Dee, below: Hard to balance emotions and competitiveness of a project without reflecting on hindsight. We all learn from mistakes. Maybe I need to be a bit more ruthless in how I manage stuff, only have the best drivers drive, but it wasn't how we set out with this project. We didn't have any lead up time, so we did it on the way round. We have confidence in who's better in certain conditions, but we've probably still let people drive who weren't as fast as others. Maybe I should have been more cutthroat, but one thing I have noticed is the team are very much a team, and they've done this together and they're ending it together. I think that's really nice. To see them grow, their confidence, their self-belief as well. They don't need any experienced people on this boat; they could do it all themselves. Facilitating them getting the confidence to believe that has been huge. And that's a really big step. And that's what I'm most proud of. Having them grow as sailors over nine months. Crew in the cockpit. Dee: This is about them showing they can race this boat with the best racers in the world. That's what they're going to take away and remember with this project, and that was one hell of a year and we did a really good job. My mission in this final couple of weeks is to make them have that feeling, so when it's July 1 and the circus leaves town, they're all really proud people. Crew work in the cockpit. Dee describes her fantasy of them passing the boats ahead. "Reality may hit hard."Liz on the helm. Vestas 100 yards ahead of their bow. Bleddyn explains that they're all heading out to cross the high pressure ridge. Close sailing. Frederico talking with Brian. Frederico explains the strategic issues of getting across the ridge. Brian: It's all very well beating Scallywag, but it doesn't accomplish what we want. Bianca talks about them wanting to put another boat between them [so they can pass them to get out of last place in the overall standings]. Brian talks about the upcoming rest of the leg. Frederico: I hope we can put all the learning from the last legs together and smash everybody. We have the potential. Gybe. Bleddyn: Pushing since the beginning of the race, but more since Hong Kong. Getting the podium finish would be great. It was super tight going around Fastnet Rock.Sunrise drone shot. Francesca: We're still leading, so this is good. Last sched was not the best one. We can see Vestas (gestures behind her). My parents had a cruising boat, 30-foot cruising boat. I was born in January, and in February I was already on the boat. Slomo of Francesca adjusting her cap. "They had this system of bungee that made a little bed for me." Shot of her left forearm tattoos of elephans. Francesca on the helm in slomo. Learned how to manage herself in the hard moments. Had some hard moments in the Southern Ocean. Was more like mentally tough than physically. Push myself, tomorrow will be another day, it will be better. Instruments on the mast. Dee by the shrouds. Dee: To see Frankie grow from the start of this project to now has been incredible. Came in with no offshore experience; had an Olympic background. But she does make you laugh, because sometimes she says yeah, yeah, yeah. But you realize she didn't understand any of it. [We see everyone in the crew saying hello in their native dialect.] Francesca tells a story of Frederico rescuing a flying fish that hit the board. Francesca: An amazing experience to sail around in the environment I love, with the group of friends. Worst thing: the freeze-dried. The food is not really nice at times. Sunset drone shot.Phil, below, talks about how MAPFRE has just passed them, and now Dongfeng is doing the same, so he's got to go on deck and do battle. Shot of Dongfeng sailing off their starboard quarter. Drone shot. Frustrating, but interesting to see that the two teams with the most time in the boat are the fastest. So they'll take this opportunity to study what they're doing and learn from it. MAPFRE ahead of them. SiFi talks about how MAPFRE has consistently been the fastest boat in the race. Creates some pressure on the crew, but you have stay calm and be open to ideas and try things. Slomo of Dongfeng astern of them, with another boat behind them (from the tracker, maybe Brunel?). SiFi: All the boats are the same, so of someone's doing better it's up to you to figure it out.SiFi and Mark at the nav station talk about their course, routing, sched. Mark: "It's such a bummer because we did such great work on those guys for days. Had them in our pocket." They talk about how they can't crack off to the west too far. SiFi: "But when we've got the pressure to go down we take it down." Mark, on deck, talks to Nick: "They just completely cut the corner." Mark talks to Amory about how it's been a challenge, and he's learned a lot from SiFi. Keeping in touch with Charlie, who's trying to learn what he can from the information you get on land. His family is doing better, which is great. He's going to be on the dock in Hong Kong when they arrive. He's emailed them a few times with encouraging words. Patriot scores. "We haven't missed Charlie's hair, that's for sure. [Laughs] ... We've had a good thing going for a long time. It'll be really good to have him back for the next leg." Shot of them sailing on starboard gybe; sunset to port.High drone shot with distant island and clouds. Low-altitude drone shot with sunset. Shot of the wheel at sunrise. Grant, on the bow, talks quietly about having 2 knots of windspeed at sunrise, and battling at 2 knots of boatspeed themselves. Sunrise shot beyond someone (not sure who) silhouetted on the helm. Grant talks about it being a battle with the heat, trying to maintain boatspeed. Ben, on the bow, talks about the light winds and boatspeed. A little shifty for now, but when they get out it's a fast shot to Hong Kong. It's refreshing to not be cold and wet, but it's frustrating. Drone shots. Grant: 17 years since the first one he was involved in. Similarities, but the boats get pushed far beyond what anyone would have imagined. He talks about Ben, who went in 3 years' time from asking for a job sweeping out the boatyard to racing in this event. "That's just great to see." Ben talks about having sailed before with Grant on Ragamuffin. He's a knowledgeable guy. He and Witty have sailed together for many years. And [John] Fisher. They're Australians; a little arrogant. Trying to learn from them. Grant: Witty's got a great team of guys here. And girls. I think they all get on really well. I think it's a great squad and an exciting team to be involved in." Drone shot.Drone shot from close ahead as Brunel triple-heads on starboard gybe. Nice audio editing; I doubt it's true audio recorded onboard during the drone shots, but it's integrated nicely. A voice (I think Rome's?): "Little trim. Hold that." Drone shot from port quarter of Brunel surfing; as the drone circles astern we see TTToP a few hundred yards ahead and to weather. Closeup of Rome trimming. Kyle, on the stern, talks about TTToP: "Turn the Tide are two boatlenghts behind us. We're trying to fight them off. They rolled us on the gybe before, then we managed to sneak through to leeward of them. Now they've accelerated again and are threatening to roll us. Nice and close. We'd rather be at the front of the fleet, obviously. But we're battling it out for last place." Shot of the cockpit with TTToP chomping along in their wake. Slomo washing machine. TTToP surfing behind them. Rome, below, talks about being in the front pack at the beginning of the leg, but now they've fallen back a bit. Talks about TTToP interaction. Still in touch with the front of the fleet. He talks about how on other boats crews have sailed together for years. "Kind of learning as we go. Hopefully we get back in touch, and get back in the game." Shot of a gybe in the cockpit.On the stern, Bianca talks about helming the VO65. "I've had experience helming all sorts of boats. The biggest one I've helmed is about 220 feet. So this is a bit like a dinghy compared to that. You can really feel any wave hitting the side of the boat." She talks about the thrill of sending it down a big wave, needing to have trust in your fellow sailors. "It's just such an amazing feeling, the adrenaline's really rushing in you. I'm pretty sure the whole time I was steering I just had a massive grin from ear to ear. It's awsome." Martin: "It's important for evyerone to have a go. You can't go through the whole Southern Ocean without touching the helm. It was quite good to see Bianca; she did a good job. It was not easy for me to make the decision to let her drive as well. Might be a few more opportunities for her in the future." Below, Elodie says, "It's really important to try to involve everybody... for example, Bianca is working hard to learn to trim the mainsail every time I'm driving, so it's nice to give her the opportunity to drive a little bit too. It's important for the trimmers to understand how it feels when you are driving." Shot of Biana taking the wheel. and steering. Yeah, she's grinning. View from astern as she steers; rainbow on the horizon. She hands off the helm to Lucas, gives a big thumbs-up to the camera, and a fist-bump to Martin on the mainsheet. Cloud with crepuscular rays.John, below: "I suppose what makes it long is the intensity of the battles you have. We're 7 miles away from Turn the Tide... Every mile gained is a good thing; every mile lost is a bad thing." Slomo washing machine on deck. Alex, below, on the competition. More slomo washing machine. Parko on how the newer guys are learning. John on how not everyone was a professional at the outset. Alex on people from different backgrounds coming together. Parko on how limited the number of people who do this are. "It's just an incredible experience. It just sucks you back in." Slomo of John (I think?) on deck grinning in spray.