Drone shot of Vestas triple-heading on starboard gybe. Drone shot of peeling to the MH0, furling the J0. SiFi, below: Last night was important tactically. Explains taking the offshore option. Made the choice we made because we thought we might get ahead of MAPFRE and Dongfeng that way. As it turns out, MAPFRE joined us. Now the overall of the race is resting on who made the right choice on which lane. We've seen one boat pick one, one pick the other, and one sort of waver between the two. Roy Disney, Jr. on deck. Charlie on the helm. Stacey grinding. Tony fiddles with the clew of a sail. Drones shot of lowering the J0, pulling the tack of the J0 off the bowsprit.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."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."Slomo of Brunel sailing a half mile away on their port quarter. Justin, to Jules: He's still got a zero [J0] up. Jules looks. Furled. Brad: Good to get past Brunel; we've been battling with them all day. Jules nailed the layline, and they screwed it up and had to do another gybe, and that was our passing maneuver. Slomo of Martine grinding with Brunel behind them.Blair, by the runner, talks about the competitive situation. They've stretched out on the boats behind on this downwind stretch, but have managed to stay close to Dongfeng. As we've come in toward Denmark now we've compressed a bit. 1.5 miles behind them. J0 ("joe") reaching at the moment. All's good, but hopefully we can catch these guys some more before the Hague, and catch them. Everyone's running on 20 minutes sleep; I should go below and get some sleep. (Asked about Brunel.) Good that they're 20 miles behind, but they need to keep focused on the guys in front. Beautiful drone shot of them surfing with the sun behind them. Drone shots of them triple-heading. Blair on the helm. Slomo of someone taking spray on the foredeck. Wind farm. Spreader cam shot of Dongfeng ahead of them.Drone shot of Vestas 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.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.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.Kyle: We were stuck behind MAPFRE for quite a while; managed to get past them, which is good. Still pushing as hard as we can, and hopefully we can hold it all the way to the finish. Sam: Do you think the dream is still alive? Kyle: Yeah. Step by step. Have to win this leg first... Chip away, and hopefully it will all come together. Sam: Who's the fastest boat in these conditions? Kyle: I think we are in these conditions, came from 4 miles behind. Later Dongfeng is fast with the J0; we've been working on moding in those conditions. Hopefully we can hold them.Nick on deck: Another day off the top of God knows where in the moon. And it's windy. And beautiful! Home stretch, heading to Gothenburg right now. Getting back into these conditions where it's tighter angles with higher windspeeds that we know and love, dont' have memories of Falklands. Yeah, it's beautiful out. [He sounds sleep-deprived.] Tony talking in the cockpit. Islands to starboard. SiFi in the hatch: You see the headland, or? Charlie: Top of Scotland, Shetland Islands. Breeze should build as we get around the headland here, switch to a stronger sail. We think we're strong in these conditions, good tactics at the end of legs, so we'll see what happens. TJ on the helm: Never been this far north. Cold, windy, raining. Flat water. Actually quite nice sailign right now. Nice to move up the leaderboard. But we'll catch 'em. SiFi: Lovely: Might come here for my summer holidays. They do a maneuver. Charlie: Bear away, furl, then pull the 2 out. We see them do that. Folding the J0. Stacking. SiFi: Almost 4 knots of current at the moment. That's a good thing. Someone's keen to put us in the North Sea.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.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.Spreader cam view of the foredek as they haul down a sail - maybe J0 to MH0 peel? Or vice versa? Brad grinding on the aft pedestal: Had a rough night last night. Reckon we had something on the keel; tried everything and ended up having to do a back down. That cost us 4 miles, dropped us back in the pack. Justin driving. Jules and Nicolai talking below about sail combinations. Jules in the nav station: We are very close to 5 miles off second, and third, fourth, and fifth are all within 2 miles of each other. Pretty good wind, not good visibility. Can only see them on AIS. Pretty crap couple of hours. Just about going around the top of the Hebrides in the next couple of hours, and then heading for the Orkneys. Chart screen.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.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.Rob: Talks about transitions in the leg. Compressions. First boat in slows down and the others catch up. It varies. Sophie sits silent behind him. Rob expects they'll see more compressions, tidal compressions, in the Bristol Channel. Blair: about 24 hours out of Cardiff now. We're in pretty big trouble. We're in fifth place at the moment. Vestas is 30 or 40 miles ahead of us, and the others further than that. Looks like there won't be a complete compression. We'll keep going, but not on that good a shift at the moment. Sailed a few too many miles. We'll keep going; never give up. But not great at the moment. Pablo says something in Spanish; Blair steers behind him. Tamara looks serious. Sophie on the bowsprit hooks up a new sail. Looks like they're peeling J0 -> MH0.Nicolai below: Still battling with Brunel; never-ending story. Simeon at the nav station: Gaining a bit, losing a bit, different pressure. Trying to get the best sail setup. Trying to cover and hold on. Same old same old. Drone shot with sunset of them peeling to the J0 in strengthening wind. Triple-heading. Bagging the MH0 on the foredeck. Nicho, below: We've lost a little in the last 24 hours to them. We've coughed up a little; that's part of the game in trying to put yourself between the other boat and the mark. Looking like a long match race to the finish. We're in a good position; just need to consolidate it a little in these next few hours. Drone shot circling AkzoNobel under cloudy skies.Libby, below: Sailing into some light winds, so probably about to peel to the MH0. Fleet will compress and we'll probably come out in slightly better position than we are now. Front two guys have a solid lead. The rest of them are still in touch. She talks about how they dropped off the front of the fleet and then it's hard to get back in touch. Parko and Annemieke grind on deck as they peel to the MH0. They roll up and lower the J0. Peter, similing on the cabin, talks about laundry day now that the rough conditions have passed. Clothes laid out to dry on the cabin. Libby: Announces the sched. "Good one for us, yay! Gained 35 miles on the leaders." Muted enthusiasm... Peter: Shame that we've dropped back so far. Want to go into Cardiff with a good position.Spreader cam views as they stack forward in the falling wind. Peeling J0 (or FR0?) to MH0.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!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?Washing machine from the hatch. Jules looks out. He talks to the sailors in the cockpit about the routing, strategy with respect to other boats. He talks to Brad below. They're discussing when to gybe onto starboard. He looks at a sched. Brad explains: We're gybing. Vestas is heading north, for the shift, so we want to do the same thing. So it's a rush gybe. We see the gybe through the hatch. Jules at the nav station talks strategy while Nicolai and Martine stack below. Nicho: We'd been on about a 250 wind direction now for a day. But beyond that, we want to stick with Vestas and Brunel. Pretty sure all of us are pretty comfortable on this gybe. Should head down, and then tack over, get set up for some more breeze in a couple of days. Washing machine. Nicho: Going to be a couple days of decent breeze and fast running. Both Vestas and Brunel are very good at that. Brunel maybe the best in the fleet at J0 reaching. And then light air at the end; it's going to be quite a problem.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.Parade. Simeon holding a little girl. Justin kissing a young child he's holding. Dockout. Nicho: Double pointer, only 8 days. People think it's short, but if you push it hard you feel it. Start. Brad: "Good breeze here." Other boats behind them. TTToP crossing astern at mark rounding. (Think that's the port-starboard between Vestas and TTToP behind them.) leeward mark rounding. Vestas astern. Nicolai on the helm going downwind under the bridge with MAPFRE and Dongfeng (and Brunel, invisible) ahead of them. Vestas 3 boatlengths to starboard. Simeon: Thinks they did well, except at the top mark. Felt my heart beating in my throat there. Now out of the bay into the fog. MAPFRE behind them. Jules: third place at the moment. Just trynig to wriggle our way around the exclusion zone. Discussion of J0 vs. J1.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.Peter talks about his socks. Sched on the computer screen. Kyle talks about how Dongfeng is coming dwon on them in the sched. Nina: Hope we can hold them off. Very stressful. We can see them now on the horizon. Capey (in the background): I wouldn't sail above the mark. He calls out to Peteron the helm: He's giving up a lot of high for not a great deal of gain so far. Shot of Dongfeng on their weather rail several miles away. Carlo talks about how coming in last to Auckland was the worst. "It's definitely not happening this time." Peter, on the helm, talks about peeling to the J0.Night shot with red instrument lights. Annalise says they're going to hold on hoisting it because there's only 7 knots [of wind] at the moment. Dee, below, talks about the difficult night. Light wind and lots of sail changes. Felt like they spent all night in the rain. So most of the team was up most of the night. Now they have the J0 and a staysail, so it's a forgiving setup. Just hope that some of those behind them had the cloud issues too. Spreader cam view during the day of the foredeck, the stern. Dee: People are tired, but you get an extra buzz when you're at the front. But it's hard when you're getting hunted all the time. We'll get another position report in an hour. Shots of people sleeping in their bunks. Drone shot of TTToP sailing silhouetted against the sun. Dee comes on deck: We have redeemed ourselves! (Crew cheers.) 50 miles to MAPFRE. Martin can't believe it. Dee: Dongfeng lost a lot in that sched... Vestas is on our tail just to leeward. "We're the leaders of the pack." Annalise: I think I'll take that. Fastest boat in the fleet for no sleep. Lucas talks about it being worth it. Drone shot.Wrestling the J0 on the foredeck; stacking it. Pole shots: outboard, rudder, bow, keel. Crewmembers tired, sleeping. Parko: So, over the last two scheds we've been the most western boat. The other boats are pushing down over the top. Clouds... Tough night, quite a few sail changes. It's been a rough one. We've lost quite a few miles. Lost the strong position we were in. Fighting to work east a little bit, to get back in a position where we can tack again. Witty reads a sched from below. Repairs to the top of the daggerboard (I think). Mixing epoxy, applying it.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.[No description yet]Stronger wind. Nick coming back from the bow. Stacey grinding. Jena, below, talks about being back on the boat. Team still seems strong, and fighting, and she's happy to be back and excited. A completely different challenge; while she was away she did her 49er campaign. Happy to be surrounded by these guys, because they know a lot, even if I don't tell them. Charlie, in the cockpit, talks about going to the J0. Jena, below: Last time I was in Brazil was in Rio for the 2016 Olympic games. She talks about Brazilian people being helpful and nice. But hot, which she isn't used to. Was glad to see a different part of Brazil than Rio. Jena in the cockpit. Charlie on the helm. Tom grinding. Jena talks about seeing pollution in Rio. But Itajai was completely different. Very clean. People are gathering together to do something about their beaches. "Thank you, Brazil. You're like my second home. I hope to be back soon." Crew gathers the J1 on the foredeck after going to the J0. Charlie on the helm: "I think it's J1 on the other tack." Grinding.Shifting sails to leeward for a tack. Crew working on the foredeck with a hovering helicopter ahead of them. Slomo of Frederico grinding with Brunel and a New Zealand headland in the background. Bianca, below, talks about sailing away from New Zealand. Awesome going into the Southern Ocean again, going around the Horn. Thanks Auckland for the support, spectators, especially her family and friends. Frederico (I think?) in his bunk. Liz, in her bunk, recaps that they've sailed upwind a couple hundred miles from Auckland to East Cape, tacking, peels. Not much sleep; a lot of stacking. Went pretty quick. More slomo with Brunel in the background. Liz: On the southern highway, straight to the ice gate for us. About 48 hours... Way too wired to go to sleep. (She mimes going to sleep.) Bianca spills up spilled rice in the galley. "I want my mum." I haven't exactly found my sea legs yet. Lucas: It's not as bad as the time I spilled shit everywhere. That was a lot worse. Bianca asks Sam, "Were you on that leg? It was a full explosion." Lucas: "Nah; he was on another boat. Getting _ridden_." Lucas, brushing his teeth, talks about lack of sleep: You think everything's funny. You think everything's shit, or you think everything's funny. Bianca: Just let me clean up my shit... in peace. Lucas: She hasn't got to the funny part yet. [They laugh.] They keep talking (with Liz commenting in the background) as we see a drone shot circling TTToP sailing upwind under J0/J3. [Favoriting mostly for Sam's cool slice-of-life on board. Really feels like being part of the crew.]Drone shot of Vestas sailing upwind in 15-knot conditions. Double-heading with J0 and J3, it looks like. Charlie in the cockpit: Good to get back on the water. A little on the back foot, but they'll grind it out. Shot looking forward as the VOR-hired helicopter hovers at low altitude, shooting back toward them. Mark: Lots of anticipation, repair. But the day's finally here. Charlie: All or nothing until the next leg. Vestas sails toward shore with Phil on the helm. Mark: Just gonna have to out work all these other guys. SiFi at the nav station. It's father's day today in Spain, so I have a few little pictures from my boys. Leopard, dragon, dolphin, hippo. Made my day at least. It's the thing I miss the most when I'm away. They're beginning to understand that I'll be away for a few weeks. Nick in the hold swapping a spare electrical panel for the engine; got some water into it. "This isn't a tough thing to solve; it's just annoying." High drone shot with a competitor behind them in the distance.Drone shot of Vestas sailing upwind in 15-knot conditions. Double-heading with J0 and J3, it looks like. Charlie in the cockpit: Good to get back on the water. A little on the back foot, but they'll grind it out. Shot looking forward as the VOR-hired helicopter hovers at low altitude, shooting back toward them. Mark: Lots of anticipation, repair. But the day's finally here. Charlie: All or nothing until the next leg. Vestas sails toward shore with Phil on the helm. Mark: Just gonna have to out work all these other guys. SiFi at the nav station. It's father's day today in Spain, so I have a few little pictures from my boys. Leopard, dragon, dolphin, hippo. Made my day at least. It's the thing I miss the most when I'm away. They're beginning to understand that I'll be away for a few weeks. Nick in the hold swapping a spare electrical panel for the engine; got some water into it. "This isn't a tough thing to solve; it's just annoying." High drone shot with a competitor behind them in the distance.Sailing south fast. Pole shots of the crew in the cockpit. Simeon on the helm. Double-heading with J0/J3? Cecile grinding. Simeon at the nav station reads a sched (or AIS?) of Scallywag's position. Jules: just passing the southern end of New Caledonia. Sailing a little further to avoid light air. Still heading south. Brad pulls a sail out from below. Sail change on the foredeck. Slomo washing machine. Simeon: Gained some bearing. Luke, below: Weather could allow Dongfeng and MAPFRE to cut the corner. Still anyone's race. Brad and Luke rock out, sharing a pair of earbuds. Jules and Simeon at the nav station. Jules talks about using the J0 now to give up some distance. Nicho talks about how they can do some things with Scallywag, but not with Dongfeng and MAPFRE because they're too far away. Can't get caught up in that. Pole shot of stacking the A3?Spreader cam view of the deck as they sail fast on port gybe with the J0/J3. Spreader cam view of the cockpit; washing machine. Dee eats at the nav station. Dee: "All smiles. Everyone is soaking wet, but it's really fast sailing." Cold front met them before dawn; gybed. Really fast boatspeed toward Auckland. No longer pointing at Japan. Should have 8 hours with 30 knots of wind, then dropping to 20. Annalise bails water from below with a bucket. Talks about it having been nice for a while, but now it's back to being rough and bailing out. "But it's not too bad, because we're sailing fast in the direction of New Zealand." Dee talks about hoping to have closed the gap a bit with the leaders. Slomo spray on deck. Liz talks about sailing fast with the J0 up. Sailing at 24 knots. Bianca: "Going home!" Liz calls her The Cookie Monster, because she loves cookies and cream. Bianca gets wiped off the pedestal by a wave. Slomo spray in Liz's face on the helm. More of Annalise bailing water from below. Nicolas at the nav station: Not so far away from the first 3 boats. Akzo and Scallywag not too far away behind them. Not a bad sched. Spreader cam view of deck.Lowering the J1 inside the newly hoisted J0. Watch change below; Daryl eating. Marie, below, recaps: "Finally we did lots of maneuvers. We don't have this much wind last night. The sea state was okay." Next night will be a bit more difficult. Wind to increase soon, so she needs to eat to get more energy. Shot of her putting on her foulie jacket on deck. Pascal on the helm during a sail change. They bear away with the large headsail flagging; not sure what that's about. Black and Carolijn talk in the cockpit. Kevin on the helm. Carolijn talks about the whole fleet being together. Whole fleet hanging together. They just cracked off. Trying to do their jobs, not make mistakes. A long leg; keeping everything together. Looking at the next 2 weeks.Rob, on the weather rail, talks about leaving Hong Kong, hard on the wind as expected, to the corner of Taiwan in the background. Also in the background (ahead of them): Dongfeng. Louis, with another competitor visible behind them (maybe Scallywag?) talks about working on the foredeck going to weather, getting washed into the J2, the uncomfortable nature of going to weather. Slomo of Louis. Shot of three competitors to weather: maybe (left to right) Dongfeng, AkzoNobel, and Brunel? Slomo spray on the bow. Slomo of Xabi gesturing, strapping the stack. Crewmember on the bow in spray. Rob grinding, slomo of Rob in spray securing the stack. Sophie talking a halyard forward. Lowering the J1 in rough conditions to switch to the (not yet unfurled J2) with 7 crew on the foredeck. They secure the J1, then unfurl the J2. Then, in lighter wind, Dongfeng a few boatlenghts to leeward, then passing in front of them with both boats under the J0.Bernardo and Nicolas talk about being in the wind shadow of Taiwan. Francesca explains the wind reduction; quite shifty, just peeled to the J0. Can see the other boats quite close. Shot of two boats ahead of them. Nicolas talks about the wind. Brian, at the nav station, talks about the wind acceleration around the island. Got thorugh the first challenge, the monsoon wind between Hong Kong and Taiwan. Now in the lighter winds of Taiwan's wind shadow, but soon will be in the acceleration zone around the southern tip of Taiwan. Winds up to 30. Hope to get the J1 packed away, and the J2 and J3 ready. Going to be a bigger sea state, also. "That's our challenge tonight. Then tomorrow should be better conditions." Bernardo working on a bagged headsail; slomo of Lucas, Henry, and someone else in spray on the bow with competitor visible in the distance ahead of them.Drone shot of Dongfeng sailing on starboard, double-heading with the J0 (I think?) and J3. As the drone circles ahead of them from port to starboard we see an island - Ghupuna, off the east end of Makira, also called San Cristobal, in the Solomons - behind them on the port quarter. Drone circles behind them and we see a dark raincloud ahead. Another shot with Makira behind them. More nice drone shots.High drone shot of Brunel. More drone shots. Drone closeup of the cockpit, with Yann on the drone controls. Shots on deck of them going through a squall with rain and spray. Slomo of Carlo wiping water from his face in the pit. Slomo washing machine shots from the cockpit, the stern. Bouwe, below, explains that they're heading north toward the doldrums. Mentions that Neptune has a victim coming, because someone in the crew is a polliwog (or whatever it is they call them). Maybe that's Sam? Capey at the nav station. Bouwe describes the results of the latest sched. Boats ahead have less breeze now, so they should catch up soon. Lightning in the distance. Crew showering in a rain squall. Flopping with the J0 in no wind. Kyle, below, describes how they got stuck in a rain squall, then stuck in no breeze for an hour and a half. Drone shot circling them with no wind.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.