Drone shot of Vestas triple-heading on starboard gybe. Drone shot of peeling to the MH0, furling the J0. SiFi, below: Last night was important tactically. Explains taking the offshore option. Made the choice we made because we thought we might get ahead of MAPFRE and Dongfeng that way. As it turns out, MAPFRE joined us. Now the overall of the race is resting on who made the right choice on which lane. We've seen one boat pick one, one pick the other, and one sort of waver between the two. Roy Disney, Jr. on deck. Charlie on the helm. Stacey grinding. Tony fiddles with the clew of a sail. Drones shot of lowering the J0, pulling the tack of the J0 off the bowsprit.High drone shot of AkzoNobel with Brunel and MAPFRE behind them. Martine grinding as they peel to the MH0. Martine: after the mark in Aarhus, being so far behind we didn't expect to be in this position. But after a lot of flat out, no-sleep watches, here we are. Brad trimming with the other boats behind them. "Last day of it all. I'm feeling a sense of relief, but it's all on back there. No thought about resting tomorrow; next eight hours is going to be flat out. No eating no sleeping no drinking for the next eight hours. It's all on." Low drone shot from ahead.Slomo of Dee grinding. Liz on the helm. Slomo. Tacking the MH0. Drifting conditions. Scallywag bare-headed flops on the horizon. Nicolas looks at his tablet. "It's a flapping sail." Stacking. Dee and Bernardo. Bianca. "We have passed the mark." Everyone cheers. Sitting forward. Francesca: How many miles to the Hague? Bernardo: 400. Bianca: 400 miles to the finish line. Francesca: 6 days. 10 days. We don't have enough food. Dee: But it's not just the finish line, Franky. It's the ultimate finish line. Francesca: The extreme finish line. Life at the extreme. Bianca: Look at us we're blasting along now. Furling the MH0 for a gybe. Scallywag a half mile away. Dee and Francesca talking on the rail. Dee explains that they've just rounded the virtual mark, and expect to finish Sunday evening... It's felt so far like the longest in-port race ever.High drone shot of Dongfeng with MAPFRE a half mile astern and to weather. Low drone shot. Both boats under MH0 in light conditions. More drone shots.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.Kevin carries a stacking pole. Jack on the helm with MAPFRE in the background. Charles, Marie, scowling. Light air tack. Stu. Horace. They all look exhausted. Tacking the MH0. Pascal. Carolijn: Aarhus, a bit crazy in the marina but very fun. Waypoint not as far north as the last one. Been through a light patch; hopefully that will be the last of it. MAPFRE to leeward, had a bit of a battle in the transition. And allowed other boats to catch up. Can see Vestas. Battling it out with MAPFRE at the moment.Someone (Martin?) sleeping below. Sailing past land in lighter conditions. Nicolas and Bernardo look at Nicolas's tablet. Stacking below. Tacking in the cockpit. Bernardo and Bleddyn on the forward pedestal. Scallywag 100 yards ahead of them. Entering Aarhus. Nicolas looks at his tablet. Nicolas: We are going to go inside the harbor. Winds are very tricky. We are fighting with Scallywag. Three boatlenghts. Have to be ready to do everything. Spectator sailboat motors alongside with Danish flag. Tacking. Nicolas: We are almost layline now. We have to tack guys. Bleddyn, on the helm, calls the tack. Scallywag crosses ahead on port. Sailing past a 12 meter in the harbor. Repeat of earlier Nicolas clip explaining the upcoming harbor transit. Passing the lighthouse. Scallywag exiting above them. Spectators along quay. Tacking around the buoy. Exiting past the crowds. Annalise: A little bit tight in there; wind was a little funky. Had a few messups with our Masthead Zero. Nearly heading to the finish. One more mark by Norway. Loads of people there, which was really cool... I think everyone's pretty tired on the boat. We're now on the home stretch... Sleep when we get to the Hague. Gybe. Scallwag to port. Lumpy furl of the MH0. Liz: Have to drop it. Wrestling with the badly furled sail on the foredeck. Scallwag gybes ahead of them. Lucas fiddles with the sail. Lowering the J1.Liz steers as Scallywag sails a quarter mile to leeward. Scallywag in front of the wind farm. Francesca grinding in front of Scallywag and the wind farm. Scallywag a hundred hards on their port quarter. Slomo of Scallywag behind them with Dee scowling in the foreground. Liz: Not a lot of ocean going on in the Volvo Ocean Race at the moment. Have to sail into a harbor, sail back out, sail back up to Norway. Not much sleep. Have been dueling with Witty the whole race. [Re: beating Scallywag]: I ould not describe it. It would be perfect. Slomo foredeck, grinding. They look exhausted. Bleddyn, Bianca grinding. Liz stacking with Scallywag behind. Clew of the MH0. Scallywag 100 yards ahead and to weather. Rolling up the J3.Nicolai, Martine, and Emily wrestle a big sail (the MH0?) down on the foredeck.TJ, on the cabin, recaps: Beating upwind in 17 knots quite nicely. Always knew there would be this big transition, didn't expect it to be this abrupt. Wasn't ideal for us. A lot lighter than we expected. On the masthead zero. Nice peel. Norway's close. Might be an interesting tricky night. Lot of clouds around. Stacking. SiFi: Craziness. Big wind shifts. Helicopter noise. Other boat with sunset and helicopter. Charlie talks with SiFi about their position. SiFi gives speeds of other boats. "Probably wouldn't hurt to set it up." TJ puts way binoculars. Hoisting the MH0 with the J1 up.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.Jack on the helm. Jack, below: I am enjoying it. The conditions that we've got; 25 knots at about 90 true. So broad reaching. Plenty of water over the deck. Reefs in reefs out... Really nice conditions, chewing up lots of miles. But it's very wet. [chuckles] Really wet. Washing machine shots. Jack: We're still pushing really hard. Coming into the team new, I can see how much the team has improved. They're really sailing well. Tough incident at the start, losing 100 miles, but still in great spirits. Montage of crew showing high spirits in the cockpit: Mugging for the camera. Parko. Annemieke. Antonio. Trystan. Libby at the nav station: Went from being flat out on our MH0, came around the corner and it got lighter. Tricky for that reason. Crew work on the foredeck. Libby: We gained 15 miles on the leader, are 27 miles from the next boat. I expect that will close a bit more, which will be good. Slomo washing machine shot. Libby: Still a couple of peels and sail changes, and if someone makes a mistake in that they can drop a couple of miles... We'll see. Slomo washing machine. Libby: Pretty strong conditions coming up. Not that you wish for anyone to break anything. But it's a strange angle, one we haven't done much in sailing around the world. We could find a good mode. It's definitely a good opportunity. Slomo washing machine.Jack gets his heavy weather foulies on below. Jack: Like a newborn man! [He laughs.] Crash cam footage of cockpit washing machine Libby calls out the predictions for more wind. Ben in the cockpit getting dressed: We're just going around the Hebrides, and we're getting ready to peel from the MH0 to something else. Breeze has built since we went off watch. 30 knots at the moment. Shots on deck of whitecaps. Slomo washing machine.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 of Scallywag sailing in light conditions. Annemieke: In a transition zone... It's really light; super tricky. Parko on the helm. High drone shot of the boat passing just under the drone in glassy conditions. Bowsprit. MH0 flopping. Witty on the bow: This leg far from over. As we say, we never give up. Last sched we were only 13 miles behind. I think it's 100% changed me. More good than bad. But changed me in a bad way too. The good stuff is I'm more tolerant and definitely more patient. When you can be part of the development of someone like Nipper, or you go through the loss of like Fish and that's like circumstances or other things that have happened... if you're 5 minutes late to work you get caught in traffic or... your priorities change. My priorities have changed a hell of a lot. You realize you can't control anything. You can prepare better than you have in the past, but you can't control anything. Libby at the nav station gets the sched: We're third. I don't really understand the sched. We made a 3-mile gain on the fleet. they're in very light winds. We were the fastest boat by half a knot. As they flop, Libby: At the moment we're smashing the [bleep] out of it!Drone shot of Akzo flopping with the J1 as a windseeker. Jules, standing on the mast: Best breeze is through there. Nicho, with binoculars: They're all on port with zeroes. Other boats on the horizon. Nicolai on the helm talks to Simeon about the wind. Nicho: Fastest we've been for about half an hour. Crew sleeping in the bow. Luke: talks about broken sleep because of maneuvers. Going to plug in some music and zone out. Low-alttitude drone shot of Akzo in drifting conditions. Nicho talks to Jules about best heading. Justin: Gotta get out to that line, don't we? Nicho responds about the ridge. Flopping with MH0. Jules: Might be our turn now. Simeon: You wanna come down on this? Other boat (MAPFRE) to starboard. Justin: Just catch it before it dies. Nicho: That way (points ahead) 20 miles there's good southerlies. Talks about MAPFRE next to them; different scenarios as the breeze fills in. High drone shot of the two boats.Drifting conditions near the Irish coast. Jack: I don't think we're making too much headway on the land. Other boats visible behind them, including Brunel. Drifting. J1 flopping. Fabien: I don't know if we are lucky, but we are ahead of the fleet since the beginning. But now we are in the light spot, with Brunel and MAPFRE behind... We are very close to the shore, with no wind. Expect northeast wind at the corner, which is one mile. But we have no wind with current. It's not easy. Charles looks under the sail at Brunel and mutters. Shore is just a few hundred yards away. Tacking the MH0. Pascal talks with Charles in French. Charles on the helm. Intensity. Sailing with more wind, tacking the J1. Brunel and MAPFRE to starboard. Another tack. Sailing toward land in the sunset. Charles and Pascal. Jack on the helm. Charles talks with Pascal in French. Charles: Okay we tack. Pascal: Tacking guys! They tack. Black on the rail. Vestas crossing them. Crossing MAPFRE. Another tack next to the shore. Carolijn trims, moves to pedestal: Someone come with me please? Later, Carolijn: Vestas is coming upright. Much less breeze. Coming back into the breeze now. Sunset. Black comes up from below. Daryl on the helm. AkzoNobel crosses behind them. Another boat ahead of them.Drone 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.Other boats in glassy conditions. Black explains how they caught a big lift, trying to stay in the middle of the channel for more current. And have more wind. Quite good for the moment for us. Unfurling the MH0. Pascal: I think we are around two.... MAPFRE is tacking. He goes below. Crew on the bow. Charles scans the horizon. Jack: What's the tack on? Daryl: We're gonna get the tide gate this time. Everyone else is gonna... [he gestures]. Carolijn: I like that. Sunset. Stacking forward. Triple heading. Winch close up. Charles and Pascal talk in French.Scallywag flopping in the sunrise. Slomo flopping. Annemike: I see not so much wind at the moment. Hopefully some breeze later on. Not really what we expected. Rolling up the MH0 as a windseeker. Radio forecast with light variable winds forecast. Libby: Right now we're somewhere off the southwest tip of Ireland, not far from Fastnet Rock. Alex is excited about rounding it. Leaders are finishing; we're about a day behind. Unfortunately with these shorter legs you can get behind and not have a chance to catch back up. Later: There's Ireland! Sunset. Dolphins. Alex: Sun's going down, plenty of dolphins on the bow. Just need Fastnet Rock over there. Just two more nights and we'll be in. Nice afternoon sail. Fun. (He nods to himself.) We see the light on Fastnet Rock (I guess?) blinking.Night shot of the moon. Instruments. Marie trimming, silhouetted by the moon on the water. Kevin, in the galley: 2 hours for the finish line. For the burger it's 5. We have no more food. He talks to Pascal at the nav station in French. Charles: Will it be a good or a bad surprise? Who knows? Pascal reads the sched: windspeed and distance for the boats ahead. Jack does an interview at night on deck: So we are currently t-minus 20 miles from Cardiff. (Marie's voice: Tacking! Tacking!) Jack raises a finger and gets up to help with the tack; Jeremie chuckles. We see them tack the MH0. Jack: It's quite light; quite upwind. But we have the current with us now which is great. Still pretty tedious now, actually. He and Carolijn talk to Jeremie on the bow. Carolijn: Hopefully, Akzo will catch Brunel. Jack: Turn the Tide catch MAPFRE... We're golden. (Carolijn laughs.) Carolijn: Scallywag... Jack: Scallywag roll everyone. Charles with a headlamp talks to Jeremie: Would have been better to be first. But Brunel and Akzo did a better leg than us. Sometimes in the Volvo it's not the best offshore team win the leg, eh? We have seen that in Newport. Jeremie: Maybe you should do more inshore sailing. Charles: Maybe. The Volvo is about the last 20 miles. Pascal: I don't know why but I think there is more wind here. It is more dark. Chuckles. Tacking in the dark.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.Sign taped to the aft side of the doghouse: "National Wine Day". Has wind forecast for each various times throughout the day. DTF 670. Libby: It is. It's National Wine Day. Libby at the nav station with Witty. Witty reads out the gains on the other boats due to the comression. Peter on the helm. Drone shots in light conditions. Foredeck. Slomo telltales. Antonio: 600 miles from the finish. Having to cross the light conditions. Libby and Witty at the nav station. Libby yawns. Flopping with the MH0. Slomo flopping. Antonio talks about the ETA. Flopping. Antonio: Still a bit far behind to talk about catching someone. If it were windy it would be harder, so it's good to have these conditions now. Peter shakes the main to try to pop the batten. Sunset.Nicolai below: Still battling with Brunel; never-ending story. Simeon at the nav station: Gaining a bit, losing a bit, different pressure. Trying to get the best sail setup. Trying to cover and hold on. Same old same old. Drone shot with sunset of them peeling to the J0 in strengthening wind. Triple-heading. Bagging the MH0 on the foredeck. Nicho, below: We've lost a little in the last 24 hours to them. We've coughed up a little; that's part of the game in trying to put yourself between the other boat and the mark. Looking like a long match race to the finish. We're in a good position; just need to consolidate it a little in these next few hours. Drone shot circling AkzoNobel under cloudy skies.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.Sailing through the ridge. Wake. Martin's light touch on the helm. Crew on the bow. Instruments on the mast: doing 8 knots. Bowsprit. Cutwater. Bird flying away from the boat. Bernardo, on the bow, asks what day it is. "Saturday already?" Whale off their stern. Looks like a sperm whale, maybe. Have to ask my whale-kowledgeable sister. Crow on the bow in flopping conidtions. MH0 clew. Sails fill. "Look at that. Look at that." Partially rolled-up MH0 as a windseeker. Bernardo trims.Horace, bailing, talks about how awesome it is to sail fast. That's why he came to this race. I hate the life on board, but I love fast. Kevin looks through the endoscope and sees something below. He gets the swim gear on and dives in from the bow. Big piece of seagrass on the keel that he gets off. That loooked cold! Drone shot circling the boat in light conditions. Horace interviews Pascal on the bow: We're going to arrive the day we arrive. Marie: Maybe three more days, eh? Stu: Both are stressful. I find the heavy weather more stressful, especially when you're driving at night. Pascal on how difficult light conditions are. Stu: I'm going to right about how hard it is to have a shit on the toilet when the boat is sailing 30 knots. Carolijn below, brushing her hair, comments how the person on the boat who doesn't have any hair made a comment about her appearance. On deck, she gives some of the hair she pulled out on Kevin's head. Daryl, on the helm, talks about sailing into the high pressure ridge. Big line of clear blue sky ahead, where there will be zero wind. Pascal and Charles talking on the bow in French. Glassy conditions. Kevin to Pascal: We don't see them on AIS? Pascal shakes his head. Bird flies over. High drone shot. Other boat (I think Vestas from the tracker) on the horizon behind them as Stu steers in light wind. They tack the MH0 onto port. Low drone shot approaching from far away.Spreader cam views as they stack forward in the falling wind. Peeling J0 (or FR0?) to MH0.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.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.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.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."Drone shot of TTToP going up wind with competitors in the distance. Then we see the same shot from deck level with Liz grinding. Bianca trimming. Francesca: I think it was a really good night. Good in-port. Now we are really close to Dongfeng and MAPFRE... we are really close. And at this moment of the race the boats are matching speed. "I think it will be a good fight to Newport." Sunrise. Drone shots. Rain in the cockpit. Light wind; Brunel flopping behind them. Hoisting, deploying the MH0. Dee: "We thought we were in pretty stable conditions, and then..." Squall, rain, all the boats are fighting to deal with it. "Have to sail your boat." Stacking forward. Dee: We've had really good races in legs 6 and 7. Talks about losing the podium in final miles in leg 6. Then finished fourth in leg 7. Want to threaten for the podium. Have had one night at sea, and are still in sight of everybody. And that's how this leg goes. Drone shot of competitors ahead and to leeward. Dee and Nicolas at the nav station. Nicolas explains: they're sailing upwind to Cabo Frio. Then doldrums, reaching in North Atlantic tradewinds, then North Atlantic high. Pretty unpredictable. He talks about strategy. Pretty straightforward in the first part of the leg. Don't want to be too close to the Brazilian coast. Fighting in the middle of the fleet.Pre 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.Distant drone shot of AkzoNobel sailing with the sunset behind them. Luke, below: Unfortunately we've just found out that the wind has gotten lighter. We're going to be out here another two days or so. At least we're not neck and neck with another boat. Drone shots of them sailing wiht the MH0 in 10 knots of wind. Nicolai on the helm: To be honest I don't mind too much. I'd rather get in and get some rest, but we shouldn't complain. A lot of people had it a lot worse than we did. We've got through this leg in a really good position; we should be grateful for that.Setting moon behind the clew of the MH0 as TTToP sails on starboard. Camera pans to starboard to show the sunrise. Liz, on the helm: Slowly escaping the little ball of high pressure we've been stuck in. In the last sched MAPFRE was doing 3 knots slower, more stuck in it. On the bow, Bianca looks at a mess. "We've had birds go on the boat, but I think this might be squid ink. A bit of an explosion." Shot looking aft from the end of the bowsprit (go Sam!) as Bianca rigs a furler on the red tack line. Bianca: Unfortunately we got stuck in the high. On the pedestal, Brian talks about their narrow (possible) escape from the clutches of the high pressure. Graphic: What's stuck in everyone's head today? Francesca dances and sings: I'll follow you, deep sea baby... Henry sings, someone (Bianca? Whoever's trimming the main with her face concealed in a balaclava) sings, Francesca sings. Then Bleddyn recites: I'll follow you. Deep sea baby. Title: 743 nm to Itajai.Kyle works on the clew of the MH0 (leech line?) while Alberto helps him. Alberto: Strange feeling now that the next land will be Cape Horn. Talks about going south; cold, big breeze. Abby, with windswept hair, talks about making the most of the sun and warmth while they can. "After a pretty heinous 24 hours of bouncing around." Kyle, in the dusk: Saying good bye to New Zealand. Going to a very remote part of the world. Compass rose closeup. Crew below getting undressed, workin on something in a headlamp. Abby getting doused in the pit. Slomo washing machine. Crash cam from the stern of Thomas being washed off the aft pedestal. Thomas, below, talks in French.Charlie, on the helm: "Let's have a good 7,000 miles, all right?" Stacey cranks a winch in the pit. Behind them are Brunel, TTToP, and Scallywag. We see the start, with someone counting down the last few seconds and AkzoNobel ducking the fleet on port. Charlie: "Geometry's working out." Below, SiFi: talks about having had some trouble clearing the Code 0, but they're getting back into it now. We see the problem: They're sailing downwind under the J1 as they lower the MH0. After, Nick explains what went wrong. "Didn't have enough tack line so it swung back into the tracer line and got wrapped up." Hannah grinding.Charlie, on the helm: "Let's have a good 7,000 miles, all right?" Stacey cranks a winch in the pit. Behind them are Brunel, TTToP, and Scallywag. We see the start, with someone counting down the last few seconds and AkzoNobel ducking the fleet on port. Charlie: "Geometry's working out." Below, SiFi: talks about having had some trouble clearing the Code 0, but they're getting back into it now. We see the problem: They're sailing downwind under the J1 as they lower the MH0. After, Nick explains what went wrong. "Didn't have enough tack line so it swung back into the tracer line and got wrapped up." Hannah grinding.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.Xabi, trimming in light air, talks about the close competition with Dongfeng. Sunset. Xabi talks in Spanish. Pretty drone shots of sunrise with Dongfeng on the horizon. Tacking the MH0 with Dongfeng 2 miles ahead of them. Dongfeng behind them. Crossing Dongfeng a half mile ahead of them. Sunset shots with Dongfeng.Drone shot overtaking Dongfeng, sailing pretty fast, triple-heading with the MH0 on starboard. More drone shots. MAPFRE visible several miles away on their starboard quarter.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.In light winds they sail downwind. Charles calls below to rouse the off watch. Kevin gets dressed, goes on deck. Crew grinding in the cockpit as they peel to the MH0. Marie grinds, wearing a foulie top that says "Liu". Oops. Kevin on the bow lowering the old sail. A competitor (MAPFRE?) is visible ahead of them. Kevin eats. GoPro shot of him removing and clipping into a halyard, then he goes to the clew of the MH0. He attaches a new sheet, checks the leech line, and gives a thumbs up to Marie, who secures his line so he can pull himself back to the deck. "Merci." Below he takes off his foulies and gets back in his bunk.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.Dockout. Brad clasps hands with people on the dock as they pull out. Simeon waves from the wheel. Prestart as they unfurl the MH0. Unzipping the J1 bag. Jules calling time to the start. "Racing with a header." Nicolai, on the wheel: "Racing." Dongfeng astern of them, Brunel (with Scallywag unfurling their MH0 visible beyond) sails down from above and behind them; TTToP and MAPFRE visible beyond them. Brad, looking to weather, calls wind: "Max pressure in 10." Pinching up to lee-bow Scallywag. Furling the MH0 to tack. Simeon in the pit, grinding with Cécille. Cécille with her Kiwi-accented English: "Light patch in 2. Building again in 5." She recaps their good start. Martine bagging the MH0 on the foredeck. Simeon, on the rail, talks about the building wind they'll likely see. He's happy to be leading, but points out they have 6,200 miles to go. Clip cuts off in mid-sentence.Dongfeng docking out at the start of Leg 6. Black waves goodbye to the people on the dock. We see the MH0 being unfurled as Charles steers on the approach to the starting line. AkzoNobel is visible ahead of them and to leeward, the rest of the fleet to weather. Pascal with a tablet in his hand. Jérémie, after the start, looking forward at AkzoNobel and Brunel ahead of them. We see them furling the MH0 for a tack from port to starboard, then unfurling during a tack back to port. Charles: "Nice one." Pascal navigating. Their jumper going over. Kevin standing on the lifelines to do something to the clew of the MH0. Passing the leaving buoy. Later, they prepare to peel to the J1. Daryl: "Put the sheet around the winch." Bagging the lowered MH0 on the foredeck. Charles on the helm, talks about the start. Not so great in terms of their start, but good to have wind in exiting Hong Hong. Now at the back of the fleet. Daryl: "Looking forward to sailing into Auckland. Probably 20 days away. Don't want to get too excited yet." Jack, stacking on the foredeck, says pretty much the same thing. "Long way to go though."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.Crash cam/stern cam night shot. Boat gybes (or I guess the wind suddenly changes direction) such that the MH0 backs from the port side and they lie over with the keel on the wrong side. Bouwe: "Furl, furl, furl!" "I don't have any runner; I've gotta get the keel up." It's a little frustrating that Yann cuts off the crash-cam footage as soon as he does to go to Rome, the next day, describing what happened. "When you're going that fast and you have big sails up it's hard to keep up with it." More of the stern cam footage. Sally, the next day, explains that they came out of it okay, but lost a lot of distance in the process. Night shots with lightning flashes. Rome: "We were pretty close to MAPFRE and AkzoNobel, and we kinda were on the wrong side of that cloud. The other guys got the best of it, but that's part of sailboat racing, I guess." More night shots. Sally describes how they could see the other boats gaining on AIS, but there wasn't really anything they could do based on their position. Night shots of showering in the squall. Rome and Sally recap that, including the tight space in the optimum shower area under the boom.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.Xabi, at the nav station, talks in Spanish about squalls, competition, Solomon Islands. On deck, Rob talks about the wind and the squall; future conditions. Pablo talks on the deck in Spanish about the competition. Closeup of nav computer screen showing the four lead boats all lined up. Shots on deck of fast sailing in a rain squall. Crash cam stern cam footage of Xabi getting washed off hte aft end of the cabin and ending up on the cockpit sole next to the middle pedestal. Hope he's okay. Slomo shots of competitors: AkzoNobel and Dongfeng to port, and Vestas to starboard. Slomo faces in the rain. Low-altitutde drone shots of MAPFRE sailing under full main and MH0.GoPro shot from the masthead. Shot of the instruments on the mast. Looks like they're reaching on port tack in about 10 knots of wind. Nicolai grinds. Clew of the MH0 in the background. Nicolai: explains the strategic situation, how they have to sail upwind. Nicho, on the helm: "Boredom has set in... Question of the watch is how much Nutella gets produced in the world in a year." He's added another question as to annual Vegemite production. Martine and Nicolai discuss Nutella production. Nicolai: "It's been a relatively short leg, but it feels like a long one." Hard because they haven't been near other boats. Nicho says they've learned some things about the boat. Nicolai: Looking forward to land and rest, but mostly to getting a reset to get back with the fleet. Shot of the mainsail looking up.Drone shots of TTToP sailing under MH0 and J3 in light winds. GoPro shot of Liz going to the masthead. At the masthead she holds Wisdom and voices him: "Hi everybody! Volvo... Ocean.. Race... 'm going flying, watch me! They're fixing a sail down there. Look, ther'es another bird. Hi! I'm going back in Liz's pocket now. It's scary up here." Back on deck, Wisdom talks about wanting to really fly. Dolphins under the bowsprit. Jérémie takes video of Liz taking a picture with her phone. On the foredeck, Bianca (?) works on repairing a sail. Martin and Frederico also repairing the sail. Frederico: "On my Finn boat it's just put some duct tape and that's it." Lucas paces in the cockpit. "Long way to Melbourne like this, I'll tell you that. Seven knots. We might be there by NEXT Christmas if we're lucky.... No matter how sloe we go, Christmas keeps getting closer." Nicolas talks about high pressure costing them access to the wind, could be 8 days to Melbourne.Someone (Nicho?) steering. Nicolai at the nav station, flips through a small notebook. "It's been a little bit difficult leg when it comes to the damage on board." Talks about not being able to replace spares in Melbourne, and only having two members of the shore team on the boat. He's going thorugh the list of spares and trying to figure out how to best repair things in Melbourne while still having spares for the leg to Hong Kong. He taps on the keybaord. Someone (Brad?) up the rig in light conditions. GoPro footage from Brad as he goes to the masthead. Head of the MH0, running lights, wind instruments. On the helm, Justin explains that he's doing a rig check, that conditions have eased enough for it to be safe for him to do so. He laughs: "We just had him up there a few days ago in 40 odd knots of breeze." We see him remove the windpoint. On deck, he says the rig is looking fine. Says the windpoint was snapped on day 1 in 40 knots. Nicolai, below, talks about how it's good to have different skills among the crew. "Jules is really good with electronics and nav stuff. Luke is a sailmaker. Simeon and myself can do a lot of boatbuilding and boat work... I think we can have hte boat race-ready pretty quickly when we get to Melbourne."Dongfeng slats in light winds. Carolijn calls as someone else pulls in a line: "3, 2, 1, okay; hold furl." Charles, sitting at a winch, says something about using the "masthead upwind" (MH0?). The crew trims the MH0 in light winds. Charles, holding the main steady by hanging onto a thin cable under the boom, talks about having to cross a ridge, a position in high pressure between two winds. Trying to catch the low pressure in the south. Always difficult. "The wind is very shifty, very light, but we are lucky because the system is moving in the right direction." Drone shot of Dongfeng sailing upwind on starboard under the MH0 with another boat (I think Brunel around 2017.12.11 09:55:35 UTC) behind and to weather of them. As the drone circles htem another boat is barely visible further away behind and to leeward of them; I think that's Scallywag. As the shot continues we see Jack going up the mast. He reaches the masthead and the camera circles him, showing the two boats shown before and then showing another boat ahead of them (MAPFRE, then the lead boat). On deck, Jack explains that in the big winds the day before part of the wind sensor unit at the masthead blew off, so he was up there replacing it. "There's not much wind but we're right into the swell. On deck it feels really flat but when you get up there it's exaggerated by a lot. Feels like you're gonna get thrown off every three seconds. Bear-hugging it the whole time. It's really not fun. Nearly got it done."