners. The boats are pretty close. Who knows, even the Scallywags might get there. Sooner than you think." Night shots with competitor's stern light ahead of them; pretty sure that's from the night before, before the virtual waypoint rounding, with the competitor being Dongfeng. Night view of mainsail's glow-in-the-dark tapes and stars overhead. Different crew grinding.Hannah, trimming in the dawn. Sunrise. Mark talks about how they've rounded the virtual mark with the fleet behind them. Talks about strategy from there to Lisbon. Hannah: "It's been a really nice sunrise, and we've had a couple of pods of dolphins come past, so you couldn't ask for more, really." Awesome slomo shots of dophins leaping alongside the boat.Martine on the helm with a big grin on her face as AkzoNobel surfs and spray washes through the cockpit. Later, she talks to Konrad while Simeon steers in the background. Martine: "This morning was one of those moments that you think, that's why I do this. It was a pretty nice downwind, full-on surfing waves. It was pretty good."Awesome drone shots of Scallywag running on starboard gybe with the A3 and J3 staysail. The boat is surfing; wind appears to be close to 20 knots. I don't think I've seen any other drone shots showing the boat going that fast.Witty, sitting in the cockpit, to Tom: "Can you not tell John Fisher that I fucking think he's a fuckwit? The safety officer?" Tom: "I don't think he heard you." Witty: "He measures the length of his fingernails before he goes to be every night. What sort of a psycopath does that?" Tom: "No." Witty: "Yeah, he does, I've seen him. The safety officer." John, smiling: "It's a good atmosphere on board. Everyone gets on pretty well on this team. There's a lot of frivolity and a bit of joking and mickey-taking. It helps break up the tension and serious moments. It's a good thing... I think we're all pretty happy. The realization is it's a hard race. The boat's are all very equal. You fight for every mile you can get, and every time something doesn't go quite right you lose miles." Witty grinding, mugging for the camera. John joins him on the handles. Witty: "What are you doing? Fuck off. *Fuck* off." Laughing. Shot of Scallywag sailing into the sunset.Brad, on deck, as AkzoNobel sails upwind in 7 knots with the Masthead 0 on starboard: "I guess the longest I've been at sea is a week. We're planning on doing three weeks plus. I think the days will slide by pretty quickly, especially after the first four or five days. I'm feeling optimistic. I'm enjoying it. I don't know how it will feel when we're doing the last long stretch across the Atlantic in eight months' time, seven months' time, but it's good fun so far." Slomo shots of Brad on the helm.Witty on the helm: "The pin's come out of the furling unit under load and the sail's dropped in the piss. I don't know how. But we recovered really nicely; could have cost us three spots. Boys did a good job. Boys and girls." (Tom takes helm back from Witty.) Witty: "Still don't know how the pin comes out under load; that's a bit of a mystery." Crash-cam night vision shot from stern looking forward. Masthead 0 suddenly comes free and falls over the side. Crewmember: "Oh, fuck!" Tom (?) (on the helm): "Everyone up! Gotta get (something) lowered. Gotta get the MH0 on board, J1 up. Everyone up!"Stu: "Clear sky on that side of the cloud." Charles: "But it looks more windy here than here, no?" Someone off camera (Charles? Pascal?): "Starboard is going to be a nightmare." Carolijn: "Painful." Stu (disgusted): "Fuck." Horace moving the stack forward. Carolijn: "The wind's just gone ligher on us... Could be an option to gybe out and split from the fleet. But at the same time the wind's very right at the moment. We've decided we're going to stick with the fleet and see what the pressure's going to do ahead of us." Sounds like maybe Stu was advocating for gybing onto starboard, but Charles overruled. (Per tracker, most of the fleet did end up gybing onto starboard while Dongfeng and Mapfre continued longer on port. Those that gybed earlier did better, leading to Dongfeng entering the Strait of Gibralter in last place.)