Grinding in the sunrise. Libby, below: We just peeled from our MH0 to the J1. Now wobbling along the northwest edge of Europe. Three boats have taken this route... Surprised to see the leaders split like that. Map screen showing the split. She talks about the western group. After a shot in the cabin hatch, the same clip of Libby is repeated. Libby calls up fleet positions from the nav station. "Struggling a bit with our speed... Hats off to Turn the Tide. They've got some good moding. A few peels to go; we seem to be better at peels, we gain a bit when we do that. So it's never over till it's over."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.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.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.Flopping at sunrise/sunset. Nicolas looking for wind. Mast instruments showing 0.7 knot. J1 flopping throug the foretriangle with the (furled) MH0 next to it. Crew sleeping on the bow. Lucas: Bit tired this morning. Been a couple of restless days. But now we've gone into a parking lot with the whole fleet. Dongfeng and MAPFRE are both within our sights now. Dee on the helm. Clew of the sail. Lucas: NO, we're not moving. Going backwards. Flappy flappy flappy. Francesca on the bow: Pretty tired. Two days of no sleep. Lot of maneuvers. Don't have time for eating, for sleep. Short leg but it's quite hard. Crew lowering the J1 in the morning light. Paolo Mirpuri helps pull it down.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.Rob, in the midnight sun: In and out of Aarhus today. It was hard. It's been nonstop all day. In fact this whole leg's been nonstop. Got out of phase, a bit shifty. Was pretty good to see all the people on shore. Just been fighting, fighting, fighting. Waiting for a chance to get by. Be patient. Wait for them to make a mistake. Keep nibbling away. Pablo: Talks in Spanish about being tired, Dongfeng. Repeats in English: We're tired, like eveyrone I guess. The important thing is to keep the boat fast. Couple of hours of sleep. We are with Dongfeng; they are very close. Have been fighting all day. Meter by meter. Hopefully we can take them over tonight. More discussion in Spanish. Pablo: We have been doing a lot of maneuvers. And in my case I have been on the wheel. Good fun; with Dongfeng we have been fighting. Slomo of RIB alongside. Willy. Joan with his tablet, looking at Dongfeng. Spectator boats following them. Tack. (Oh, this is their Aarhus footage.) Crowd cheering. Xabi in the pit. Vestas crossing their bow. Tamara talks in Spanish while trimming. Slomo of Dongfeng ahead of them. Blair on the foredeck looking SO punchy. Xabi looks through binoculars. Lowering the J1. Slomo of Xabi in the sunset.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.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.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.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.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.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.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.Drone shot of Akzo flopping with the J1 as a windseeker. Jules, standing on the mast: Best breeze is through there. Nicho, with binoculars: They're all on port with zeroes. Other boats on the horizon. Nicolai on the helm talks to Simeon about the wind. Nicho: Fastest we've been for about half an hour. Crew sleeping in the bow. Luke: talks about broken sleep because of maneuvers. Going to plug in some music and zone out. Low-alttitude drone shot of Akzo in drifting conditions. Nicho talks to Jules about best heading. Justin: Gotta get out to that line, don't we? Nicho responds about the ridge. Flopping with MH0. Jules: Might be our turn now. Simeon: You wanna come down on this? Other boat (MAPFRE) to starboard. Justin: Just catch it before it dies. Nicho: That way (points ahead) 20 miles there's good southerlies. Talks about MAPFRE next to them; different scenarios as the breeze fills in. High drone shot of the two boats.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.Xabi, on the bow, talks in Spanish. He repeats in English: Tricky night, quite busy, sailing upwind in 12-16 knots with the J1. A few tacks, some big shifts with clouds. Ended up positioning themselves as the most north of the fleet. Pretty happy where they are. But still have to pass a small high pressure ridge. First one going out is going to stretch a lot. Hopefully the investment we've made in the northwest will work out. Have to see what happens. Neti, lying on the bow, talks in Spanish. He repeats in English: Whole fleet is in a line. Waiting for the wind from the southwest. We are very nervous, as you can see. Xabi in the cockpit. Blair. Talking about Dongfeng. AkzoNobel three-quarters of a mile away. Joan in the cockpit. Crew lying down on the foredeck. Tamara resting. Joan sleeping. Crew sleeping in the bow.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.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.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?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.Windward-leeward after the start. Mark roundings. Grinding. Slomo grinding. Spetactor boat going through a wave. TTToP behind them in the fog. Vestas Behind them in the fog. Working in the cockpit. Crash cam footage of them folding the J1. Spreader cam of folding the J1. Parko: Full frenzy. Seventh combination, and we've been out here an hour. Witty on the helm. Spray on the bow. Triple heading. Forever Fish logo on the reefed main. Satellite dome on the stern. Antonio helming. Witty: Who's that on the bow? Libby: Vestas. Libby: Came out of there in pretty good shape. Then the fog. Peeled to the right sail, got to the FR0, and pulled up into third for a bit. But then held the FR0 for a little too long. But fleet's all within about 5 miles of each other. And can't see two boatlenghts. Front will come through tonight. Will probably see a bit further tomorrow.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.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.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."Dockout with the fans on the dock singing Happy Birthday (to Daryl?). Stu, below, talks about how it's the last double-points leg. Only around 9 days. Everyone's going to push really hard. Start with Dongfeng ducking the fleet on port. Then they tack onto starboard. Shot of them watching Brunel continue on port. Vestas on their weather hip. Vestas and Akzonobel tacking behind them on layline. Rounding the mark with lots of boats behind them. MAPFRE ahead. Dropping the J1. Pascal tailing. Daryl trimming. Approaching the leeard mark with Brunel in the lead, then MAPFRE, then Dongfeng. Lowering the J1 after another weather mark rounding. Running toward the bridge. Gybing the A3. Hoisting the J1 on MAPFRE's stern. Kevin, below, talks in French. Sailing upwind with Vestas behind them. Passing the committee boat; well wishers should "have a great trip!" Carolijn talks about taking to Pascal about the heading. Spray dousing the crew as they sail upwind. Sailing in fog. Daryl on the helm talks about it being hard to leave on his birthday. Hope they can do well and take the lead.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.Instruments on the mast. Light winds and flopping. Rain. TJ: Last night? Yeah, it wasn't much fun. Started off fun, then as we got closer to the front got gnarlier and more hectic... No sleep. But that's part of the Volvo Ocean Race. Then no wind, rain, bobbed around in the rain. And now we're making our way to Newport. Stacking forward. Crew sitting on the bow looking tired. Cockpit. Stacey on the bow preparing to hoist the J1. Hoisting, with Charlie and Tony on the forward pedestal.Stacey at the mast. Rain squall behind them. TJ bagging up the J1. Stacking forward. "Ready, two, six!" Deploying the MH0. Stacey working in the pit. She laughs: I was just thinking how different this evening is from any evening on the last leg. Sun hats and tee shirts, no one is complaining about anything weather-related. Even when it does rain it's short-lived. Quite warm inside the boat. In the Southern Ocean it's constant condensation dripping down below. Nick and Tony in the galley. TJ grinds. Wake. TJ on the helm. "Where'd the hat come from? Australia. I asked my dad what's the best hat to buy. Akubra." He talks about the hat, about sun protection.Witty, on the helm, talks about strategy with the exclusion zone. Tacking now to cover the boats behind. A high percentage play. Not what he really wants to do. Tacking the MH0. Slomo grinding. Slomo stacking. Lowering the J1. Libby and Witty at the nav station. Witty: "Vestas is 1.7 miles behind the leader. That would mean the fucking Scallywags are leading... Well done all." Peter, on deck, explains that they've gone north and the rest of the fleet has gone east. It's a bit risky. Parko, on the helm: It's nice to be taking the lead after a shaky start. A couple of new faces on board, and took us a while to find our feet. But there's two different breezees right now and it's anyone's game. We've only just started. Sunset. Sailing as darkness falls.Joan talks on deck: yesterday had big showers, had to take a few of them on starboard, and ended up left of the rhumb line. Got passed by Vestas and Turn the Tide. In a group of four boats with Dongfeng ahead. Xabi recaps the same events in Spanish. They're especially concerned about Dongfeng because of how close they are in the standings. Shot looking forward as they sail to weather on port under the J1. Rob on the helm. Pablo trimming. Shifting the stack to leeward in preparation for tacking. Then we see the tack. Tamara grinding. spreader cam view of the deck with the J1 flying. Night-vision shots with rain. Night-vision shot of the bow with spray coming over.Slomo shots. Sunrise. Liz on the helm. Drone shot of TTToP sailing into a sunbeam. Liz: Doing really well. Winning at the moment, which is really cool. Upwind conditions, it's really gusty. Shots of Liz working the pit during a sail change. Liz: It's good being first, but then it's hard if you fall back. Hopefully learn from that. Lucas: Ups and downs are hard. But need to keep a level head. All a part of the game. Keep chipping away. Liz: Matching boatspeed with everybody, but you can see clouds coming up. And it only takes one or two clouds and you're out the back door. Sometimes you're at the mercy of the wind gods. Hoisting the J1. Dee: Got a big cloud to weather, increased pressure, so we switched from the masthead to the J1. Shot up the slot as they sail under the J1. Bianca: When the lead is changing this early in the leg, you can't get too wrapped up in it. It's awesome to be at the front, and it does make you feel a lot better, but you can't get yourself down when you're at the back. Liz: Couldn't get much more different from last leg to this one. We're in tee shirts, flat water. But the racing's just as intense. Whole fleet together; quite stressful. Drone shot from close overhead.[No description yet]Rain in the cockpit. Witty in the hatch jokes that the boat should have been designed longer and higher, so it would be more comfortable. Libby talks about tacking. We see the tack. Annemieke: "There's another breeze coming." Slomo stacking. Stacking below. Another tack on deck. Libby at the nav station talks on the PA: "Yeah, that's Akzo on the bow." Ben below: Another tack? J1 going up, with Ben then hauling on the furling line to furl the MH0 (or J0). Parko, below: That was a four-hour frenzy. Plenty of tacks. Plenty of MH0 to J1, and moving all the equjpment. We can see almost everyone in the fleet, so pretty much restarting. Libby: This is racing like people race at their club. Nip and tuck. And we're doing that for 20 odd days at sea. Sunset with clouds.Drone shot of Dongfeng sailing into the sunrise. Slomo of Marie grinding. Kevin on the foredeck gesturing. Looks like their going from J1 to something else. Charles, with a buzz cut: "My haircut has been done by a non-professional as you can see. His name is Black. And he tried to do his best. But unfortunately we do not have the good tools. No one can see my hair until Newport. You can Photoshop it. Horace: One of the other Chinese crew has a big injury. I know it is very disappointing for him not to sail the race. And for the moment all we can do is win this leg and sail well. Drone shot. Jack, in his bunk, talks about Itajai being the longest stopover. Hard to get back into the sleep rhythm on the boat. Not too hot yet. Take it while we can. Charles: Quite complicate situation. Lots of clouds, lots of shift... Were in a good position until this morning. Now the fleet is going in a different direction. Next 24 hours will be key. Rain. Crew working the cockpit in the rain. Slomo of Daryl on the helm. Kevin brings up treats. Drone shot of the sunrise again.Jules: Starting to approach Cabo Frio and there's quite a bit of cloud. Especially this time of day it gets quite active. He and Nicho look at clouds. Brad on the foredeck. Peeling J1 to MH0. Nicho on the helm: Just had a section of clouds, and got a split of Vestas and Turn the Tide on one side of the cloud, and us on the other. So we've had to do a bunch of tacking and stacking... Took a couple of miles out MAPFRE and Brunel. Dongfeng had a nice slot through the clouds, so they've gained. Drone shot with sunset behind AkzoNobel's masthead. Drone shot with sunset and crepuscular rays.Grinding. Trystan on the foredeck hauling down the J1. Witty on the helm: I can't see how they're lifted and we're not. Peter, below, talks about the clouds. Shot of the cloud ahead of them on deck. Stacking below in prep for a tack. They tack onto starboard. Stacking aft. Witty on the helm. "Well, at least we're going to where Newport is." Trystan talks about how the gauge they've gained has not really helped out. So now we're the first to tack to starboard. Witty at the nav station. Talks about how MAPFRE must have tacked. Sunset, rain clouds.Sunrise. Alex on the helm. Clouds. Alex: Massive header. Ben sleeping against the stack. Witty at the nav station: Not very good. Brunel got a bit of speed and got through to leeward of us. Decision on where to tack today. Computer screen with routing software. Parko looking through binoculars. Annemieke: We have our moments when we do well; other times we struggle. Difficult conditions. Very choppy sea state, and the windspeed is up and down. You see it in the whole fleet. Rain showers to windward. Peter on the helm. Witty talks to Parko about what the boats to leeward are doing. "We might not get over all of them but we'll get at least some." Ben wrestles the MH0 (I asssume) aloft on the bow.Time lapse from the stern cam as darkness falls. Simeon, below, talks about the wind dropping and going right. Probably will do the stack and get on the hip of those guys. Below, Martine and Brad stacking. Jules at the nav station. Night shot of stars, moon. Luke, in the dark, explains that they're right on the crossover of the J1 and the Masthead 0, and it's difficult to know if they should change or not, if the better sail will pay for the loss incurred in the sail change. "Where we are in the fleet at the moment we can't afford to make any losses."Pablo, in the cockpit, talks in Spanish about the leg so far. Dongfeng a half mile ahead; rest of the fleet behind. He talks in Spanish about what's coming up in the leg. Then he does it all again in English. In theory it's a leg without too many maneuvers. Will be a lot of cloud activity and stalls, lots of peels. Have to keep their focus if they're going to win this leg. Other boats will be close by. Speed of the boat is key in this kind of leg. You want to gain meter by meter. You get a small advantage, and then you can use that to get in the right position with the clouds. Shot of sunset with fleet close behind them. Rob and Tamara stacking on the foredeck. Rob on the helm with other boats behind them. Dongfeng crossing on starboard a half mile ahead of them. Shifting the stack to leeward in preparation for tacking. We see the tack from the cabin, looking aft. Xabi calling jib trim. Blair and Neti on the bow. Lowering the J1.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.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."Dongfeng departs as "Uptown Funk" plays. Jérémie waves to the crowd on the dock. Jack talks about it being good to get away. Thinking too much in preparation; butterflies. But after the start they'll just sail. Marie talks about being ready; "let's go." Carolijn talks about the very nice goodbye before heading off into the Southern Ocean. Toughest leg, but the best leg in the whole race. Looking forward to digging south and doing some fast sailing. Also, arriving in Brazil is special. Shot of the start, Charles: "Good start." Close views of other boats alongside. Pascal calls wind. Carolijn asks if it's a bearaway or a gybe set. Shots of crosses as they sail downwind, then tacking upwind. Their jumper does a faceplant; they laugh. Ducking MAPFRE, then trailing MAPFRE on the long starboard tack. Lowering the J1 on the foredeck. Brunel close behind them; TTToP pounding behind them.Dongfeng departs as "Uptown Funk" plays. Jérémie waves to the crowd on the dock. Jack talks about it being good to get away. Thinking too much in preparation; butterflies. But after the start they'll just sail. Marie talks about being ready; "let's go." Carolijn talks about the very nice goodbye before heading off into the Southern Ocean. Toughest leg, but the best leg in the whole race. Looking forward to digging south and doing some fast sailing. Also, arriving in Brazil is special. Shot of the start, Charles: "Good start." Close views of other boats alongside. Pascal calls wind. Carolijn asks if it's a bearaway or a gybe set. Shots of crosses as they sail downwind, then tacking upwind. Their jumper does a faceplant; they laugh. Ducking MAPFRE, then trailing MAPFRE on the long starboard tack. Lowering the J1 on the foredeck. Brunel close behind them; TTToP pounding behind them.Bouwe, at the nav station, talks about their strategy. Could see that they were falling off the pressure that the leading boats were in. So they went in stealth mode. Didn't lose too much distance because the boats ahead were sailing at a high angle to the finish. Peter on deck as they flop. Capey, below, talks about feeling bad. Thought they were through the lee of the island and moving, and they weren't. Night shots on deck, maneuvers on the foredeck as wind builds. Sally: This morning we had a huge sigh of relief when we saw that Dongfeng and MAPFRE chose to take the same direction we did. She talked about Bouwe coming on deck with that sched. Capey: At least the boats behind us weren't doing something different. Laying out the J1, peeling from MH0 to J1. Capey and Bouwe talk about strategic options at the nav station. Peter looks on. Louis watches from his bunk.Peter goes aloft. GoPro shots. He calls the wind: "Absolutely nothing 2 miles in front." Bouwe: "Can we get him a bit higher? I can still hear him." Laughter. Back on deck, he points around at the lack of wind. Crew stacks forward behind him. "Just giving the guys some shit about their trim." On the bow, Carlo: "Had a bit of a fight with Turn the Tide. We parked and they sailed around us and never stopped. About 12 miles ahead of us. We just had no breeze at all. Shots of TTToP sailing past them. Lowering the J1 to peel to the MH0. Stacking aft. TTToP sailing a quarter mile to leeward. Sally: "I feel like they had no board the whole time." Carlo talks about the frustration, heat below, almost impossible to sleep. Especially when we have to run the engine. Shot below with engine running of crew trying to sleep in the bow. Sunset clouds in glassy conditions. Rain in the distance. Crescent moon. Rain in the dawn. Bouwe: It's still all right. Breeze should fill in from the east, and we are the easternmost boat. Not going to be a good sched because they've been very slow for the last several hours. "A crystal ball would have been nice."Scallywag sails a half mile away to leeward (port) of them in the sunrise. Simeon jokes about it. Nicolai eats: Next 48 hours really important. Whoever gets through the best will do best. Each time they've been next to Scallywag in this leg they've beaten them. Nicho: It's good to have a boat next to you. Easy to lose from here; will be difficult to win. But have a good chance at it. Which is more than you can ask for in this race. Shot of Scallywag astern. Jules talks strategy below. Nicho: Had good breeze throughout the sched. But the disadvantage of two boats side by side is you stick together. Crew drinking. Nicho: "I'm from Australia, it's not a problem. The guy from Denmark, he really struggles." He wakes up Nicolai. Nicolai talks about the sun and heat. Simeon, below. Jules: "We're not doing anything at the moment. We're not in the wind, we're losing to him, we're not sailing to our plan, and we're sailing slowly." Hoisting the J1; lowering the MH0. Cecile talks about losing the lead to Scallywag. Simeon in the red light of the sunset: Very expensive. Nothing you can do about it now. Knew west was best in both models. Try to keep west... Try to put yourself in a good position... Should have been more aggressive. Learned a lesson today. Sunset.GoPro (Garmin) shot as Yann films on the foredeck. He goes forward and puts the Peter Gabriel cam on Carlo, who's hanking on the J1. Carlo grins.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.Wrestling sails on the foredeck. Pole shot of waves off the side. Lowering and gathering in the J1. Stacking. Looking up the slot while double-heading with a reefed main. Below, Simeon, Jules, and Nicho talk strategy at the nav station. Nicho isn't talking much. Cecile eating. Simeon: Basically leading the fleet. But have to make a decision between two different models for how to round Fiji. Go 800 miles more? A bit of a situation. The weather has been different from the models. Nicho: Have the option of bailing out if they need to. Simeon: As the lead boat have to make a crucial decision. Nicho: Have a reasonable lead, but you can never have enough lead when entering the doldrums. Simeon eases a sheet. Justin on the helm. Luke on the helm as dusk falls, the wind lighter. Beautiful red sunset clouds. "End of the world."Justin looks at clouds. Talks about the wind. Simeon on the helm looks tired. Rainbow to leeward. Justin: Basically have been bouncing from cloud to cloud. Playing snakes and ladders with the other boats. Puffs that last for 30 seconds to a minute. Brad on the bow as they hoist the J1 and furl the MH0. Justin on the helm. Rain. Stacking below. Jules looks at the computer. "Until we find some wind out of the westerly quadrant we won't make any gains." Sailing into the doldrums now. Guys behind have all seen them slow and have turned left (east), taking a lot of miles out of them. Luke: Jules and Chris and Simeon have spent a lot of time over the last week deciding where to cross the doldrums. Jules at the mast. Nicolai and Martine lower the MH0 after hoisting the J1. Lowering the J1, Justin gathers it in on the foredeck. Jules emerges from below to annouce the sched: Brunel is closest to the finish now. Brad in the sunset. Justin on the helm after sunset: Dismal couple of days. Who knows what's next.Brad and Martine on the foredeck peeling from J1 to J0? FR0? Stacking. Luke in the pit. Luke bailing below. Filling up water in the galley. Brad: Nine days in. Not the easiest 9 days. Blast reaching, throwing the boat around. When they get to the doldrums they'll want to get this again. "As long as you keep your gear dry." Richard asks, "Is your gear dry?" Brad shakes his head and smiles. "Soaked all the way through." He eats. Jules talks about their lead over Scallywag and MAPFRE. They'll lose some of that as they lead into the first doldrums area. He talks about strategy with someone. Shots of the conditions lightening on deck. Nicolai talks about light winds coming. Frustrating, but they knew it was coming. Ready for hard work. Unfurling a bigger sail (MH0?). Jules talks about strategy. Simeon scans the horizon for wind. Squall with rain and wind. Grinding. Winch drum. Jules talks about the nearby boats. Luke in the cockpit. Jules, in the companionway, talks about the clouds, and strategy.Drone shot of Scallywag sailing upwind under the J1 on port tack with an island in the bakcground. Witty on the helm. "I like to be in front, everyone likes to be in front, everyone likes a winner. Long way to go, though." Witty reminisces about racing in the good old days; not with this freeze-dried food. Cocktails. Drone shots. Doubleheading in strong wind. Washing machine. Trystan grinding. Alex on the helm. Slomo of Trystan (I think?) spraying water on his face. Water in the cockpit. Fish getting drenched in the pit. Annemieke wearing ski goggles while trimming. Marcus (maybe?) grinding in slomo. High drone shot looking down.Someoneon the bow (Louis?) hanks on the J1. Louis comes back to the cockpit. They hoise the J1, lower the J0. Crew works to secure the J0. Alberto grinding. Bouwe, below: "We seem to be going better." Bouwe at the nav station talks weather with Andrew. Bouwe talks about looking ahead. Jokes that Capey doesn't like looking seven days ahead. Talks about matching Dongfeng, with similar sail combination. Shot of another boat to port (Dongfeng?). Carlo talks about how it's different on this leg that they're holding onto the leaders. Going upwind isn't anyone's favorite. Talks about going away from Auckland. "Capey must have a very good reason... I'm happy but also frustrated." He laughs.Dongfeng sailing upwind with the J1 and reefed main on starboard. Black working in the pit. Daryl: "Every sailor loves going upwind. Getting pounded by the wind, the waves, the water. And it's very slow." Black talks about going upwind, rough conditions, washing machine. Jack talks about how sailboats can't sail directly into the wind. "It takes a lot longer to get where you're going, it's more uncomfortable..." Marie actually sounds like she means it when she talks about liking sailing upwind. Marie near the J1 clew getting spray as she works on a sheet. Jérémie on the foredeck attaching the tack of the J2 for a sail change.Sailing in light winds, crew on the foredeck for weight. Then hoisting a new sail. Closeup of the knotmeter on the mast. Coiling line in the pit. Simeon: "Normal day at the office. Crew gatehring the J1 bare-headed on the bow. Crash cam footage of big wave washing over the cockpit. Bow cam, mast cam. Spreader cam view of reefing the main. Brad, below, recounts the big breeze, over 30 knots, then died down almost completely. Then relatively quickly straight to the J2, a couple of reefs in the main. Now up to 40 knots. In the space of about 4 hours saw everything. Windward rudder repair; Brad explains that it had become loose. Shot of nav software; Jules explains the situation. A windy, gusty night; some shipping as well. Concerns about islands in their path. Jules talking to Simeon about tacking. Nicho says a big bearing change on Scallywag. "Dongfeng's the one I'm interested in." Night vision stern cam view of crew tacking (?). Jules towels off his head at the nav station.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.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.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.Simeon gives a recap from the nav station. Bouncing upwind, everyone very close. Cat and mouse game; Brunel a little ahead. Lost a few miles during the J1 -> J2 change. That's the hardest change, getting the J1 away. Shot of them sailing upwind. Brunel to weather; three other boats astern. MAPFRE to leeward. Slomo of MAPFRE. Nicho on the helm. Jules at the nav station, talking about changing to the J2 before it gets dark. Red-light shot of the crew grinding. Shot of them going to weather with the J1 up. J1 being hoisted. Brad wresting a sail on the foredeck. Nicolai in the pit, then on the foredeck.Sailing upwind on port in strong wind. Shots of other boats. Crew working the cockpit in spray. Bowcam shot of sail cahngin gon the foredeck in heavy spray. Bare-headed change from J1 to J2. Crew on the foredeck in night-vision shot gathering in the J1 as it comes down.Plastic debris on the keel. Liz: "Still there, Bomby?" She discusses doing a back-down to try to clear the keel when they peel to the J2. Henry talks about the back-down. Slomo of bow during the sail change. Below, Dee talks about the plastic on the keel. Decided not to do the back-down; hoping the bouncing in the waves clear it.Libby, wearing a GoPro (that really is a Garmin) in the prestart: "20 to burn; 1:10 to go." Witty, on the helm on the final approach to the line: "Deploy the MH0 guys! When you're ready deploy the MH0. Go, go!" Libby: "No burn time." We see the MH0 deploy. Libby: "No burn time; we're late." Close action as they're tacking out. Witty: "Nice to wn the start in our home town." Tacking out with other boats close. Slomo grinding. New crewmember Marcus talks excitedly about the good start. Marcus, grinding: "I"m still feeling it. Didn't get much sleep on the plane, so I'll be looking forward to getting a bit of sleep tonight. I doubt it though." He laughs. Libby on the LIbby-cam: "J1 on the next tack." António smiles in slomo. Witty steers.Blair, on deck, talks about the start. Not the best start for them. Fourth now. Start not a huge priority in these conditions. Rough stuff in the next couple of hours. "Feels like back home now; back on the boat. So it's all good." Támara talks on deck in Spanish as they sail to weather under the J1. Looks like Scallywag is a quarter mile haed of them; I'm guessing that's Brunel beyond them. Then we go back in time and see the prestart, and the immediate start aftermath. Grinding, tacking out of Victoria Harbor. Close cross of Brunel behind them. Big duck of them to go astern of Dongfeng. Xabi trimming. Pablo on the helm. Rob calls for the hoist of the J1; we see it going up, then the furled MH0 coming down. Scallywag and Brunel sailing ahead of them and below, to starboard.Martin and Frederico lay out and look at the damage to their J1; apparently it was ripped in a squall the day before. Martin: "There are two battens that are gone, and the pockets are also gone. We've got a big rip in one of them. It's going to require a lot of work." We see crash cam footage of the squall from the night before. Martin and Frederico consider the work that's needed. Frederico: "I don't know. It seems pretty bad." Martin: "I think this is a good opportunity..." Frederico (chuckling): "...to pass the torch." [Maybe they're talking about swapping it out for a replacement J1 at the next stopover?] Brian [Carlin]: "Do you think it's fixable?" Frederico: "Yeah, but here... maybe not." He shows the ripped batten pocket.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.On the bow, Xabi talks in Spanish. "Mucho calor." At night, we see a light shining forward from the cockpit toward the sail and hear a sheet being eased. Looks like a squall. Trimming, grinding, lightning. Stacking. Lowering the J1.Darkness and the sound of flopping sails. On deck at night, Jules is in the foreground, his face illuminated by the light from a tablet. Behind him the railing by the helm is lit by red light. Jules: "The only problem at the moment this way is that no one's actually moving." Nicho: "We can still do our five minutes heading north." Jules: "On starboard." Nicho: "Before running into where MAPFRE is." They discuss that MAPFRE and Dongfeng have stopped. [Guys: I've seen the future. There's a huge windless cloud ahead.] Nicho: "But at least we'll be heading north until we stop." Simeon and Cécile grind on the pedestal. Stars overhead; the main pops over as they tack to starboard. Below, at the nav station, Nicho points out the changed positions on the chart: They've pulled ahead of Dongfeng and MAPFRE, while Vestas further west has made up ground. "Just from one cloud." Another 500, 600 miles of this, he says. Low-altitude drone shot of AkzoNobel drifting on a glassy sea. Martine throws something small down the forward hatch. Crew sits on sails on the bow. Below, Brad says to Nicolai: "Nicolai, you still awake?" Nicolai: "Yeah. Too warm to sleep. Just watching a bit of Netflix." They have a little scripted chitchat. Jules calls down the hatch that they want to do a peel to the J1, and they need some big strong muscle-y men. Shot of the instruments on the mast: Boatspeed: 0.93. High-altitude time-lapse drone shot of AkzoNobel drifting along. Nicho talks about the "good guys" generally doing okay in the doldrums. Nicolai pulls the main. Very-high-altitude drone shot showing them parked. Pretty slomo shot of their branding reflected in the water. Luke, on the helm, talks about the mood: concerned. Need to come out of the doldrums okay so the front bunch gets a jump. Low-altitude drone shot at sunset with another boat beyond them. I think it's probably Vestas.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.We see Ugo launch the drone, which flies away. MAPFRE drifts on a glassy ocean. Very low-altitude drone shots that circle the boat, first farther away and then close.At one point we see a distant competitor ahead and to leeward. We see Sophie's silhouette on the bow as they hoist the J1 (or maybe it's just that the J1 is set with a loose halyard for drifting/windseeking conditions).Xabi, below, talks in Spanish about the competition. Joan, below, talks in Spanish. In the cockpit, Blair lies on his back to turn the middle pedestal handles with his feet, Team New Zealand AC-style. Ñeti does it too. Drone shot from close to the bow of the J1 being hoisted, then of crew clearing the old sail, then drone shots from low altitutde, coming really close to getting dunked by a wave, on the starboard quarter as MAPFRE reaches on starboard, then a drone shot pulling away to higher altitude.