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Nav Station

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Charles and Pascal scowl at the computer. Looking at a sched? Charles chews on his neck cowl, rubs his eyes, talks to Pascal in French. Charles goes up, and Pascal moves into his spot. On deck, Horace says, "keep pushing." Carolijn asks about the other boats. Charles explains that the others are closer in mileage, but they have a straight line while the other boats have to gybe. So could be very close.

Xabi, in the cockpit, trims the main and talks in Spanish about tactical situation. Repeats in English: 70 miles to go, very complicated really. Yesterday we were going east down the Danish coast with Dongfeng, but the last weather forecast changed a little, and we decided that the westerly option was better. Unfotunately they are in front of us, and Akzo. Still a good downwind of 30 miles today, but we will keep fighting and see what happens. Brunel and AkzoNobel ahead of them. Joan at the nav station. Blair on the helm. Willy, Sophie, Blair and Neti on the bow. Xabi: Main on. Hold. Blair's salty hands. Two boats closer in front of them.

Pascal rubs his eyes at the nav station. Charles looks on. They talk in French. Pascal: Honestly, for the moment we are far behind, but they have to turn around 40 miles before the finish line and come back. I hope the next wind's on us, a lot. But we will see. It's a bit crazy we have been racing for 9 months and it's only the 40 last miles of the last leg is going to decide who is going to win the Volvo Ocean Race. It's crazy. Charles gets dressed and talks to Pascal in French; something about "a cyclone and we flap flap flap!" He tells Martin: If they get some light pressure we can come back. We win or not in one hour but not two hour (?). Wait and see.

Nicolai on the helm. MAPFRE and Brunel in their wake. Nicho: You're in the lead, but they're so close it's not really. Gotta sail as fast as we can, mode the boat, hopefully that will be enough. But it's going to be on, all day; here we go. Hasn't' been much sleep the last few days. Carlo talks to Jules below: Where's the Dongers? Jules explains how they went inside. "Could pay off for them; could not. Models aren't particularly clear." Nav screen shows them entering the little gap in the exclusion zone. He stands in the hatch and shows Simeon the route on a tablet. Simeon: Pretty good. [He sounds half asleep.] "Good feeling to be in home waters." Shots of Brunel and MAPFRE behind them. Nicho: Stress. You can cut it with a knife back there between those two boats. Still have Dongfeng... not as strong a position tactically, but can't tell. He talks about the exciting day ahead.

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.

Below, Pascal studies the computer, chews his nails. He announces to the cockpit over the PA that in (something) minutes they can furl the J3 (I think?). Marie responds on deck. Pascal: Standby tack. Okay, tacking! We hear the sound of the tack. Chart screen shows the exclusion zone rounding (I think?). Pascal explains being in the new wind, and getting the shift, and being able to go directly to the south. Sleep? I think we are going to sleep well when we arrive in The Hague. But that's life. We have a little bit more than one day until the race is finished. I think it is good that we can go on pushing. And we will see.

Capey at the nav station, chin in hand. Peter sitting below, shirtless, eating and scowling. Closeup computer screen showing their positioon and AkzoNobel's AIS symbol just ahead of them. Pans down to show courses diverging around an exclusion zone. Bouwe on deck explains the traffic separation scheme. Breeze shifted so much that they had to sail down to miss the traffic separation zone. And they'll lose Akzo as well, because they tacked well before. Bouwe: "Can't change it."

TTToP sails a hundred yards away on their port quarter. The boat owner is on the helm again, gripping the wheel like he thinks someone's going to try to take it away from him. Witty at the nav station: Have you realized the boss is the king scallywag of all scallywags? It all flows from the top down. It seems really happy to have him on board for the leg with all we've gone through and stuff. I think we can pass a few boats and get a good result now with him on board. Nav screen showing other boats around them. Witty talks about what's happened in the race with them lately. Still pretty confident. Only a mile between the back four boats. Nothing to get too worried about at the moment; still plenty of passing lanes. One thing the boss did notice, is people just work harder when things get hard. It's a big thing that I'm proud of with this team. We don't give up. Don't throw the towel in and just work harder. Slomo washing machine. Witty talks about the less experienced crew: Pretty big step up for Alex and Nipper, guys like Parko have been fantastic helping them along, teaching them the ropes. Trystan Seal joined us halfway through the race. They're all cut from the same cloth. Bessie is mad as a cut snake (?), the toughest human I know, and the most positive human I know. And a life friend of mine now, for sure. Couldn't be more proud of her. I think she's the only person in 55,000 miles has never said a negative comment, never got angry at me. When you pick people to be part of a team, you judge them on their character before you judge them on their ability. When you go the other way around you might end up with ability, but you don't end up with a team. One thing I've learned you probably can't be all one way, can't be all the other. Probably need to be more in the middle. But the Scallywag family is growing pretty fast, and the boss has plenty of plans, and plenty of boats, and plenty of stuff to do. So I'm sure the guys that are new to the team for this leg will be around for a long time to come. And I'm sure there's going to be plenty more Nippers and Alex's to come along. It's one of the biggest kicks I get out of doing it. Sunset. TTToP sailing ahead and to leeward.

Charles, his eyes closed at the nav station, looks like he's sleeping sitting up. Wake shot with MAPFRE astern. Stu on the helm, looks back. Charles' voice on the PA saying something... Passing a small buoy. Jack on the helm in the sunset. Charles looks to starboard. Below, at the nav station, Kevin talks in French about other boats, the race.

Trystan and Ben go thorugh the food stores in the galley. Trystan: Baby food. Libby at the nav station. They ask her how long on this gybe. Ben: Lots and lots of gybing. Lots of short gybing. Not much sleeping. Slomo washing machine on deck. Ben: Looking back on it in a couple of weeks time sitting on the couch watching Netflix you'll be going you know what, it would be pretty cool to go back out there and send it. Slomo on deck. Gybing in about 25 minutes. Hopefully enough time to have some freeze dry. Slomo on deck. Alex: Whoever gives up earliest. Gotta do what you've gotta do. Slomo washing machine. Since yesterday afternoon it's been nonstop. Slomo washing machine in the pit. Alex: Look fondly on these memories in the future.

Mark explains the current situation. Trying to enjoy the moment, only have about 48 hours more sailing together. Stacking to leeward. Charlie calls and initiates the gybe. Phil rummaging in gear below (or maybe stacking below?). Someone (TJ?) talks with SiFi at the nav station about what other boats have done. Shot out the cabin at the helm while we hear a stack chant.

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 shots of washing machine. Shot from inside the cabin of the cockpit. Mast cam view of the stern. SiFi at nav station: It's a little bumpy at the moment. 35, 36 knots, 80 true. So it's not the comfiest wind angle downstairs, and pretty heinous for the guys on deck. Sailing fast but into the waves. Need to find a little pace to get past the boats around us. [Laughing] I'd much rather be involved in the fight for the podium, although I guess it's nice not to have the stress. You can just watch it unfold. Dongfeng have been struggling a bit. Brunel has really found some wheels and has caught MAPFRE up. It's going to be some fairly nervous hours on those three boats. Spreader cam view of the bow; cabin view of the cockpit. Jena comes below, takes off her foulie jacket, pulls up her headband. Phil comes down below, takes off his gloves. "Best way to deal with (something) is just count down the hours. It's pretty wet and nasty out there. It's not too long to go. Counting down. I thought this was going to be an easy leg. It's not easy. It's shit out. Stern cam/crash cam of a wave slapping off the side of the boat.

Stern cam shot with big wind. Double- (or triple- ?) reefed main. Instrument readout at nav station: TWS 38.4. Trystan, below, gets his foulies on. It is pretty windy. Had about 38 knots last night. Upwind, J3, well, pretty well upwind. Gonna be heinous. Cockpit shot. Trystan: Last day now; difficult to gain miles. But as the wind eases we'll be changing sails, so we'll need to do a good job with that. Entering Gothenburg. Keep it going. Spreader cam view of the cockpit. Trystan talks about sleeping as soon as he gets below. "Love sleep." Antonio: Also lots of rain, and it feels like needles when it hits your eyes. Need eye projection. It's what it is; it's the same for everybody. Bow pounding. Antonio: Should arrive today, this evening. He gets confused about what time it is; laughs. "It doesn't matter. It's daylight all the time."

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.

Slomo of high-wind washing machine forward and in the cockpit. SiFi at nav station: Blasting along doing 24 knots, which is good. Things are going to get trickier in a few hours in the wind shadow of Scotland. Doing poorly in the last 24 hours. Looking forward to slightly less wind at the top of Scotland, chance to catch up, bit of a respite on the way over to the Orkney Islands. Then a kicking in the North Sea. Slomo washing machine shots.

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.

Tamara, next to the stack aft, talks in Spanish. Mentions Dongfeng, light winds, changes, waiting for strong wind. Repeats in English: Now we are in the best position. It was a tough day for the rest of the fleet. Now we have to focus on our work, doing our best. We have a lot of miles, and all the teams want to win the race. And I think we have to work hard to try to keep leading this fleet to the end of the leg. Rob: Crossing the ridge to the west of Ireland was critical. Keeping east of the fleet seems to have worked out. Made a little extension. Now we're just VMGing down toward the Hebrides. Inside or outside; could split the fleet. Neti sleeping. Xabi at the nav station talking to Joan. Pablo on the helm. Blair grinding. Rob below, getting his foulies on. Sophie and Tamara stacking below. Gybe in the cockpit. Stacking in the cockpit. Rob and Joan at the nav station. Rob: Allright; VMG then. Crew in the cockpit. Xabi looking around.

Slomo grinding. Annemieke easing the mainsheet. Witty on helm. Witty at the nav station: Just gybed, heading toward the top of Scotland. Everyone's gybed at the same time. Others are about 25, 30 miles to the west of us. It's anyone's match. In tennis terms it's 2 all, end of the fifth, and started to rain. So the best player with the best wet-weather footwear will win. Slomo grinding. Witty at the nav station: If the meterologist next to me has gybed at the right time we'll win. If she's gybed at the wrong time we'll come last for the third leg in a row. So really it's all on her shoulders. How does that sound? Libby: Bring it on. Witty: Bring it on. See? Scallywag, bring it on, never give up. All good; be positive. Breeze will fill, breeze will head. Scallywag will be first at the top of Scotland and reach into Gothenburg. Slomo shots on deck.

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.

Witty reads off a sched while we see shots on deck: Only 13 miles behind... Should be able to almost see 'em. Witty at the nav station: Tricky transition coming. Hopefully we'll do okay in that. Back in the hunt. 970 miles to go. He sounds tired. Witty: All about the next transition, next 3 hours, 4 hours.

SiFi, with his tablet, calls the course through the upcoming islands. Land. Sunset. Phil: What we're doing? We're interrupting my sleep is what we're doing. A tiny little gap between two islands, we've decided to go through that gap. Nick: We've got this shit. Nick: We're playing it very hard corner, to basically shoot this gap through these islands. If the breeze manages to hold we'll squirt right through, but it's a big call. We see them going through the island. Nick: Jurassic Park. MAPFRE looks like they're a little low; Dongers is short-tacking through. So could potentially be a big gain for us. Then they're sailing in less wind. Nick: Basically Gitane's the only boat that's got us at this point. They sail in lighter conditions. Nick: It's just gone light, and now there's some doubts. Charlie: Little gust here to the right. Lauhs and smiles. Mark: One little puff in 10. Dongfeng on their stern. Mark: Any time you get close to land it's always a little scary. We'll see; Akzo went on the other side of this island. Tony: There's a little gain. Akso's over there. (He points.) Wait and see how Brunel comes out. SiFi, at the nav station: We saved some distance. Brunel went all the way around, Akzo had a light spot. A pretty good move; put us in the lead I guess.

Capey looks at the nav computer, goes thorugh the other boats' positions. Sunrise shot of MAPFRE sailing on their port beam. Alberto talks about the position of the other boats. MAPFRE gaining on us due to some current line, probably. Shot of the old crescent moon.

Sailing upwind in light conditions with MAPFRE, AkzoNobel, and Vestas on their starboard quarter. Stacking in the evening twighlight. Scallywag to leeward. Annalise points out the other boats around them. Dee on the bow: We're kind of like the home team, a lot of people came down to visit, so a busy stopover. Really nice to leave with that kind of energy. Leg is complex. Lots of corners, lots of tidal gates. Pretty busy job for the navigator. Brian at the nav station talks about the course. Brian: Biggest challenge is all the land effects. The weather models are accurate in the oceans, but with land heating up and cooling down it's a little unpredictable. Looking where the fleet is going, where the wind is, where the tide is. Martin on the helm with MAPFRE behind them. Lucas looks at them throgh binoculars. Dee: Still want to be as competitive as possible. Haven't had a good result. Think we deserve it. Have been chipping away at Scallwag. Want to not be at the bottom of the leaderboard by The Hague.

Night shot of the moon. Instruments. Marie trimming, silhouetted by the moon on the water. Kevin, in the galley: 2 hours for the finish line. For the burger it's 5. We have no more food. He talks to Pascal at the nav station in French. Charles: Will it be a good or a bad surprise? Who knows? Pascal reads the sched: windspeed and distance for the boats ahead. Jack does an interview at night on deck: So we are currently t-minus 20 miles from Cardiff. (Marie's voice: Tacking! Tacking!) Jack raises a finger and gets up to help with the tack; Jeremie chuckles. We see them tack the MH0. Jack: It's quite light; quite upwind. But we have the current with us now which is great. Still pretty tedious now, actually. He and Carolijn talk to Jeremie on the bow. Carolijn: Hopefully, Akzo will catch Brunel. Jack: Turn the Tide catch MAPFRE... We're golden. (Carolijn laughs.) Carolijn: Scallywag... Jack: Scallywag roll everyone. Charles with a headlamp talks to Jeremie: Would have been better to be first. But Brunel and Akzo did a better leg than us. Sometimes in the Volvo it's not the best offshore team win the leg, eh? We have seen that in Newport. Jeremie: Maybe you should do more inshore sailing. Charles: Maybe. The Volvo is about the last 20 miles. Pascal: I don't know why but I think there is more wind here. It is more dark. Chuckles. Tacking in the dark.

Pablo talks in Spanish on the weather rail as MAPFRE sails upwind in 10 knots of wind on port. Sounds like he's talking about the competition, the tricky last part of the race. Repeats in English: Finish in Cardiff will be quite tricky for all the boats. A lot of work to windward; we have some chances. We want Dongfeng to be as far back as possible, but it's not something we can control. Have to be fast and do the best we can and wait and see. A little over 100 miles to go. 30 miles to Vestas, so quite a lot of distance. Stacking. Grinding in the runner. Dolphins alongside. Slomo dolphines. Pablo, Joan, and Rob at the nav station looking at a sched. They discuss with Neti in the cockpit. Brunel still leading? Just. Rob: I'm just happy that Dongfeng look less likely to win the leg. Sunset. Drone shots of MAPFRE sailing upwind under MH0 and J3. Such beautiful peaceful shots. Low-altitude drone.

Jules at the nav station: Talks about Brunel, strategy. Stacking below. Jules: They're closing in behind us; we've hit the lighter air first. Dongfeng only 20 miles behind us now. Red light cockpit work. Jules: We'll park up again in another light area ahead of us. Whoever gets the wind first will win the leg, either Brunel or us. Or even Dongfeng if they catch up some more.

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.

Jules at the nav station: Going to come to a grinding halt... Will get a bit of breeze Sunday from the north to get us to the southwest tip of Ireland. And then a very messy situation in the Celtic Sea. Going to take us 2 days to get into Wales, and no obvious way to get in. Might see a restart in the race. But we'll see what hapens. Drone shots of AkzoNobel sailing in lighter conditions under the MH0. Brad: As expected we're sailing in lighter conditions... All these boats are moving in behind us and getting closer. Closer in distance, but should be about the same time-wise. Can see Brunel again; about 6 miles. Keep pushing, through this ridge and out the other side. Drone shot circling AkzoNobel in the sunrise.

Slomo washing machine on deck. TJ on the stern. "Thirty knots of breeze! Trying to go fast!" Jena below, at the galley: "It's tricky. The race? Or holding on? Everything's a little tricky now. We keep trying. And we're still in the game. We need a little more speed... Trying to hold on, and make food." She climbs into her bunk. "See you in three hours." TJ, in the galley, sprays water on his face. Stirs up his food. "Plenty of hot sauce." Plenty of wind, fast sailing. Unfortunately not as fast as we would like. Had the wrong sail combinations up. Ripping now... It's going to get lighter and lighter... Charlie absolutely nailed the meal. Charlie, at the nav station, talks about not wasting propane. TJ: Sleeping is hard. Launching off waves, you can hear the foils cavitating. Nav screen: Sifi talks about the ridge coming up. SiFi: Pretty fast sailing over the past 24 hours. Wind's just starting to moderate now. First time in a few days when the wind has been under 30. Pretty wet, pretty cold, everyone's been getting firehosed on the deck. Charlie looks at the nav screen. SiFi: Looks like at least one boat will do a new Volvo 65 record. Unfortunately it's not going to be us. But we're optimistic; we get to the ridge and can make opportunities. TJ on the stern: Challenge is moving around, eating, trying to sail fast all the time. That's what I enjoy: the challenge.

Simeon, in the pit: For sure Martine is excited, so she can call her father Captain Slow at the dinner table. Also Jules has a nice grin on his face to redo his own record from Ericsson 4. But we just want to be first in to Cardiff. Weather is still a bit challenging... It's great of course to be the fastest in the race, especially in this kind of conditions where we can do it pretty safe, and big compliments to the shore crew to maintain the boat so well, so we have the confidence to put the hammer down. It's pretty cool. It will be hard to win the race overall, but at least we won't be the slowest, hopefully.

Jules at the nav station: In the 2008 race we almost topped 600 miles in the Ericsson 4. That was in the South Atlantic on the first leg. Had a few sail changes. This was more straightforward. This is really good what we've done here. Think we've topped 600 miles... keeps us in the front of the fleet. You always try to line your boat up, but you need so many things to come into line. Had some help from the Gulf Stream in this one. Boat stayed in one piece. On Ericsson we damaged a rudder and started sinking. But in this case the numbers keep coming.

Simeon, in the pit: For sure Martine is excited, so she can call her father Captain Slow at the dinner table. Also Jules has a nice grin on his face to redo his own record from Ericsson 4. But we just want to be first in to Cardiff. Weather is still a bit challenging... It's great of course to be the fastest in the race, especially in this kind of conditions where we can do it pretty safe, and big compliments to the shore crew to maintain the boat so well, so we have the confidence to put the hammer down. It's pretty cool. It will be hard to win the race overall, but at least we won't be the slowest, hopefully.

Jules at the nav station: In the 2008 race we almost topped 600 miles in the Ericsson 4. That was in the South Atlantic on the first leg. Had a few sail changes. This was more straightforward. This is really good what we've done here. Think we've topped 600 miles... keeps us in the front of the fleet. You always try to line your boat up, but you need so many things to come into line. Had some help from the Gulf Stream in this one. Boat stayed in one piece. On Ericsson we damaged a rudder and started sinking. But in this case the numbers keep coming.

Brad, at the nav station, grins and gives a thumbs up. "Beauty! Just got the 24 hour record Just got the confirmation from the boss." Simeon, in his bunk: Let's see if we can get over the 600. Brad talks to Nicho in the cockpit about beating Ericcson's record. "You gotta give me a fist for that." He holds out his fist. Nicho pulls his fist away and they laugh. Nicolai in his bunk: This is what it's about. It's hard and exhausting, and you're tired but it's why you want to do the race. Go as fast as you can for days and days, there's no limits... She's a fast boat, this purple bus. She's got some pace to her. I like it. She's a good boat. It's pretty cool; I didn't know that. It's good news to wake up to. Our main focus is still the leg. Gotta keep ourselves in line for the podium. Helmsperson raises his fist, make a peace sign, then a thumbs up. Martine laughs on the pedestal.

Spreader cam view of the cockpit with crew huddled on the stern. Washin gmachine. Bow cam. Stern cam. Survival mode in the cockpit. Witty on the PA from the nav station. "We were 23 behind Turn the Tide; we're 9 behind now." Still last. He talks with Luke and Libby. Luke: Talks about following the fleet. In two days we're going to run into a ridge and just stop... Trying to decide which sail to run with. It's difficult to change, because we have to slow down to limit the water over the boat. Have to choose which is quicker: Slowing down to be able to make the change, or staying with what you have?

Stern cam, spreader cam shots of sailing fast with massive washing machine. Nick on the face plate: It was pretty fogged up. But I think he needs it. I think we all need it. Slomo washing machine. Nick: We are totally miserable out here. He points out other crewmembers. Not sure where they are right now; picked up a meander in the Gulf Stream, probably. Sea state worsened. Tony on the helm. He gets off the helm, faces aft. Takes off his face shield: "Here you are. Good for nothing." Talks about it being 45, 46 knots of wind. Tony comes below, talks about how his life preserver inflated. "Well, the automatic part works." SiFi at the nav station talks about playing with the Gulf Stream. Helps push them, but also messes up the sea state a little. Pretty cool phenomenon, the Gulf Stream. Apart from saving Europe from being a frozen icy tundra. Also gives us a lot of current to play with when we're racing. Charlie: Because sea surface temperatures all over the world are rising, there's less of a gradient, and the Gulf Stream is flowing slower. Which means it is pulling less water out of places like Chesapeake Bay. Will contribute to sea level rise there over the next 100 years. Slomo of crew falling down in the cockpit. Nick, in the cockpit: We stand here, basically 2 hours at a time, getting the [blee] beat out of us, all for a freeze-dried meal.

Slomo washing machine. Slomo of Nicolai's face with red eyes. Nicolai below: It's fast and furious these two or three days now. running and reaching with big sails. Brunel is doing it the same. Are pushing it. Full on. Driving is a little bit hard, and your eyes are bleeding every time you go off watch. But that's part of it, it's good fun. The faster the better and the more fun it is. Hopefully one more day of fast sailing before the wind drops off. Slomo washing machine. Nicolai: Currently sitting in second, fighting with Brunel. And it's the same on the leader board. They're not going to give up and neither are we. Footage from the stern cam, mast cam looking forward, spreader cam looking at the cockpit, as they sail fast. Nicolai takes his clothes off below. Nicolai: It's pretty heinous on board. It's actually worse down here than it is up there. You don't want to walk around; you'll get hurt. Get some food and jump in your bunk pretty quickly. Nicolai eating, getting in his bunk. Simeon at the nav station: Everyone is in some good breeze. Last 6 hours we did 147 miles. So that's pretty big for these boats. We're going pretty well; had some current with us that helps a bit. At the moment the boatspeed doesn't drop below 24 knots. This is the last chance in the race. After Cardiff won't be doing this. Nav station.

Witty and Trystan at the nav station. They talk about the sched due in a half hour. Witty reads the sched over the PA. Annemieke and Ben grinding in the cockpit. Spreader cam view of washing machine. Nav station with boat tracks. Libby: Quite a big split in the fleet for quite long, which is quite unusual. She talks about holding onto the frontal system longer than they thought they should. The cowboy in me would have gybed at 8 this morning, but I resisted. But I'll probably gybe in the next hour. And it will be interesting to see how everyone manages to wiggle through the area of light winds.

Peter and Capey talk at the nav station. Capey rubs his eyes. Peter: We were just discussing the plan for the next two days. We just need to sail slightly quicker than the other guys for that period of time. There's a big low forming to the west of us, giving us some nice downwind conditions. Just deciding what sail configuration we're most likely to run. Also a good chance of a 24-hour speed run for the race. Should be interesting. How to best get through it, making our lives nice and easy... Same concerns as everyone else: Going from the quickest portion of the race to pretty slow, where everyone can see each other again. Then light upwind to the end. If you can get a small lead, can probably protect it. Go quicker than the boats behind us here, and get over the top of Dongfeng, and then protect the lead into Cardiff.

Pablo, on the stern, talks in Spanish about the current situation with the northern and southern boats. He repeats in English: Last few days quite intense. Some boats went south and some went north, and now we're converging. In the last few scheds we gained quite a few miles. Hope that continues. In one day and a half we'll converge completely, hopefully in front, but even behind as long as we're close and can keep fighting. Blair, trimming the main: Heading toward the ice gate. Dongfeng 30 miles ahead of them. Did well against them in the last sched. And that pack that rode the front a day longer than we did. We've done well against them for the past few scheds; now they've got the breeze. So... play on. Sophie on the pedestal in her cold-weather gear. Sailing fast. Slomo washing machine. Joan, at the nav statio, reads a sched in Spanish. Stern cam and spreader cam views of them sailing fast with a double-reefed (triple-reefed?) main. Spreader cam view of the foredeck.

Washing machine from the hatch. Jules looks out. He talks to the sailors in the cockpit about the routing, strategy with respect to other boats. He talks to Brad below. They're discussing when to gybe onto starboard. He looks at a sched. Brad explains: We're gybing. Vestas is heading north, for the shift, so we want to do the same thing. So it's a rush gybe. We see the gybe through the hatch. Jules at the nav station talks strategy while Nicolai and Martine stack below. Nicho: We'd been on about a 250 wind direction now for a day. But beyond that, we want to stick with Vestas and Brunel. Pretty sure all of us are pretty comfortable on this gybe. Should head down, and then tack over, get set up for some more breeze in a couple of days. Washing machine. Nicho: Going to be a couple days of decent breeze and fast running. Both Vestas and Brunel are very good at that. Brunel maybe the best in the fleet at J0 reaching. And then light air at the end; it's going to be quite a problem.

Jules at the nav station talks with Simeon about stragy. They tack in the dark. I think we actually see the tack from a nighttime drone shot. High drone shot of them sailing. Brad, in the morning: Busy night last night, lot of tacks. They're neck and neck with Vestas. We're on J0, they're on J1. We see Vestas to port. Brad: Always good to have a boat next to you. Sunrise. Drone shots. Brad: Next 12 hours we should get a lift. Should get another sail in and start triple-heading. Drone shot showing both boats.

SiFi at the nav station says they've finally punched through the front. And as expected on the other side things are more complicated. Doing tacking, having a bit of a battle with Akzo, and Brunel on the horizon. Hopefully we can get going north properly now.

High drone shot of Dongfeng sailing in light winds. Low drone shot. Kevin on the helm: We know we have two groups of boats. One going south in front of the front. Three of us who have gybed. Now we know that the ones who stayed in front of the front are doing better than us. Now we're working hard. We took this position; we'll see. Pascal and Stu argue about effects of current if they bear away or not. Marie and Kevin talking. Horace: Last night was a bad dream. We almost stopped in the ocean. He looks up at the main. "More mainsheet?" Kevin driving. Stu: I find there's nothing productive in getting upset about stuff you can't control. For example, the other guys who are cruising off, with a nice breeze, there's nothing we can do about that at the moment. The best we can do is to sail well with the wind we have. As long as we're doing well with the boats around us, that's all we can do. Might end up a day behind, but it won't be through lack of trying. Marie talks in French. Nav station: Pascal looks at routing. Closeup of a winch grinding. Another boat a few miles away ahead and to leeward: Looks like TTToP (yup; tracker confirms). HIgh drone shot.

Tony cleans a dish in the galley. He explains that it's the lasagna dish, which is the messiest because of the cheese that sticks in the bottom. He mentions that he owns the 24-hour monohull record and the transatlantic monohull record from sailing Comanche. Charlie puts his boots on. SiFi at the nav station. Charlie and he look at how they're doing against AkzoNobel, which makes them happy. Charlie talks about doing a fair amount of trans-Atlantic racing in the past few years. In the cockpit, we hear SiFi read the latest sched. He starts with the most exciting news: Dongfeng, MAPFRE, and Dee are all in 5-7 knots. Nick: That's so disappointing; I feel so terrible for them. Mark talks about having done two previous transatlantic crossings with this team. He points out AkzoNobel about a mile to leeward. Is actually the 6th transatlantic this boat has done; he's done all of them with Charlie and Nick. Tony, he says, has done 17 transatlantics. Tony, below: I reckon I've done the transatlantic this way 16 times. Every time is different. I'm still looking for the perfect crossing, but I think I've already had it on Comanche. We see him finishing his dishwashing.

SiFi at the nav station: A day and a half, and still on the front that we expected to drop off the first night. If you gybe north too soon you lose wind, if you gybe too late you sail too much extra distance. Got Akzo a couple of miles behind. 50 miles inside us we've got Brunel. And about 40 miles behind is Scallywag. A couple of hundred miles to the northwest we've got MAPFRE, Dongfeng, and Turn the Tide. At the moment it looks pretty good (down here), but we'll have to see.

Pascal at the nav station blinks at the computer. Crew on deck in the dark with red headlamps. Flopping. Charles looks at the computer with Pascal watching from behind. Chart shows boat position surrounded by Gulf Stream. Pascal looks frustrated.

Neti, on the aft pedestal, talks in Spanish. Blair: Sailed well through the night. Dongfeng pulled away from us in the reaching conditions. Just got the sched, Dongfeng is 30 miles away. Rest of the fleet didn't come with us. Massive split. It's a little bit of a worry that Brunel has got separation from us. Because we did well we got further to leeward, and got out of the breeze and gybed. Just one of those things; you've gotta sail the wind you've got. Joan at the nav station, talking to Xabi about when to gybe. Pablo sleeping sitting up. Gybe on deck with Neti and Willy grinding. Stacking. Joan and Rob talking. Rob on the helm. Slomo washing machine. Drone shots of surfing with clouds. Super low-altitude drone shot from just in front of the bow.

Pretty sunset behind Marie. Someoen sneezes below. Nav station with computer screen. Pascal: Don't want to change the way you sail because double points. You always want to sail the best you can. He talks about different routing options. "It is not easy to choose." No special plan for us. The plan is to sail well. That's it. He talks about doing the crossing in 2009, not the same boat, 3 days 15 hours. Last leg we were leading the fleet and finished fourth. I don't think about the finish of the last leg. I focus on the finish of this leg in a few days. It's enough. He talks about the ridge coming up, restarts, complicated choices. Pascal in the nav station. Stu on the helm with the sunset behind him. Fish-eye lens view of the sunset, the wake.

Drone shot of AzkoNobel triple-heading under gray skies. Slomo washing machine in the cockpit. Martine gets doused at the pedestal. Below, Nicho, Jules, and Simeon look at weather models on the computer. Jules: Mixed bag performance wise. Had some good spells and some not so good spells. Crossed a bit of the Gulf Stream. Radar, AIS; he was short on sleep all night. Drone shot. Spray by the shrouds. Simeon getting greared up below. Some good moments, some difficult moments. Keep the hammer on. Nicho takes slomo spray. Major whitewater near the mast looking aft. This is when the boats are most powerful. Jules at the nav station looks at routing. "Still a long way to go, changing conditions. The forecasts not really lining up." More slomo washing machine, drone shot of AkzoNobel surfing.

Drone shots of Dongfeng triple-heading. Jack, below: Always hard before the start because you want to leave. And then the first days are hard because you can't sleep. But good to get away. Very important leg for us. Going to push all the way to Cardiff. Gybe in the cockpit. More drone shots. Carolijn: Always knew this was going to be an important leg. Our speed was good overnight. Made some good decisions. If we can just keep doing that, and being smarter and faster than our opponents... Now that we're in front just have to stay in front. Pascal at the nav station. Night shots of the deck. Carolijn pulling a sheet, looking tired. Marie comes below. Marie on deck: It's always good to be first. Horace: We see after a few days who has made a good decision... Main on! Stu: Right now the goal is to sail around 55 to 60, fast. Not lower than 60. Below, Pascal sits in the nav station talking to Stu. "You cannot see without your contact?" Stu shakes his head. High drone shot.

Jules, from below, tells the helmsman what course to steer. (Sounds like they're skirting the exclusion zone in the fog.) Sail change in spray on the foredeck. Foggy wake. Dark below. Nav station, the sound of the hydraulic pump. Luke talks about the sun coming up. Still foggy, but not as thick. Probably 4th. Target is to try to win the leg and win maximum points. Nicho: Not quite in touch with the leaders as we needed to be at this stage. The two red boats have got some fast modes. Brad talks about Brunel. Nicho: Low coming with wind up to 40 knots... We're in the front of B grade at the moment. We need to step it up and get to A grade again.

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.

We see instruments in the nav station. VHF on channel 77, GPS with the position and time (position is just off Fort Adams in the entrance to Narragansett Bay). Xabi says they're leaving newport, telephone off, and the phone goes in a sealed plastic box. Ah, apparently this is official "I sealed my phone at this time and place" documentation.

Libby and Witty at the nav station. Peter watches. Sched. People smiling. Everyone is looking forward to the leg being over, it looks like. Ben: Expecting the pressure to build. 30 plus knots. We'll be reaching into Newport in the early hours of the 8th. Slomo washing machine with crew smiling at the back of the boat. Sunrise with crepuscular ray.

Flopping in foggy conditions. Another boat's red light (maybe?) in the fog. Instruments: going 3.3 knots. Slatting mainsail in the night. Pascal at the nav station. Moon in the fog. A flashing red light on a buoy. MAPFRE, illuminated by a powerboat spotlight. Morning: Kevin explains that arriving at the TSS they were first. And now we are fourth. Fourth. Behind Vestas. (He sounds devastated.) But nothing is done. Nothing is done. Carolijn: It does happen a lot, actually. The classic one... in Lisbon, similar situation, where the boats in front stop, and the boats behind come in with the breeze and just drift past you. Finishes like this, in a drifter, are always a little bit hard. But it happens in yacht racing, and you have to deal with it. Instruments: 0.3 knots. Flopping in the fog. A slack-hosited J1 flops. Carolijn: Which way is the finish? Over there? Here we go. Charles scowls. Pascal looks at his tablet. Crew sits motionless on the bow.

Pascal and Charles at the nav station. Looking at the chart, the other boats' positions. Charles explains they are passing the TSS; then 18 miles to go. Big fight for the next 4 hours. Can be a big mess. It's in the night and foggy. (He sounds really tired.) Pascal looking at the computer. Pascal: The difference after the strong wind we tried to sail with (something) in a very light condition. The goal was to sail north to catch the new wind. We were faster all the time compared to the fleet. That's why we arrived to be first now. And the only thing we can say is that the wind condition through the finish is very light. Around 5, 4, maybe 3, 2 knots. Going to try to do the best we can as to the finish line and finger crossed. Pascal gets more clothes on. Charles goes on deck. Instruments at night.

Drone circling Dongfeng in light wind and fog with the MH0. Daryl talks about being pushed off the wheel by a wave. Ended up being fully blown off the wheel. No one driving the boat doing 30 knots, which is fun. Managed to avoid a wipeout. Night shots of light winds. Crew working in the dark with red lights. Jack, talking about the big night: It was ridiculous. Lot of water over the deck. Everyone's pretty wrecked this morning. I don't think anyone slept. Bit weird to be sitting her at 4 knots. Pascal and Daryl look at the computer. Pascal talks about Turn the Tide (presumably about them going around the west side of the exclusion zone). J1 flopping in light wind. Charles looking tired. Everyone looking tired. Marie below, eating. Stu, below, eating: Last night would have to be the wettest sailing I've ever done. Pitch black, no moon, no stars, no reference. In the last sched we were doing 1 knot, and Vestas was doing 20 knots more than us. Jack: We were basically the first to get to the light winds. Should have a better angle to Newport, but who knows? Charles on deck. Everyone looking a bit out of kilter. Carolijn: Seems to be a little pressure here. Charles squints at the foggy horizon.

Xabi, in the cockpit talks in Spanish. Wind is about 12 knots. Talks about Turn the Tide and AkzoNobel, the approach to Newport. Repeats in Spanish: The last 24 hours we knew would be very tricky. Last night had winds up to 35 knots downwind. Now we've passed the front and we're going upwind with 7 or 8 knots. Going to be a compression. Managed to pass Turn the Tide, and made some distance as well with AkzoNobel. Are now 8 miles from Vestas. Still some hope. A lot can happen. Crew stacks to leeward in anticipation of a tack. Working the jury-rigged keel turing the tack. Joan, Xabi, and Neti clustered over the nav station, talking in Spanish. Washing machine from the cabin looking aft. Rob on the helm; Xabi on the pedestal. As it gets dark, wind is lighter, Rob looks to starboard through binoculars. Willy forward for a sail change. Looks like going from MH0 to J0 or vice versa.

Drone shot from close astern as Brunel surfs fast. At nav station, Peter talks about how they got screwed by a couple of clouds. Shows sattelite image. "Probably should keep compressing the whole way into the high." Pretty shify and tricky. He shows the routing and zooms in. "Doesn't look like it's going to get much easier; looks like a pretty good park up at the end. Hopefully have a few miles up our sleeves at that point." Drone shot low ahead as they surf. Capey bailing below in a Movistar shirt. Sam asks him the trick. He explains it's just like helming; you have to work with the waves. But it doesn't make as much difference. Sam: What do you have to say about Kyle Langford. Capey: He's the man. Used to the boy. Sam: How was he when he first came to you. Capey: Young champion. Young and dumb. Capey moves gingerly aft to the nav station. Bouwe: Last couple of scheds were not so good. That's what we expected sailing towards the high. Doing relatively well against Vestas and Dongfeng. (sound issues) Capey, at the nav station: We've gained a little bit back. Kyle, at nav station in the dark: Just got the sched, gained a little against Dongfeng. Surfing shot on deck. Abby: Currently got 20 knots of breeze, and we're sending it. Over there (gestures to port) is a big sucker cloud. We're hoping that Dongfeng is in that cloud doing 2 knots rather than 20 knots. We see a broach to clear weed. Drone following them into the sunset. Flies in and Kyle catches it, grins at the camera.

Cockpit, Slomo washing machine. Below, Charlie and Mark talk about how they went to Brown U., but they only slightly overlapped (Charlie was older). We lived in the same house, but not at the same time. Mark: We were both far too big to be sailing small boats. Charlie talks about doing poorly at nationals. Mark talks about going to the unveiling of a new sailing center. Mark talks about pollution in the Providence River. "I would never eat shellfish from the Providence River... That's all the questions." SiFi on the helm. SiFi below: In our third day of sailing through the tradewinds. And then all the action in this leg is going to happen at the end. Going to get lifted and have to pick our moment to gybe out of the high pressure. Main competition is further west. They have better pressure, but we might get the shift first. Can hopefully come out ahead of Dongfeng and maybe Brunel. He shows the computer screen with the competitors on it, and follows the routing north to where they're going to need to gybe near Bermuda. Slomo shot of the weather rudder, the stern with the US flag and horizon.

Libby continues explaining how she conveys sched info. There are people who want to know, so you can't not tell them. And it kind of breaks the day up. It's kind of the "news of the day". Peter: Happy birthday, we're the fastest boat in the fleet now. Computer screen. Libby and Bessie at the nav station.

Libby at the nav station, reads the sched over the PA. Something about asking them to do fewer "wind checks"? Computer screen. Weather software. Libby explains the every-six-hours sched. Managing expectations, and how you share the information. I'm looking at the routings, so I always know what's coming. But the rest of the crew doesn't know that, and so if they take a loss they wonder have we been sailing badly?

Spreader cam shot of cockpit. Dee, at the nav station, looks at the latest sched, and annouces it via PA to the cockpit. Dongfeng 3 miles ahead. Brunel 13 miles head. Skua flies over the boat. Martin, below: disappointment after the bad sched. Gives us motivation to keep tweaking the boat, and find some speed. Endless tweaking. Bianca talks about Liz being good about tweaking. Liz trims. Liz, below: I'm restless. Can't keep still. You think something could be better. Liz: Smallest thing you can tweak? Tack on a staysail. Taht's getting pretty anal when you start tweaking that. Shot of the skua overhead.

Sailing under clouds. Rain dripping on TJ under the boam. Heavy rainfall, something brown in the water (Sargasso weed?). Stacey grinning in rain under the boam. TJ, on the bow, talks about the light conditions, wanting to go a little faster. Jena and Tony grinding. Skua overhead. Gybing the MH0 from port to starboard. Watching a whale to starboard. They sail through a big patch of sargasso. SiFi talks about it. SiFi, at the nav station, reads out the latest sched over the PA. They're in fourth, behind Dee, Brunel, and AkzoNobel. Mark: Just crossed the equator into the northern hemisphere. Talks about the sargasso weed. Accumulates on the foils. Just have to deal with it.

Charles, in the pit, gives a thumbs up in the rain. He talks in French. Marie talks in French. She washes her hair. Jeremie asks: This is your first shower in one week? Marie: Eh, I had a little one. Jack talks about 7 days without a shower. "A good fragrance within the boat. From all the crew. Perfect 25.5 degrees water temperature. Couldn't ask for more." Jeremie, to Stu on the helm: Having fun yet? Stu: Oh, I love this. Pascal at the nav station, talks about trying to find the way across the doldrums. Not easy. More rain on deck.

Nicolas looks concerned. Maneuver in twilight. Stacking forward. Nicolas: Because the wind is a bit different than expected, we are going to see Vestas. Vestas has just gybed, probably because they can see Dongfeng and Dongfeng has gybed. So now we've gybed. Nicolas looks through binoculars. Nicolas, below, talks about the achievement, racing big boats around the world. Enjoying the moment. Sailing at night. Moon above the mast. Drone shot of TTToP gybing from port to starboard with Vestas ahead of them. Drone shot of them sailing on starboard with Vestas to leeward. Liz rubs her face: A really annoying blue boat catching up. And a really annoying red boat [Dongfeng] catching up. And a really annoying yellow boat [Brunel]. Liz talks about Nicolas being a one-design racer, and his French humor. Nicolas: We had quite a hard night... Lost a lot to Vestas, Dongfeng, and Brunel. But now everyone is within a few miles. It's a bit of a mess with the wind; there are clouds everywhere. Wind very different than expected. I try to understand what's happening now, and what's going to happen in the next hours. Nicolas at nav station. Nicolas talks a below about French sailing culture versus the rest of the world.

Capey at the nav station. He comes on deck, reports on the competition to Peter. Sam: What's the concern, Pete? Peter: Capey's our navigator. He's very experienced. It was his tenth time around the Horn. Does an incredible job on the charts, keeping us safe. (Capey pees off the transom in the background, then moves gingerly around with an obviously painful back issue.) Peter tries to engage him in the story; Capey's not having any of it. Just talks about the race. Bouwe: I think he's one of the best in the world. And we just have that mutual understanding. It's straightforward. You have a plan, and you execute the plan. I think that's why I like to sail with him. Abby comes up and does a Capey impression. "It's that itme of day and I'm coming through." She goes to the stern to mime pooping. A funky yellow fishing boat comes by: Drone shots from close aboard as they haul pots. Carlo: I had wet boots in the Southern Ocean, and this nail, for some reason, is starting to fall off. He shows his left big toe, which looks kind of scary and discolored. Carlo: Capey says we're driving in about two hours. Have Akzo to windward. Need to put a second sheet on the masthead zero. We see from the drone as Nina puts the sheet on. Bouwe talks about a big cloud, and how it affects the wind. He explains that they'll probably gain some on Akzo due to the cloud. "Very often the luck of the draw is involved in it." Drone shot of hte stern, bow, and barbecue on the aft deck of a big container ship: "Shanghai Highway". Crew of the ship waves and jumps up and down. Kyle, in the sunset: Had a lovely day today. Sam had the drone over a container ship where they were having a lovely barbecue. Nina: I feel like Kyle has his Saturday best on. "It's a good day for Kyle; maybe not for us." Beautiful sunset clouds, slomo with moon.

Neti talks in Spanish as they sail in 15 knots of wind on starboard tack. He then repeats in English: After a shitty night, they got stuck in bad wind. Have been losing the whole day. Hopefully we can catch up again. It's been a hard day for us. But it's what it is. Lost so many miles in 15 hours. We knew that Turn the Tide on Plastic was well positioned. We didn't expect to lose as much with Dongfeng and Vestas... Have to keep pushing and not give up. Cannot say we are happy with what happened last night. But we push, and we're here for racing. Shot looking forwar as they sail faster than they have been. Blair grimaces into the camera. Joan comes up and gives the latest sched. Willy trimming. Smiles. Joan and Blair at the nav station.

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.

Cool drone shot with low sun behind Vestas. Mark in the pit. SiFi and Charlie at the nav station. SiFi talks about being able to do well with a cloud against the fleet. Partly by luck, he says, they and Turn the Tide got to the east and slipped ahead. It's all about trying to get to the east. So now we're back on port tack, heading slightly south of east. TJ looks at computer with SiFi as he reads off the sched and explains the strategy. TJ: Yeah, it's all good. Good number; heading back on port. Set up nicely for the big long one, heading north. Drone shot from astern with Tony on the helm. Drone shot circling the boat. Sunset. Cool crew shots. I really like Martin's use of long lenses.

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.

Time lapse below of Martine (I think?) getting into her bunk. Simeon at the nav station: Whole fleet is close to each other; 4 or 5 miles. Increase of wind in the night, but very unstable. Pretty busy on deck. Sails on/sails off. At the moment we're making good progress. Probably will tack in the next couple of hours, whenever Jules is happy.

Whole video is a single web-cam shot of Bouwe doing an interview in English with a French-accented (I think?) journalist. Bouwe talks about the remainder of the leg, the pitfalls, match racing wth Dongfeng to the finish, how winning this leg would change the whole complexion of the scoreboard for them, and how the difficulty of this leg compares with his previous 7 Volvos. But the wind going aft and staying strong through virtually the entire leg means it's over that much sooner.

Blair, sitting on deck in light winds, talks about how their goal for the rest of this leg is catching TTToP. Talks about high pressure ridge, and they got further away, unfortunately. Sailing upwind. Not good for them. Going to try to analyze and look for an opportunity later on. Sunrise shot. Trimming. Joan looking at the chart. Joan talking with Rob (I think) in the cockpit about their prospects for catching TTToP.

Jules, at the nav station, talks about the wind and confused sea state. Spreader cam views of washing machine on deck. Crash cam view of Nicho (based on his foulies lettering) getting washed off the helm by a wave. Below, Brad talks to Nicolai about his nose; Nicolai says he's broken it before, then pushes it back into place. Nicolai, below, talks about getting beaten up by the waves. He broke his nose last night. But nothing too serious. Jules and Simeon at the nav station talk about strategy. Nicho: Got washed off the wheel. First one I've had. Held on tight. I had two tethers on, just got washed back on my ass on the boat. Crash cam footage of the washing off again. Jules: We've also slowed down a bit. TTToP slowed down a bit due to rig issues, and Vestas has just been dismasted in this same area. Standing by... Simeon: Especially for Vestas, a tough time for those guys. Jules: At the moment hard to go max speed because of the sea state, and fear of breaking the boat. Talks about the upcoming route. A bit of a tradeoff; trying to get north as quickly as they can but also as safely as they can.

Fast wake shot. View forward as they stuff the bow. Fast surfing shot looking aft at massive waves. More shots of epic big-wave surfing. Brian, in the companionway: "I've got my skis, poles, boots; I'm just gonna go out now. Snows up. Should be perfect powder. Southern Ocean... I'm gonna go enjoy it." Slomo of stern as snow falls. Spreader cam view of washing machine in the cockpit. Dee and Brian at the nav station talking strategy. Brian jokes about the motion: "Hang on in the underground train." He explains to Sam: They're less than 2 days from Cape Horn. Have to do 2 more gybes to get to Cape Horn. Critical to get the timing of the gybes right. Very shifty winds, both direction and speed. Are in a good position in the fleet; need to get to Cape Horn in good position. Not time to go crazy and break the boat trying to get first to Cape Horn, because Brunel's going to be first to Cape Horn.

Sailing fast in sunny conditions. Washing machine. Wake, with another boat directly astern. Carolijn (I think) points and waves to them. From the tracker I suspect it's Vestas. Marie and Jeremie, below, get geared up. Kevin eats. Horace looks at something on the computer. He explains: Looking for other competitors' boatspeed, and next 24 hours what we're going to do. Looks like in 4 - 6 hours we'll be gybing, and after that will be a busy night. Arriving at Cape Horn on the 29th. Bow cam looking aft as they surf. Stern cam as they stuff the bow. Washing machine. Spreader cam view of the cockpit. Crewmember going forward grabs on to avoid being washed back by a wave. Pascal and Kevin at the nav area.

Sailing fast in sunny conditions. Washing machine. Wake, with another boat directly astern. Carolijn (I think) points and waves to them. From the tracker I suspect it's Vestas. Marie and Jeremie, below, get geared up. Kevin eats. Horace looks at something on the computer. He explains: Looking for other competitors' boatspeed, and next 24 hours what we're going to do. Looks like in 4 - 6 hours we'll be gybing, and after that will be a busy night. Arriving at Cape Horn on the 29th. Bow cam looking aft as they surf. Stern cam as they stuff the bow. Washing machine. Spreader cam view of the cockpit. Crewmember going forward grabs on to avoid being washed back by a wave. Pascal and Kevin at the nav area.

Slomo washing machine in the cockpit. Mark, below, talks about how they're approaching Point Nemo. Halfway between New Zealand and Cape Horn, closest humans on the space station, yada yada. (Sorry. I've heard that bit a lot.) Compass. Washing machine. Hannah: I thought it would feel more remote... Pretty cool that all the boats are so close together. SiFi at the nav station. "Probably one of the world's most remote and inhospitable places. Except that at the moment there's the 10 of us on a 65-foot boat and 6 other boats." Epic drone shots of Vestas surfing in big waves; way high/distant drone shot emphasizing how tiny they are. Mark, below: Talks about how the other boats will come to their aid in an emergency, and that's comforting. Sunset slomo washing machine shots. TJ: "I don't know about Point Nemo; sounds like a long way away from Cape Horn. I want to get there right now." Nick: "The fish named Nemo could not live there, because it's too cold." Favoriting mostly for those drone shots.

Drone shots of Brunel sailing under FR0 and full main. Crew gearing up below. Abby sorting through some gear, putting drops in her eyes. She talks about how everything is wet below, with condensation dripping. "Everything is a challenge." Nina in her bunk with a headlamp. Condensation close up. Thomas takes his gloves off, flexes his hand. At the nav station, Bouwe talks about the dangers of the boat making a sudden stop. He talks about how it's easier for the boys to have a peeing bottle; "for the girls every time they have to go to the toilet. Take their gear off. We just take our willy out and it's easy." Sunset on deck. Peter eating below. Bouwe talks about all the layers of clothing you need to put on.

Slomo washing machine in the cockpit. Mark, below, talks about how they're approaching Point Nemo. Halfway between New Zealand and Cape Horn, closest humans on the space station, yada yada. (Sorry. I've heard that bit a lot.) Compass. Washing machine. Hannah: I thought it would feel more remote... Pretty cool that all the boats are so close together. SiFi at the nav station. "Probably one of the world's most remote and inhospitable places. Except that at the moment there's the 10 of us on a 65-foot boat and 6 other boats." Epic drone shots of Vestas surfing in big waves; way high/distant drone shot emphasizing how tiny they are. Mark, below: Talks about how the other boats will come to their aid in an emergency, and that's comforting. Sunset slomo washing machine shots. TJ: "I don't know about Point Nemo; sounds like a long way away from Cape Horn. I want to get there right now." Nick: "The fish named Nemo could not live there, because it's too cold." Favoriting mostly for those drone shots.

Drone shots of Brunel sailing under FR0 and full main. Crew gearing up below. Abby sorting through some gear, putting drops in her eyes. She talks about how everything is wet below, with condensation dripping. "Everything is a challenge." Nina in her bunk with a headlamp. Condensation close up. Thomas takes his gloves off, flexes his hand. At the nav station, Bouwe talks about the dangers of the boat making a sudden stop. He talks about how it's easier for the boys to have a peeing bottle; "for the girls every time they have to go to the toilet. Take their gear off. We just take our willy out and it's easy." Sunset on deck. Peter eating below. Bouwe talks about all the layers of clothing you need to put on.

Spreader cam view of AkzoNobel surfing and stuffing the bow. Below, Simeon recaps the last 48 hours; busy, gybing, changing sails. 2000 miles to Cape Horn. Point Nemo. Brad: Talks about Point Nemo and the space station. Simeon: What to ask the astronaughts on the space station? Emily wonders if it's easier to go to the toilet on the space station than it is on a Volvo boat. Luke: Jealous. Their stacking technique must be far superior to ours. Simeon: what they have for dinner. Nicolas: They go to the toilet like we do, they eat freeze-dried like we do, they don't sleep much, have a pretty cool view. So I pretty much see myself as an astronaut these days. Simeon: Must be a pretty impressive view. We have an impressive view of the ocean, and of the stars when the clouds let them through. But their view must be even better. Stern cam view of Martine on the pedestal as they surf.

$Charles, at nav station: In 30 hours we'll enter very strong conditions. Can't carry the fractional in those conditions, so will need to work out good sail combination. Goal is not to break the boat. A very tough leg. Strong wind, and full downwind with many gybes. I do have stress of course. Because you have the responsibility of the people and the boat. But you still want to fight for the first place. It's a balance between speed and safety. When we have 40 knots we know what sail to use. But then we have a gust to 55, and we have to react. But that's part of the Volvo Ocean Race. Horace talks below in Mandarin. Pascal, at nav station, talks in French while demonstrating something involving chart/routing software.$

Spreader cam view of AkzoNobel surfing and stuffing the bow. Below, Simeon recaps the last 48 hours; busy, gybing, changing sails. 2000 miles to Cape Horn. Point Nemo. Brad: Talks about Point Nemo and the space station. Simeon: What to ask the astronaughts on the space station? Emily wonders if it's easier to go to the toilet on the space station than it is on a Volvo boat. Luke: Jealous. Their stacking technique must be far superior to ours. Simeon: what they have for dinner. Nicolas: They go to the toilet like we do, they eat freeze-dried like we do, they don't sleep much, have a pretty cool view. So I pretty much see myself as an astronaut these days. Simeon: Must be a pretty impressive view. We have an impressive view of the ocean, and of the stars when the clouds let them through. But their view must be even better. Stern cam view of Martine on the pedestal as they surf.

$Charles, at nav station: In 30 hours we'll enter very strong conditions. Can't carry the fractional in those conditions, so will need to work out good sail combination. Goal is not to break the boat. A very tough leg. Strong wind, and full downwind with many gybes. I do have stress of course. Because you have the responsibility of the people and the boat. But you still want to fight for the first place. It's a balance between speed and safety. When we have 40 knots we know what sail to use. But then we have a gust to 55, and we have to react. But that's part of the Volvo Ocean Race. Horace talks below in Mandarin. Pascal, at nav station, talks in French while demonstrating something involving chart/routing software.$

SiFi and Charlie at the nav station. SiFi explains about the ice gates. Whether they're getting better at measuring them, or the ice is further north, they seem to have less room to race in each time. Charlie discusses the question of whether the ice limit being farther north means it's warmer or colder. Charlie mentions the Truman Show; they can sail under the wall. SiFi: A lot more navigation to be done, and a lot more physical with all the gybes. But also creates more tactical opportunities. Can be both good and bad. Shots of someone steering (Tony?). Washing machine. Someone (Charlie?) kisses the camera lens. Tony on the helm. SiFi at the nav station; computer screen with ice limit and wind model shown.

Spreader cam view of AkzoNobel triple-heading. Bow cam view looking aft. Someone (Martine?) looking forward through binoculars, presumably at a competitor. Shot forward from behind the wheel of washing machine and a competitor crossing ahead of them (Dongfeng). Nicolai, standing on the stern trimming the main, talks about Dongfeng and (unfortunately) MAPFRE crossing them. Last night they were behind us; now they've crossed us. Not the best morning. But still 15 mornings to go. Shot of the other boat to port. Stern cam footage of them sailing on starboard. Jules and Nicho sit at the nav station talking strategy. Nicho, eating: "No shortage of breeze." Martine below. She guesses she got the most sleep, but not anymore. Going to be gybing. Luke: With the two gybes in his off-watch he got about an hour of sleep during his four off. Jules talks about having lost a lot of distance to the boats nearby. Did some good gybes, got a couple of hundred meters behind Brunel. But now they've coughed up some distance. Spreader cam view of shifting the stack aft.

Shot of a computer in the nav station: "TOUGHBOOK". Xabi puts something in a small plastic box and seals it. (SIM cards from their phones, maybe?) "See you in Brazil."

Shot of a computer in the nav station: "TOUGHBOOK". Xabi puts something in a small plastic box and seals it. (SIM cards from their phones, maybe?) "See you in Brazil."

Sailing in light air in the moonlight. Witty at the nav station talks about how anything could happen. "It is entertaining and it keeps us all awake." Sunrise: We see AkzoNobel on the horizon. Crew talks about how it's insane that they're a mile away. "We've been further away in in-port races." Trystan on the helm talks about the competition. "It's all on." Shot of the land as they sail quietly past. Marcus: Almost there. "Cool sunrise." Annemieke on the foredeck points out AkzoNobel. "21 days of sailing, and you're in a match-race battle... Can't be more beautiful." Shots of AkzoNobel drifting a mile away. Witty trimming witih New Zealand shore behind him. Quiet, intense sailing.

Simeon talks about the latest sched with Jules at the nav station. Close to North Cape of New Zealand. Everyone lining up behind them. Scallywag still in stealth mode. They'll probably use their stealth mode card in the next sched. Some light air expected at north end of New Zealand. Jules, on deck, says technically they're leading. Pretty evenly matched with Scallywag. Brad: Having the lead for most of the last two weeks has been pressure. As Kiwis want to win the leg into Auckland. Cecile: Auckland is my second home. It would mean the world to me to win in Auckland. Shots of crew sleeping, the instruments, sunset. Jules, Simeon, and Nicho at the nav station talking strategy. Nicho: 18 miles in the lead; pretty much point and shoot now. Trying to get around the corner while the tide is good. Then a parkup on the other side. On deck in the sunset, Brad talks about the upcoming situation. Shot of islands in the fading light (the "Three Kings", maybe?). Sunset sky.

Marcus, on the helm, talks about going into stealth mode. Hasn't really paid off. Libby at the nav station: Akzo's always been in better pressure, so they've been okay. Marcus: Next passing lane's the top of Auckland. Akzo is arriving an hour before them, tide against them and lighter wind. So a chance to catch them there. Antonio: All well-rested. A lot of peeling, sail changes, at the end of the leg. Alex will be full-on. Alex: We'll have Akzo on our bow and Turn the Tide on our stern. Trystan: It's gonna be carnage, I think. Witty: Seriously, I don't really care any more. I just want to get in. Horrible... Boring... leg. Wonder what they're doing on Brunel. Measuring their fingernails. Let's just get to the finish. Hopefully we can pull a rabbit out of our hat, a lizard out of the drain, a dolphin out of the sea, and get ahead of AkzoNobel. Annamieke, trimming, waves to the camera as Witty grinds the runner.

Nicho on the helm at sunrise. Simeon: Basically the plan is working out, which is nice. Heading more and more to New Zealand. A little more pressure. Coming from underneath, which was alwyas the plan. Sailing more miles, but doing them quicker. Shots of them triple-heading on port gybe. Simeon: In a strong position now; wouldn't want to trade with anyone else. In good shape heading toward New Zealnd, and then the last 400 miles in are very light. Cecile coils. Justin, below, talks about how it's been a long slog. Timing the approach; time and tide. Fingers crossed; keep pushing. Brad, Nicolai in the cockpit. Stacking the sails aft. Grinding. Nicho with his penguin balaclava. Nicho below: staring the weather to death on the computer, so we're prepared. To be in a position to win a leg is a very special thing. It's a rare, rare, rare occurrence... Enjoy every moment you can, because you may not have another. Simeon looks at the latest sched; talks about Scallywag being in stealth mode. 25 (miles?) more than Brunel, 24 more than Dongfeng. Jules and Simeon talk at the nav station. Sunset through the companionway silhouetting a crewmember.

Dee, below, talks about the strategy picture coming into Auckland. Ideally they'll bring in the new wind and can catch the guys in front. Dee and Brian at the nav station. Dee on how it's hard when it's the last littlte bit in a straight line. The end of this race will be different, with opportunitites. Time lapse drone shot of sunrise. Of the cockpit as theyr'e sailing. Below, of the cockpit. The sunset.

Capey at the nav station. Chart software. Night shots on deck. Instruments on the mast. A crewmember shines a flashlight up. Spray. Talk about needing a line to tack the J3 (I think?). Sunrise. Alberto on the helm. Sally with the sun behind her. Bouwe: Unfortunately the weather didn't do what it was supposed to do. Center of the high pressure is right on our track. Not very nice, but the only way for us to go. Other boats have a more lifted breeze, more pressure. The next 24 hours will not be very pretty. We'll go from being near the top to being even last. Stacking aft. Peter and Kyle grinding. Bouwe calls up the (expected) bad sched results. Instruments. Kyle: Distance to finish number doesn't really go down very quickly. Almost more painful than not having it there.

Crew goofing: "Ooooh! Let's go sailing." Sailing on port in stronger wind. Outrigger. Alex, Marcus smiling. Libby at the nav station. Pressure to the south. The more they can hook into that, the better. Trystan puts on foulies; talks about it being nice that they're dry again. Slomo shots of them sailing fast. Spray. Libby talks about trying to pass Akzo. Trystan lies in his bunk. Four days to go. Alex, above him, says it's three. "Last day doesn't count." Annemieke steers in goggles. Slomo spray coming over the bow.

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.

Blair asleep. Rob wakes him up. Blair getting up. "Time to go to work." Gets dressed. Puts on sunscreen. Should be straightforward; now they're in the tradewinds. Might need to change to a smaller sail. Can't put too much sunblock on. Do a little grinding, cruising to check front sail trim, trimming, and driving the last hour. Final touch: some zinc. He rummages. "Looking for that for about 10 minutes; it was sitting right there." On deck, grinding. wrestling sails on the foredeck. As he's trimming, he talks about liking all the jobs on deck. Gives a thumbs up. Tradewind sailing's nice, but once you get over the wet and the cold, Southern Ocean is the best. Talks about his good luck charm that he had at the Olympics and the America's Cup. Thought he'd bring it around the world with him. Below, eating, he talks about it having been a good watch. He talks with Joan at the nav station while eating.

Simeon talks about how they're in a good position. Everyone is coming into their trail. Nicolai, below: Only 3 days to go. Starting to see a good result. But reminding yourself it's not over until you cross the finish line. Can put in 22 days of hard work and lose it in the last day. Simeon at the nav station looks at routing software. Everyone is trying to get west; but they're already there. Relief that we went into the light air in first, and are coming out first as well. Luke, on the rail: Re-taken the lead. Tough struggle with Scallywag, it's paid off. Brunel in stealth mode now. Cecile: Nice to get moving. Most pressure we've seen in 3 or 4 days. Luke: Rather be on this boat than any of the others, but it is yacht racing. Pole cam shots over the side of them sailing faster. Chart software showing them west of New Caledonia. Brad eating. Closeups: Helm, winches. Martine on the helm. Simeon trimming. Stacking below. Brad grinding.

At the nav station, Joan talks in Spanish about the doldrums, wind, the comeptition. Rob, on the wheel: Dongfeng 3 miles behind us. Leaders 100 miles away off their bow. Brunel and TTToP off their port bow. But weather is changing dramatically. Light air between them and New Zealand. Uncertain. We're optimistic. Hoping the fleet's going to compress. Anything could happen. Fleet is spread quite widely, with 150 miles separation, so it could go either way. About 1200 miles to Auckland; 5 or 6 days. Quiet shots of them concentrating in the cockpit, trimming. Drone shot of MAPFRE with an atoll a few miles to starboard of their track. Drone shots.

Shots of instruments. Sally talks about instruments and what she looks at when she wakes up: Speed. Heel angle. The heel sucks. Canting cockpit floor would be fantastic. Peter, on the helm: Boatspeed and true wind angle are the ones you look at the most. Carlo: True wind speed. Louis: Polar percentage of the last 10 minutes. Kyle: Depends on your role, driving or on the main, differs. The number I look at the most is my watch. And distance to finish. Carlo: This is our fucking watch captain. Bouwe, below: Sailing is trimming and sails up and down. But numbers don't lie. If you have the answers it's in the numbers. Capey: Down here is where it really happens. Numbers down here. Boatspeed, windspeed, a lot of things to monitor. Bouwe: My favorite number is polar percentage. Always trying to beat that number. If you're at 103 a lot of the time, that will become your new target. Always trying to keep improving. Capey: Only one number as navigator, and that's position. Trying not to hit anything. And heading: Are we going the right place. Shots of the nav station computers, instruments, VHF with channel 16 showing. Computer screenshot: Adrena Pro Carbon Edition, with strip charts.

Stacking in the morning. Brian tells Dee about the good sched. She claps. "That's a nice start to the day." Drone shot (though it looks like it's from late in the day). Dee, on the forward pedestal, explains that they're coming up on the reef off New Caledonia. They're electing to take the middle passage through the reef. Their immediate competition appears to be going around the western side. At the nav station, Brian points out the reef on the chart. Four of the boats are going through the inside passage, and 2 going through the outside passage. An interesting split.

Rain. Slomo rain. Nicolas at the nav station. Looking quite good on the ranking; are first, but won't be going straight-line. Rain on deck. Henry, grinding, talks about the sched. Annalise in the background talks about the fresh water. Biance, other crew, showering. Later, in a calm, Liz works on a winch. On the bow, Bianca talks about it being a painful day. Should be leaving the doldrums later this evening. Some nice reaching into New Zealand, hopefully arriving on the 27th.

Bouwe calls for help on the computer from Capey. "I'm too stupid with computers; that's probably it." Capey eats. Bouwe: "Smells good." Capey troubleshoots. Bouwe: "We need the master." Bouwe: A very good sched. Gained 60 miles on the leaders. But I think the guys in the back will catch up as well. So it will be a restart. So positioning in the next 48 hours is key. A lot of things can happen along the New Zealand coast. It never ends until the finish. I think the feeling is the boat is going the best it ever has gone. I'm still attached to my leg. Guys were talking about amputating it... Hasn't heeled in 5 days. I've been going back and forth with the medical director. Maybe just wait until Auckland and see if we can heel it over there. On deck, cool shot as the camera follows crew as they go forward and around the foredeck. Carlo brushing his teeth as he works.

Witty, at the nav station, points to his rubber bracelets. Not the kind of guy who normally does this, but he's wearing this one (the pink one) for a family in Capetown, SA, who's sun Rowan is battling leukemia. It means never give up. Shots of other crewmembers wearing the wristbands. One on the bulkhead they're taking around the world. The other is for autism awareness. His nephew has been diagnosed with autism. Still photo of a little boy (Witty's nephew?) in Scallywag team gear.

Crew in shorts working the cockpit in the half light. Drone shots with big rain cloud behind Brunel. Capey at the nav station. "We've just crossed the equator. Our next obstacle is to get out of the doldrums." Solomons coming up. Disappointing evening with the westerly boats making huge gains on us. We didn't get the wind. Hoping it would be the other way around. It was a choice I made. At the Solomons there will be another shutdown and compression, and we'll make the most of that. Have to take the good with the bad. Forecast and history, and a bit of luck. A bit of a cloud lottery here, the way they build and move. There is a bit of luck. But there's also skill in placing yourself in the right place. Next 10 days likely to be slow. Bouwe on the helm. Shifting the stack on deck, below. Mastcam view of washing machine in the cockpit. Sailing through rain. Washing machine. Mastcam view forward. Capey, from below, calls up about a good sched. "We took 50 miles out of MAPFRE... Only gained 20 on Turn the Tide. [Kyle asks how far behind they are.] Must be 50."

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."

Tamara in night vision shot on the bow, talks in Spanish about little wind, changes. Blair and Tamara grinding. Joan rubbing his eyes at the nav station. Pablo on the helm. In daylight, Xabi talks about the latest position report, which wasn't great. Have some hope, but let's see how things develop. More doldrums in the next couple of days.

Pascal, at the nav station, looks at the weather model and talks in French. On deck we see them furling the J2 (I think?) during a tack. Charles, on the helm: Wind, but the opposite direction from where we want to go. Very complicated. Didn't have any forecast so we followed MAPFRE. For the first time we made a really bad choice I think. Discussion of whether to reef, which they then do. Marie: Jokes about being in the doldrums, but having wind and going upwind. Big shifts. On starboard now after a few days on port. Hopes not to spend too much time in the doldrums. Grinding the main back up after the reef with the three pedestals linked. Pascal points ahead: There's no wind here. Carolijn asks what Jeremie wishes the most: To see his kids. Carolijn: For me a shower. Black: Chinese New Year, at home. We have lots of good food, and see all the family. Charles talks from the companionway in French. Discussion of "fast" vs. "east", where the other competitors are. As it's getting dark we see a gybe begin.

Witty on the helm in stronger wind. Ben gives the shaka sign. Washing machine. Witty at the nav station: Very good 24 hours for the Scallywags. Have left the fleet 232 miles behind them. Witty: Just dumb luck. "Point and shoot." A little bit early days for the two red boats to think they've got it locked up. But time will tell. Washing machine. Sailing fast on starboard gybe. Libby: "There's very little you can say about the weather that's fact." Witty: "That's coming from a meteorologist." Libby talks about how this wind they're in was something they were planning for for a long time. But it then fizzled away as they were heading toward it. (But now it's here.) Washing machine. Antonio on the helm, then below: "It's great. We put all our cards on this one, and it paid off." Still a long race to go. Still the other doldrums to pass. Obviously it's good to have a 200 mile lead. But you never know. Slomo spray.

WItty and Libby at the nav station look at a sched (I think?). Witty: "When was the last time we had this much separation in a Volvo race?" He annouces the update via the PA. "Akzo did pretty well." Night shot on deck. Antonio doing something near the clew in the red light. Instruments show them going 11.4 knots.

Shot of the keel (with something on it?). Nicolas at the nav station: This sched is important; an upcoming tricky wind area. Important to see what wind the other boats have. We see a screenshot showing the sched. Not so bad. Francesca on the helm drinking water. Nicolas comes up and explains the sched. Henry explains: Looks like the northerly option is paying off. Stuck with their plan, and should get back in the game in the next day or so. Now on them to sail the boat faster and warrent being in that position. Liz on the helm. Drone shot.

Drone shot of Scallywag approaching. Washing machine shot from the cabin. Witty with glasses at the nav station. 415 miles to the doldrums. Roll the dice. Would be nice to have a 15-mile lead instead of a 28-mile deficit to Akzo, but it's still going to come down to how they play the doldrums. Slomo washing machine. Antonio eating. "It's been relentless every day... Tough conditions." Looking forward to drying out in the doldrums. Haven't been dry in a weak. Slomo of Witty taking spray in the face on the helm. Closeup of the winch. Marcus talks about how he hasn't been across the equator yet. A little bit nervous. Witty: "King Neptune might be on board but it's not me." Ben grinding. Witty on the helm as they sail fast.

Shot of a bird (a booby of some kind) flying over the mast. Brian, at the nav station, shows the chart and talks about where the other boats are. Most of the boats to the SW of them, which he thinks will pay off.

Below, Alberto eats. Who knew he had so much gray in his hair? Kyle gets undressed. He explains that it's pretty awful below. Rough conditions, very warm, engine running, 30 knots of wind, very uncomfortable. Alberto getting dressed. Kyle: Outside is better, but not by a lot. Tough conditions, but fast. Alberto goes on deck. Kyle: I can't wait for the doldrums. Looking forward to getting some good sleep when it's nice and dry; recharging the batteries. Stern cam shot on deck as they sail upwind in rough conditions. Cockpit shots of spray. Bouwe at the nav station. He explains that it's blowing 24-30 knots. It's the most uncomfortable sailing you can do on a boat like this. Talks about "all the guys and Sally" not liking it. Below, Alberto talks about the heel angle. The whole boat is humid. Smell is horrible. Time to slow down and give a break to the boat.

At the nav station, Xabi talks in Spanish about wind, the competition. Then he talks on deck, still in Spanish. At nav station, Joan talks in English about weather forecasting. Tricky to find a balance between staying with the fleet and believing their own weather routing. When weather is more uncertain, keep an eye on the fleet more. Other times have more confidence in your forecast. Xabi at the nav station. Stacy triming. Rob grinding. Dongfeng close astern. Drone shots showing both boats in the sunset.

Sunrise. Dee, at the nav station, talks about how they had a bad sched, and are back at the back of the fleet again. But doldrums are coming up. Have to hope that the other boats get some unlucky clouds and they get a faster angle. Being positive, sailing the boat well. "Anything can happen when you're yacht racing." Drone shot of TTToP sailing on port tack.

Carolijn, below, makes and eats a meal. "I'm eating the big boy cereal, specially made by Neal. Lots of granola and nuts and dried fruit." Talks about bad sea state 16/18 hours ago. MAPFRE right next to them. Fun racing. Jérémie eats. "Chinese breakfast... Quick to cook." Talks about being close to MAPFRE, concentrating while driving on being fast. A very close battle. Interesting, but a bit exhausting at times." Charles, at the nav station, talks about MAPFRE. Boats staying together to cross the doldrums. "Lots of boats are following us. Every time we change a bit our heading they change. But today we don't know where to go because we have no forecast... We are using the forecast from the start... Now we have the forecast, and can see we are in a good position."

Washing machine shot of cockpit. Slomo spray. Marcus, below, talks about how wet the boat is. "I've never seen boats like this. They are just So. Wet. It's epic. It's good fun though. Nonstop spray in your face; no reprieve." Fish, below, talks about fast sailing. Slomo spray on deck. More spray. Annemieke talks about holding on, it's pretty bumpy. Slomo spray washing over Annemieke. Alex at the nav station, with Libby behind him, makes a wrap with a tortilla and something in it. "It's almost like normal food." To Libby: "Cutting the corner again." Witty talks about food, mangoes. Libby talks about how the northern group will get into some lighter winds and they'll be able to close some distance. Shots of nav software. Fish: "It's all to play for. Like we saw in the last leg going the other way." The nav team is pretty happy with where they are and where they're going, and he has every confidence in them.

Spreader cam view of the deck as they sail fast on port gybe with the J0/J3. Spreader cam view of the cockpit; washing machine. Dee eats at the nav station. Dee: "All smiles. Everyone is soaking wet, but it's really fast sailing." Cold front met them before dawn; gybed. Really fast boatspeed toward Auckland. No longer pointing at Japan. Should have 8 hours with 30 knots of wind, then dropping to 20. Annalise bails water from below with a bucket. Talks about it having been nice for a while, but now it's back to being rough and bailing out. "But it's not too bad, because we're sailing fast in the direction of New Zealand." Dee talks about hoping to have closed the gap a bit with the leaders. Slomo spray on deck. Liz talks about sailing fast with the J0 up. Sailing at 24 knots. Bianca: "Going home!" Liz calls her The Cookie Monster, because she loves cookies and cream. Bianca gets wiped off the pedestal by a wave. Slomo spray in Liz's face on the helm. More of Annalise bailing water from below. Nicolas at the nav station: Not so far away from the first 3 boats. Akzo and Scallywag not too far away behind them. Not a bad sched. Spreader cam view of deck.

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.

Bird (a Brown Booby, I think?) flies overhead in slomo. Shot of a sheet, the horizon through the lifelines, nav software. Nicolas talks about being close to Brunel, MAPFRE, and Dongfeng. But just had a very bad cloud. Think they were on the right side, but then were on the slow side with very light wind, and so lost 3 or 4 miles. Which is a shame because they're fighting to stay close. Nicolas on deck talks to crew in the cockpit. Bianca talks about being on pace with the leaders. Henry looks forward. Someone (Liz?) gives Lucas a massage by stomping on his back with her feet. Liz talks about being up with the leaders. Nicolas, below: "On the third day of racing are still able to see the leaders. So for sure it's better for the mood, to have more motivation to fight... Hopefully they can have also a bad cloud and we can catch them." Slomo of booby.

Crew comes back from the foredeck as they flop in light wind and chop (maybe they just hoisted the MH0, and had to be on the foredeck to lower the J1?). Or maybe they were forward for weight, but are now having to come back for a maneuver. A container ship is visible behind them. We see them tacking (gybing?) the MH0 onto starboard tack. Alex talks about how they've split to the north. Drone shot from high overhead as they flop with no wind. Instruments on mast showing boatspeed of 4, windspeed of 5. Rain. Antonio talks about how for the last two hours their max speed is 7 knots. Drone shot circlnig them with the partially rolled-up MH0 as a windseeker. Drone shot of Scallywag in the distance with a dolphin (I think? or small whale?) surfaces in the foreground. Shot of chart software. Libby at the nav station talks about their having split to the north. Shot of chart software showing them and another boat (AkzoNobel) having diverged to the north after passing Taiwan. Libby looks at an Expedition screen. Crew in the cockpit in the rain; light winds. Trystan on the helm: "It's good now... Good to have some breeze again." AkzoNobel is sneaking up on them. Shot of the bow showing clouds, light winds, with swell behind them.

Approaching a front. Jules a the nav station. Martine on the bow as they flop. "This feels wrong, very wrong. We're going the wrong way." Jules: tacked a little too early in hindsight. Very light. Very disappointed. Made the decision to tack too quickly. For the first sched it was okay, second sched not very good. Martine and Brad working on the foredeck. Knotmeter shows less than a knot. Drifting, slatting. Rolling up the MH0. Looking at the chart.

Drone shots of Scallywag sailing upwind on port tack under cloudy skies. Someone on the helm; think that must be Marcus. Antonio, below, talks about being almost in second place. Lost some gauge when clouds passed. But still in the fight. Ben at the mast during a reef. Marcus on the helm. Witty on the helm. Witty and Libby at the nav station. Witty talks about how they're doing fairly well. Libby is talking in the headset (to the cockpit, I assume) giving real-time updates on how they're doing vs. a competitor on AIS (I think). Drone shot circling them with a competitor in the distance. Drone shot overtaking Scallywag from astern with MAPFRE and Dongfeng a half mile ahead and only a few boatlenghts apart. Shot from on deck of Dongfeng and MAPFRE dueling ahead of them. Trystan, sitting on the stack forward in light, sloppy conditions, talks about the wind changes and trying to use the boats ahead of them to figure out what to do to gain in the transition. Shot of instruments as they sail in stronger wind. Shot of John Fisher grinding with Brunel to leeward of them. Circling drone shot showing MAPFRE to leeward of them.

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.

Libby at the nav station. She talks about winning the start, and heading toward Taiwan. On the wind for the next 24 hours. After Taiwan, bizarrely, turning north, for expected frontal system in four days' time. Shot of crew in the cockpit: Annemieke, Witty steering.

David Witt talks to the crew in the cockpit. He sounds like the caffeine is really kicking in. "We're gonna have to just take this on, right? I don't know what's gonna happen. We're just gonna have to take this on all night." Alex talks about the routing being different than reality; some big choices on how to route through the Phillippines. Witty talks about Parko saying a smart thing before, you have to think about what SiFi will do on Vestas. He doesn't know where we are, he doesn't know we're still leading. He'll want to say in front of "the Feng". I think he'll want to put himself between them and the finish. Witty: "And I just completely confused myself again." Discussion in the cockpit. Fish-eye shot from the bowsprit looking aft. Witty below at the nav station obsesses over the chart, current, strategy. "About 20 minutes from our final gybe into Hong Kong. Getting close." Stacking below. Witty: "It'll be the greatest yacht race I've ever won if we can pull this off. For a whole bunch of reasons... A smart man told me once that the way you win yacht races is you eliminate the ways to lose them. And we kept coming up with ways to lose it and then fighting back. That's probably what will make it the most special if we can pull it off." Witty on the helm; washing machine. Witty and Libby at the nav station. Witty announces the sched over the PA. Dongfeng is farther back in the latest sched, so he thinks it's a fair bet Vestas (who is in Stealth Mode) is further back, too. Witty: "Our rate of improvement is pretty amazing, really." Talks about the amount of hard work. "You've gotta believe in yourself first if anything's gonna happen."

Dark night shots. Bouwe holds onto the line under the boom and looks ahead. Sally sits on the rail with the sunrise behind her. Abby says something I can't quite catch about Turn the Tide. Jens does something involving the hatch on the foredeck. Below, Capey and Bouwe look at the computer at the nav station. Drone shot of Brunel sailing past land (Camiguin in the Phillippines?). Carlo explains that they had a nice surprise when they woke up and had made gains on TTToP. "Exciting." Cool tracking drone shot of Brunel approaching with land behind them, then the drone passes in front of the bow just ahead of the boat. Stacking. Bouwe, on the helm, talks about passing TTToP and hoping that's the last one (pass?). Now just needs to stay between the finish line and their competitor.

Pretty sunrise drone shot. Martin, on the helm, talks about gybing into the Luzon Strait. Brunel should be somewhere around here. Brian [Johnson] and Dee look at the chart. Dee describes how Brunel is super close to them; just off their quarter. Drone shot. Brian talks about the tricky wind patterns ahead of them and the positions of the boats around them. Dee laughs about Brunel being right there, and how she's tired.

Drone shots of vestas. Mark and SiFi looking at the chart at the nav station, talking about strategy vis-a-vis the competitors. SiFi explaisn that they just got a sched, and are working out where to go through the Phillippines. Based on a big righthand shift they're going to go south. Looks like it will help them with Dongfeng. Shot of the sails on deck. Gybe at night from the cabin, looing at the cockpit. Closeup of chart showing their course zigzagging though islands. Red-light shots of stacking on deck. Another night gybe. Mark, on the helm, talks about how they're gybing through the Straits of Luzon and have made a good gain on Dongfeng.

Drone shot of Scallywag bouncing while triple-heading on starboard. Nav station shot of nav software with clouds. Libby talks about the wind dropping to 7 knots, but they know there is a line of wind ahead. High drone shot of Scallywag running in lighter conditions under cloudy skies; possible rain in the distance. Libby: "It's all good, because we were getting a little bit twitched about no breeze; there was a little bit of drama. [She mimes: 'Aaaaahhhh!'] But... it's here." View from the stern of spray, washing machine. Witty, below, talks about if they can do 3 more scheds today without a loss... Talks about the bad seaway, pushing hard with up to 35 knots. "One sched down, got three to go. If we can get through the next three scheds without a loss, there won't be enough runway left for them to catch us." Talks about sending it - but not breaking it. Drone shot of bad seaway. Luke: "You pick your times to push, and we pushed pretty hard last night." Annemieke: "It's so nice to have four people on deck, because we can really send it now." Compares it to the Southern Ocean, with only three people on deck. "The retrieval of Alex was one of the highlights. I'm so proud of how quickly we got him back." Morale is really high. "I think we're a pretty happy team at the moment."

Sunrise shot of the stern. Below, Witty and Libby are at the nav station. Libby: "As much as we had the cloud of doom three or four days ago, in hindsight it probably turns out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise. Because it gave us a more westerly approach to the following clouds; it gave us this lane." Grant sits next to her, holds up three fingers: "Only three Sidney-Hobart races to go to the finish." On deck, Luke steers with the sunrise behind him. "Every sched that they don't gain it makes it harder for them to catch us... It's all up to everyone on board now to execute as a group." Below, Trystan eats with Luke behind him also eating. Trystan talks about how they can't relax, because everyone is so quick behind, still a lot of choices to be made. Grant, on the helm: "Cha-ching!" He explains that Witty (standing behind him) has a deal where when they can hit 20 knots of boatspeed on course, they get a payout, $100. "Problem is the steering's a little too accurate lately, it's gonna cost him a fortune." Witty talks about how they've had emails from supporters and sponsors, and expectations are super high. Talks about the level of stress with 1,400 miles to go. Not wanting to let down the people who put them there.

Wraparound VR views: Below. Dee sits by the galley. Brian [Carlin] works at the media station, editing a video. Someone lies in her bunk, looking at a mobile device. Nav station showing chart software. Brian in the media station again. VR GoPro view from a camera mounted on Liz on the bow.

Mark, in the cockpit, explians that they're going through a current line south of Guam, and there's an "unbelievable" amount of floating debris. Shots of them bouncing along. Shot of the mainsail bouncing as they hit chop. Below, Phil talks from his bunk, eyeshades pushed up on his forehead. "Not ideal for sleeping. It's bloody uncomfortable. Feels like we're doing about 5 knots and just slamming up and down." He calls to SiFi and Mark, who are looking at the latest sched. "How'd we go?" SiFi: "Reasonably quick but very high." Nick, on deck: "Sea state is very confused right now... Pretty scary looking at the rig sometimes." Mark, by the wheel, reports on the latest sched to Nick, Tony, and Stacey. "We were higher and slower than Dongers, and higher and faster than Akzo." SiFi, below: "Sea states's been pretty horrendous." He talks about some lighter winds ahead, and trying to figure it all out. Shots of the weather models on the computer.

Mark, in the cockpit, talks about how there are a bunch of little Micronesian atolls in front of them, and they're just not laying it so they're going to gybe onto port for a bit. "Should see Dongfeng." Shifting the stack with the island visible ahead of them. We see the gybe from the pit area. TJ points out where the island is, talks about spearfishing. We see the computer chart showing the atoll. Shifting the nav station to port. SiFi points things out on the chart. Stacking back to starboard. Another gybe. Drone shots of them sailing past an atoll, then circling them to show the sunset. Tony, on the helm, talks about how nice it is to get past the doldrums, and see the land, and a reef. Site of a sunken Japanese fleet. Heading toward the north end of the Phillippines. Talks about Scallywag coming through from nowhere. Drone shot from close ahead, cricling behind them with audio pulled down to mimic diegetic drone audio; island visible behind them.

Franck, at the nav station, looks at routing software and talks in French; I caught "Vestas." He talks about it over his shoulder to Jack (?) in the bunk behind him. Then he talks to Charles. On deck, Charles talks about how they have just taken the lead, or are in the same position as Scallywag, "but we prefer our position for the future. We should be the boat with the most wind for the next few hours." Hopes to have left the doldrums and to be the first to catch the tradewinds. A booby flies over the masthead.

Crash cam footage from the stern cam: They're sailing in light wind and heavy rain in a squall. There's a flash of lightning and a loud crash. Rome, on the helm, jumps off the helm platform to crouch down in the stern. They laugh. Rome: "Holy shit!" Below, Kyle and Sam watch the footage on a laptop. Kyle: "He's very easily scared, that Rome-y. You'll walk around a corner and he'll jump. Very easily frightened." More of them watch and laugh. Rome: "Shat my pants it was so close." Sam, on deck, talks about having the lightning strike quite close, feeling the static through their bodies. "Bit close for comfort. Lucky we got out with the instruments unscathed." Night shot of distant lightning. Shot of the mast instruments at night. Bouwe at the nav station. Closeup of the compass dial. Slomo wake shot. Shot of passing Ghupuna; drone shots of passing Ghupuna. Sally, with a Scopolamine patch behind her right ear, looks at land. "Nice. It's a little bit of something besides blue water." Jens: "It's always nice to see land. It's only halfway, looks good. Have a couple of boats we want to catch." Yann, to Bouwe on the helm: "You like the green you're seeing, or...?" Bouwe: "No. I like more the beach, actually. I'm more a beach man." Shots of the island. Abby and Sally working in the pit. High drone shot of Makira behind them.

High drone shot of Brunel. More drone shots. Drone closeup of the cockpit, with Yann on the drone controls. Shots on deck of them going through a squall with rain and spray. Slomo of Carlo wiping water from his face in the pit. Slomo washing machine shots from the cockpit, the stern. Bouwe, below, explains that they're heading north toward the doldrums. Mentions that Neptune has a victim coming, because someone in the crew is a polliwog (or whatever it is they call them). Maybe that's Sam? Capey at the nav station. Bouwe describes the results of the latest sched. Boats ahead have less breeze now, so they should catch up soon. Lightning in the distance. Crew showering in a rain squall. Flopping with the J0 in no wind. Kyle, below, describes how they got stuck in a rain squall, then stuck in no breeze for an hour and a half. Drone shot circling them with no wind.

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.

Brian and Dee stand in the cockpit looking at cloud activity. Brian: "That cloud is getting a lot bigger." Brian and Martin talk about the ideal wind scenario. Dee explains that the hard bit is trying to get north. Brian: clouds are always bad; sometimes very, very bad. "If you can stay just in front of it, that's okay. But if you get enmeshed in the back of them, you can be stuck there until it decides to release you from its grip." Shot of the nav station with weather displayed. Dee, on deck, talks about how the forecasts aren't very good in this region. Martin: "We need to be on our toes."

Grant, on the helm, makes the shaka sign. "Beautiful day. Tasman Sea at its finest." Drone shot of Scallywag from high overhead. Libby sits at the nav station looking at routing. "Pretty good sched for us." She talks about how for the next few days they should see a gain (due to compression). Shot of Parko on the helm with the sunset behind him. Liz at the nav station talks about letting the crew know what to expect, so they know when to expect a lot of effort and gybes, vs. when to expect straight-line sailing. Annemieke grinds on the pedestal. Pretty sunset shot. Witty at the nav station waits for the sched. Pretty drone shots of Scallywag with a squall in the distance. Drone shot. Witty: "We've gained, but not a lot." On the helm, Grant takes his hands off the wheel and lets the boat sail itself for a few seconds. Sunrise drone shot wth rain.

Dee is at the nav station; Brian [Thompson] sits behind her. Dee talks about how she's lucky because she's sailed with Brian a lot, so they know how each other works. "And after all he is pretty much the fastest man on water, holds more speed records than anyone knows existed, so why wouldn't I have him on my boat with me?" Brian [Carlin] asks various crewmembers if they know how many speed records Brian [Thompson] has set. Elodie guesses 6. Liz, sleepy in her bunk: "I have no idea." Bernardo just wiggles his eyebrows in closeup. Frederico guesses 10. Bleddyn guesses 5. Martin, on the helm: 20. Annalise: "22. Actually I'm just making that up off the top of my head. But I know he has at least one with my mom and dad." Below, Brian answers: "I've set about 45 records, and I hold about 15." Bleddyn, on deck: "I feel terrible. Oh god. I won't be able to look him with a straight face. I hope he's asleep now, didn't hear all that." Martin: "He's gonna see the video, mate." Bleddyn: "He will, yeah."

At the nav station, SiFi talks to Mark about the latest sched. "MAPFRE did the biggest run, and then we were next. The other guys were similar." Mark walks out to the cockpit to explain the situation. Tony's driving; Stacey's trimming, and Nick (I think?) is on the grinder in an unbranded (!) sleeveless teeshirt. Mark: "Got some good news. Gained on everyone except for MAPFRE. MAPFRE had the longest run; they're also the lowest." At the nav station, SiFi talks about how this leg is different from the last one, "not just because the sea temperature is 20 degrees warmer!" Last time the strategic options were more limited; just stay as close as possible to the ice gate. This leg there are more options. "It is enjoyable when there's a little more subtlety involved."

Drone shot as Scallywag sails on starboard gybe with the Australian coast visible beyond them. At the nav station Libby explains that there's a big split, with 3 boats offshore, Brunel in the middle, and them inshore. Teams offshore have had more pressure and have made a bit of a gain. Shot of Scallywag sailing upwind from slightly outboard; Konrad must have the camera on a pole. Low elevation shot alongside the boat; wave hits the camera. Below, Libby talks to Witty at the nav station. Libby tells Konrad that it's been helpful to have Witty and Grant, who have lots of experience in these waters, to go with the weather model information. Libby talks about how impressive it is that new team members have been integrated so effectively. More pole shots of spray alongside. Below, Witty eats while talking to LIbby: "I'm making a point of not making you feel like I'm looking over your shoulder. Is it working?" [Libby laughs.] Witty explains that they don't have big egos. Everyone is part of the team. Washing machine shot of the cockpit. Witty talks about picking good people. Says Libby's fitting in well. He jokes that she's gotta get in front of her brother (on MAPFRE) before she gets a Scallywag tattoo (I think he said? Before she's fully accepted, I assume he's saying.) Drone shot of Scallywag with Austrailian coast in the background.

TTToP sails at night with the full moon behind the sails. MAPFRE sails a few hudred yards away, below and slightly ahead of them. MAPFRE appears to be sailing slightly higher; they discuss that they might end up in their bad air. In the dark, Brian (Thompson), who's on the pedestal, explains the current situation to Brian (Carlin): In the middle of the Coral Sea, slightly north of Lord Howe Island, in a match race with MAPFRE and Vestas. He explains that it's helping them tune up and sail faster to be sailing next to the two boats. Liz, on the helm, talks about how it's pretty intense sailing close to the two boats. "Brian's down there calling relatives and we're just trying to match them." Dee, at the nav station: "Intense but exciting." Elodie, on the rail with binoculars, looks ahead and to port. "They look really loose on everything, that boat." She talks about how interesting it is that MAPFRE is sailing relatively high, while Vestas is managing to soak down without losing too much speed. "We're a bit the cheese in the sandwich here." Martin, looking to starboard with binoculars: "They've got sails in front and behind the shrouds as well." (Think he's talking about the stack.) Bernardo, trimming: "I'm smiling becuase I'm enjoying it. I don't have any reason not to smile." Dee, at the nav station: "I'm so proud to see these guys develop before your eyes... I'm a proud mum." Drone shots of TTToP sailing at sunrise on port gybe. Crew is shifting the stack. MAPFRE is visible ahead and to starboard.

Jules, at the nav station, talks to Sam. "How would I describe myself? Tired?... I think I'm pretty easy-going, most of the time, except when I'm tired." Sam: "How do you think the crew would describe you?" Jules: "Miserable. Quiet." On deck, Luke answers the question: "Uncomplicated, I would say. [laughs] No; he's a good rooster. Very rarely gets it wrong. It's only us getting it wrong that makes him look bad." Looks like this was shot as they were beating out of Port Phillip Bay on the first afternoon. Closeup of Jules at the nav station, rubbing his head. Shot of the computer showing weather. On deck, Brad points out Green Cape. "Everyone knows it's one of the most southeastern capes of Australia." Shot of the cape with its lighthouse. To the left is another boat, barely visible; I'm guessing it's Vestas. On deck, Simeon talks about needing to choose whether to play the coast or go offshore. Shot from the cabin of Jules (below) talking to Nicho (on deck). Simeon crouches down as water splashes over him. Simeon: "[something] stay in touch with the other guys. Otherwise you'll lose them." Jules discusses how the fleet is splitting. Also there are three different tidal models that disagree as to where the eddy is. More discussion by Simeon: gybe or not? Conversation with the three of them continues below at the nav station. Nicho: "If you gybe back, you're pretty much committed to playing the shore." Sam talks to Jules: "How would you describe the decision-making process on this boat?" Jules: "Not very clear. Because not everyone knows the full implications of everything they're talking about. You often get into situations like this where it's a tossup, you gotta trust one weather model or the other. Or you just do the conservative thing and stay with the fleet." Nicho, below, eating: "You've gotta kick it around. Kick it to death. And then make a gut call, usually. There's a fair bit of science involved... I think in the end for this situation, we're on a good heading with great pressure. More breeze than inshore." Sam: "How would you describe the decision-making process on this boat?" Nicho: "Plenty of input from everybody. At times this is Simeon's boat. I certainly from my side I feel like I can make the decision and live with it perhaps a bit easier. It's not a difficulty, it's just how it is. I guess we've kind of struggled and grappled with that sitaution a little. But no; the actual process I think is quite good. No one's angry or frustrated or anyting like that. It's just trying to weigh up all the pros and cons, come up with a decision."

Dee sits at the nav station talking to Brian. Liz looks on from behind. The screen shows routing, and then a table (sched?). Dee, talking to Brian, claps her hands and grins. "We've got a yacht race! And we're in the middle of it, which is so nice." She talks about how they're maintaining longer than they have in other legs. Latest sched shows them ahead of MAPFRE and Vestas. Shot of her and Brian talking at the nav station. Slomo shot of Bernardo in the cockpit as spray flies from the outrigger. Annalise, below: "Gybing there ahead of Vestas and MAPFRE. It's always nice to see other boats around as well." Bleddyn, on deck, grins as he talks about seeing Vestas come into view in front of them and not being sure if it was a boat in their fleet, but then the sched came out and they knew it was Vestas.

Spray on deck. Franck on the helm. Then at the nav station, he explains that the sched was good for them. Now they have a big gap (to second and third). Following their plan. On deck, Jack on the helm. Below, Horace talks about trying to fight for the lead on the second day out of Melbourne. Close to shore, lots of maneuvers. Shots of stacking the sails aft for a gybe. Stacking below. Spray. Sunset.

Sunset washing machine shot of the cockpit from the cabin. Slomo sunset shot. Dee and Liz at the nav station wave at Brian, shooting them from the media station. Slomo of Bleddyn spraying fresh water on his face and grimacing. Elodie, below, talks about the conditions: 20-25 knots; the sea state makes things difficult. Had a not-very-good sched; not as fast as Dongfeng and AkzoNobel. Slomo sunset shot of Bernardo on the aft pedestal in spray. Below, Bernardo says: "It's kind of like living in a washing machine. No, it's kind of, having a house by the water, and you can listen to the waves every night. But then you go for a swim every half an hour... Not that bad. Can't complain."

Slomo spray, washing machine. Clear sky with low sun behind them. Shot of MAPFRE crossing ahead of them under cloudy skies. Dongfeng gybes from port to starboard. Justine grimaces as she grinds on the pedestal. Shots of MAPFRE ahead of them on port gybe; Vestas farther ahead of them on (I think) starboard gybe. Sunny washing machine shot of cockpit. Closeup of compass. Sunset spray. Charles at nav station, talks about the last 26 hours. "A bit fight against all the opponents. Speed, clouds, very interesting, very complicated. Lots of shifts. I think we are all exhausted. Now there is a big split." Three boats going offshore, rest going inshore. Sunset wake shot.

AkzoNobel is sailing upwind inside Port Phillip Bay on starboard. Nicho, on the stern, talks about how they couldn't hold their lane on port tack after the start. "Don't know. Not sure what happened. We were slow on port for a long time." Shot of their stern with a Bravo (protest) flag flying; other boats in the distance. Simeon below: "Yeah, we had a bit of a speed issue, yeah." Shots of crew moving the stack. Nicho: "It's not where you want to be... back of the pack... No use grumbling about it." Below, Nicolai and Simeon are looking through the window in the hull, talking about the prop. Maybe it wasn't folding properly? Brad looks through an inspection tool: "It's closed but it's got weed in it... Looks like I'm going over the side. Get a lot of heel on, and rip it off." Sam: "Would this explain the speed?" Brad: "Hopefully." On deck, Brad gets lowered over the weather side in his foulies with lines forward and aft; he goes down near the waterline to inspect. Cécile's back is in the foreground as she relays Brad's words, then helps him back on deck. Brad: "A bit of weed. Not as big as it looked. But it's closed. Nothing underwater slowing us down. So get into it." Later, on the stern, Sam asks Brad: "How's it feel to be in last place coming out of Australia?" Brad: "I hate to say, but we're used to it." Luke: "New Year's resolution? Probably just to win a few legs here." Martine: "I dunno. Just keep positive." Brad: "Not be last out of the next start. And start getting in front of the fleet." Rainbow in the boat's spray to leeward. Luke talks about the frustration of starting off in last or close to last. "People say you're unlucky, but you create your own luck." Talks about teamwork, they're a great group of sailors. Real rainbow to leeward; a competitor below and behind them. Simeon talks about them doing well in the last sched. "Zero to hero." First in the position reports. At the nav station, Jules talks about their performance. Sam: "How'd you manage to check back in with the fleet?" Jules: "Bit of luck, really. Guys have been sailing pretty hard all night. Everyone's been up pretty much most of the night. Gybed on a couple of shifts. Got a nice header for a while..." Talks about disappointment at the start, needing to hang in there. "If we go fast we'll be all right." Rainbow with Vestas, Dongfeng to leeward.

At the nav station, Dee talks about deciding whether or not to gybe. Most of the boats have headed offshore. Brian [Thompson] has gone on deck to look at how things are. We see Brian talking to Dee through the companionway. "It's just silly to go this way." Dee wakes up people below: "Time to gybe." Liz: "I love the gybing what do you mean I don't like the gybing I love the gybing." Dee, at the nav station, talks about how it's harder to be with everybody rather than sailing on their own. But it's good; morning two and they're with the whole fleet.

Lightly attended dockout parade. Motoring out, Xabi talks while steering. Pretty sure he misspeaks, saying, "we're starting Leg 4 from Melbourne to Auckland" (rather than Hong Kong). Happy with how things are going, and with the crew. Only team not changing the crew. There's a shot of Joan at the nav station with a bunch of crew hovering behind him as he explains something. Then (weirdly) the audio cuts out as the video continues. Then we see the dockout from the deck. Rob, on deck, says he's surprised at the number of crew changes happening. Their aim was to keep the same crew as much as they could. Xabi, on the wheel, says he hopes their time sailing together can give them an advantage. Shots of the start. After the start, Louis stacks the J3 forward. Shot of Brunel ahead of them and to leeward. Sophie shifting the stack to leeward. Slomo spray. Epic spray on the bow engulfing Louis. Vestas ahead of them and to leeward as they reach down the coast. Willy in slomo spray.

Pascal reads the latest sched over the PA system. He talks with Martin in French. He talks with Charles. Charles: "Not so bad news. Vestas has not been so fast in reaching. We are leading again with 7 miles. In a good position... We can hope to keep this distance or increase it as of the entrance to Melbourne Bay." Talks about what happened yesterday, thinking it was their last gybe and then having the keel problem. "We don't know if we will be able to cant the keel to max cant on port."

Simon, at the nav station, looks at routing software and a sched (I think?). He talks about hopefully making gains, or at least holding even. "I"m just hoping we gained, or at least held them. Were getting lifted now, so it'd be nice for them to get lifted as well." He looks at the sched. "One longer, two higher." Charlie looks over his shoulder. They discuss the update. Charlie: "And relative to the last sched they must have been fucking 10 higher." Charlie: "C'mon. Difference in distance to finish 2 miles?" SiFi: "Good for the fans at home." They talk about getting lifted compared to the model; when to gybe. Charlie: "Nice to know we're a bit longer, a little faster... We'll run out of pressure before them. It's nice to be so close to Dongfeng, but that's a little inflated... Still fighting to the end, especially with double points." SiFi explains that they were talking about Brunel. "Next 24 hours is all about keeping the yellow boat behind us, and catching the red one."

Crew in cockpit. Nav station below, with instrument readout. Jules explains that they're appraoching the finish area. Talks about the high pressure they have to go through to get to the finish. So they're a few days out from Melbourne still. Simeon putting on (off?) his gear. Talks about pleasant conditions. "Everyone's looking forward to finishing the leg and move on." Frustration. Shot of Nicolai eating. Jules looking glum at nav station; he gets up and leaves.

Charles, at the nav station, looking bummed as he looks at routing software. He says it isn't good news; Vestas has passed them and they have not that much wind. (Though looking at the tracker now, I'm not sure Vestas is actually going to get ahead of them.) But they have to gybe, while Dongfeng can go straight to the mark. So he thinks Dongfeng can stay ahead. Not fair, because they are so far apart they have to do different routings, and the routing was poor for them and better for Vestas. Also the keel problem has cost them some key miles; he hopes that isn't the difference between second and third place.

At the nav station, Capey talks about how they've gybed and are heading north. "Exactly one Hobart Race away from being in Melbourne." Bouwe, below, talks about Vestas and how they have a shot at third. Vestas went into stealth mode this morning. Ridge of high pressure to cross; still tricky. Brunel might go into stealth mode in the high pressure, he says. Stern cam / crash cam view of Brunel sailing fast with full main on port gybe. Then, handheld shot from behind helm of Brunel on starboard gybe. Washing machine. Sunset off stern. Helmsman (can't tell who) gives a thumbs up. Slomo shots of washing machine.

Pascal, at the nav station, puts on a headset. He announces something we hear booming through a PA system. "20 minutes before the gybe. 20 minutes." Jack, waking up in his bunk. Carolijn and Black getting dressed. Marie getting dressed. Pascal over the PA: "Three minutes." Crew goes on deck, perfoms the gybe. Below, we see Marie climbing back into her bunk. Pascal, over the PA: "Okay; in about 20 minutes [?] another gybe." Time lapse shot of repeated gybes with short intervals between them.

At nav station, Charlie explains to Sam that there aren't a lot of decisions to make right now; they're just pushing the boat for boatspeed as they parallel the ice limit. Decisions to be made shortly about where to go later. Risk/reward analysis changes based on waht happens at the back of the fleet behind them. On deck, Jena steers on port gybe in about 15 knots of wind under a cloudy sky. Then TJ (invisible in balacava; thank goodness for accents) steers and talks about Jena, about getting her time on the helm when conditions aren't too technical. By the end, he says, she'll be driving as much as anyone else. Nick, on the stern, says he wants Chuy to start a men's fashion line. Has him model his baseball cap stitched onto a neoprene balaclava (as described by Tony). Some discussion of Tron that I didn't really understand. Then SiFi talks about trying to catch the two red boats ahead (though unfortunately Vestas has less wind), and about Brunel about 20 miles behind them. Future wind prospects. Nick and SiFi, in the companionway. Nick: "This boat is a prison." SiFi: "There's no escape."

Ben does a radio [?] voice: "...Scallywag, 5483, bound for Melbourne." Tom sits at the nav station with António behind him looking at routing software. Tom: "My life consists of 3 hours on, 3 hours off. 3 hours on. 3 hours off. I don't even know what time it is. I don't even know if it's morning or night. It all looks the same down here. [To António] What time is it?" António: "8:30... In the morning." Tom: "We've been in sunlight now for 9 hours. It's 8:30 in the morning. Go figure." Parko sits on the gally, picking through a bag of some sort of food, picking out his favorite bits and eating them. Talks to Alex, who's getting his foulies on. Parko: "Mom must be angry." Alex: "Mom, don't tell me what to do!" Parko: "But mom, I'm in the middle of the ocean." Parko: "I'm going on watch. A bit delirious. I probably should have slept, but I didn't. So I've got a lot of sugar and some coffee and I'll be good. We need to turn left. [laughs] We're going across Free-o [Freemantle?] and the Australian Bight. But there's two big ridges in the way. Once we're across them we'll be all right. But there's a big stop sign in the middle. Highway 1 is about to shut down." Alex reads the label of his protein bars. "Times two. Lunch." Parko: "I think morale's starting to pick up a bit. Everyone's dried out. Fresh pair of [something], fresh pair of socks; everyone's starting to smell a bit better too... We just don't want to have to gybe around the finish and start again. Want time for a little snooze." Alex, with talcum powder [?] on his hands, jokes with Annemieke. Alex: "Hey, Bessie. High five!" They slap hands and a cloud of powder fills the air. They laugh. Fish talks about how they're halfway, forecast is quite nice, sun's out and it's a bit drier, and everyone's happier. "And the kettle's just boiled; perfect." Ben puts food cubes in the mug in preparation for the hot-water treatment. Annemieke: "We're just enjoying what we're doing. It's not always ideal; we're all wet. But we're all happy. And we just found out that we're getting pretty late into Melbourne; the forecast has lightened down. So not that much time for preparation for Hong Kong."

Dee, at the nav station, explains about how the ice limit has been moved since they started racing, and the effect of that is that they have different wind conditions to sail in. "To the north of us is a big high pressure, to the south is a barrier we can't quite cross, and it leaves us this very narrow corridor of breeze to sail in." She explains this is her sixth time in the Southern Ocean, and she doesn't remember sailing this far north in this area. Doesn't think she's sailed north of the Kerguelen Islands before. Talks about climate change as a possible factor in pushing the ice further north. Harder work to sail this way, but better safety. Screenshot of the ice limit and Kerguelen Islands. Stacking. Francesca does the Twist to pull a stacking pole from the deck. Franchesca on the helm. Crew plays roshambo. Slomo washing machine over Bianca (I think) on the aft grinder pedestal.

Tony and Simon are sitting on the weather rail. Tony is in the middle of a story about seeing an iceberg. "It was right there, hundreds of meters long, 25, 30 meters high, or whatever they are. And that was the one you can see in the middle of the day... And then nighttime comes and radar's got targets everywhere. And those are only the big ones. Can't see the bus or car-sized ones." Simon, at the nav station, talks about being near the exclusion zone. Simon explains about how the trailing boats have had an easier time, while the lead boats have had to stair-step along the edge of the exclusion zone. Shot of the computer screen showing the exclusion zone. Tony points out the "wall". "Must have painted it gray; it blends right in." Nick is getting dressed; he tells a bedtime story to Jena, in her bunk. "Once upon a time there were 7 lonely sailboats in the Southern Ocean, on their way to Melbourne." He explains to Sam: "I'm telling the Swiss Miss girl." "On their way to Melbourne to have a very hot Southern Hemisphere Christmas. And then, the wild and scary Race Committee decided to put a liquid Himalaya ice gate that we had to climb atop, so we wouldn't be there for Christmas Day." Jena: "Did they steal our Christmas?" Nick and Tom are internal-stacking onto the port side; Tom mimes being attacked by killer bees. "They're eating my eyes!" On the helm, Chuy says there's a rule, like on a bus: Don't speak to the driver. Jena, sitting in the cockpit in a balaclava: "I actually got a little sad, because I feel Santa will never find us out here." SiFi: "It's true. I didn't even bring my stocking." Tom: "No Christmas for you. We're gonna keep you at sea. Make you sail around waypoints forever!" Jena jokes about a broken candycane being in 3 pieces so they can share. Tony and SiFi talk about icebergs. Tony doesn't need to see any more of them. SiFi: "They make the ice gates on a good scientific basis." Tony: "I've passed south of one that was 30 miles long, and it was no fun... I've dodged them, and been just about able to touch them from the wheel. That's how close we were... If they've got the information, as SiFi says, it'd be negligent not to act on it... Safety. Safety first." Sunset.

Slomo shot of waves through the wheel. Interesting slowed-down audio. An albatross flies by. Slomo grinding. Slomo faces; Carolijn on the helm. Slomo trimming. Below, Carolijn takes off her gear. She talks to Martin; behind Fabien is making food in the galley. Carolijn: "Yes, it's painful. Not necessarily painful, it's just tough. It's very tiring. You get to a certain stage where you're so tired that you start tripping over your own feet. If you don't watch out it can be quite dangerous." Talks about even 20 minutes lying down in your bunk, even if you don't sleep, helps you get the energy to make the next gybe. "I've lost count. I don't even know if we're halfway yet. Just in the last 3 hours of my off watch we've done 6 gybes?... Entertaining stuff." Fabien eats with a bit of a 1,000-yard stare. (Looking at the tracker through this section it's been brutal; Dongfeng and MAPFRE are at the front of the fleet within AIS range of each other having a running gybing battle to see who can stay closer to the exclusion zone.) Pascal, below, drops his head and rubs it. Looks tired. We pull back and see he's watching Charles at the nav station from his bunk. Charles talks to Martin: "It's very simple. During 30 hours we're having to gybe every hour so it's a nightmare. Not very funny but we have no choice. We have the ice limit for a good reason... You have to stack every time, 600 kilos each time... You don't manage to sleep... That's life at the extreme for sure. On the positive side, we are ahead with MAPFRE and fighting for the first place, so it's good."

Spreader cam view of foredeck with Scallywag sailing way off the wind. Witty at nav station, talks about having "grannied" (tacked around, presumably) twice instead of gybing, because of having heard that AkzoNobel broke their mast track while gybing. Wants to keep the boat together here and finish fast. Jokes about the ice limit as a fence the Volvo people built in the ocean. Talks about having a week along the ice gate. Spreader cam shot of the boat surfing. Witty: "I told Parko to sail at 95%, not 100. He's doing 29 knots, so he must have taken a knot off. He si a full-blown lunatic." Crash-cam view of Parko being blown off the wheel by a wave while surfing; jumping back on the wheel. Parko below: "Yeah, I drove for a little bit with no hands there. Didn't Chinese and we didn't tack, so it's okay." Bow cam of spray. Alex, below, talks about steering. "Yeah, it's pretty difficult. I probably only do a half an hour at a time... It's tricky now, because the waves are so big that you don't want to go down some of them. But sometimes you kind of have to go down them... It's a bit of an art to go fast, but not go down the wrong waves and break the boat." Parko talks about it taking energy, having just done a gybe, it saps up all the energy from your little naps, it's gone after you have one maneuver. Time to eat some food and recharge, and be ready for the next one when it comes.

Southern Ocean waves. Slomo waves. Crew on stern as Vestas sails downwind in large seas. SiFi, below, describes what an ice gate is. Shot of the computer screen showing routing software and their track bumping up to the ice gate. Charlie, below: "It would be nice to have a little bit more freedom. And we wouldn't actually have to do this. But because we do we've gotten pretty good at." Explains that it takes about 40 minutes to gybe due to stacking. Talks about how many times they have to do it. SiFi talks about sailing along the edge of the exclusion zone with all the gybing. SiFi getting dressed. "It's quite nice on deck. Gearing up's a little inconvenient." Shots of crew on deck. Grinding, Stacking. Charlie steering. Jena, below: "I hope we don't see any icebergs." Chuny, below: "Safety first." On the stern (trimming the mainsheet, I think), Tony points out where the ice gates are, 60 miles away. Sam: "Who builds these gates?" Tony: "I don't know. Maybe they've got a deal with Trump. An imaginary fencing company. I wonder how high it is. Twenty-one feet?" Tom (I think?) says it could be like The Truman Show. The clouds coult be painted. Stacey and Tom join in. Jena: "We're actually in a big pool of water, and they're just moving the water underneath us. And we're not going anywhere." Tony: "We're actually in a room with a green screen behind us, and they're throwing buckets of water on us." Epic surfing shot from astern. Slomo washing machine.

Hgh speed wake shot. Stern cam of surfing in very high winds. Pascal at the nav station. Fabien, below, talks about how they're approaching the ice limit. Will need to do some gybes to stay in the pressure. Bow cam of Dongfeng surfing. Mast cam of cockpit during gybe. Stern cam of the end of the gybe. Looked good. Marie, below, talks about how on deck it's a washing machine. Have to grab the pedestal to stay onboard. Life jacket, clipped in. "I hope the wind will decrease a bit." "We are still ahead... But the three last days are very difficult for me." Sunset washing machine shot of stern. Closeups of pit from inside cabin. Winches, spray. Water cascading into the cockpit.

SiFi sits at the nav station looking at a routing screen on the computer. His breath is visibly fogging due to the cold. "It looks like we're walking the line between speed and safety reasonably well." Slomo of his breath fogging. With low sun behind them as they stand on the stern, Charlie and SiFi talk about a problem with the main. "There's so much friction on it on the spreaders and shit it's probably not going anywhere." Nick talks about a couple of squall lines came through, up to 45 knots. And going onto the third reef the headboard of the mainsail isn't going onto lock. Mark: "Well, we've got 44 knots, and if you look this way there's a massive cloud, and the water's more white than blue." Charlie jokes about not saying "white squall". Slomo. Sam to Mark: "How is it being down here?" Mark: "It's everything you'd expect. Windy, cold, we've got 48 knots right now. Look upwind. It's crazy. Doing 30 knots of boatspeed. It's pretty crazy, but somehow everything's still in control." Slomo wake.

Drone shots of TTToP sailing on port gybe, triple-heading with the MH0 (I think?) in about 15 knots of wind. Later, the drone looks down from above, and the J2 has been furled. Below, Nicolas sits at the nav station looking at routing software. We see him by the wheel, explaining to Liz, who's steering. Liz looks over the side at the area of the rudder. Someone (Elodie?) grinds. Wake through wide-angle lens. Wide-angle shot from behind as Lucas steers, surfing. He turns around briefly, taking both hands off the wheel to make dual shaka signs and stick his tongue out. Francesca, trimming the main, chuckles. They surf in increased wind. Bleddyn coils in the pit. A wave douses the pit. Later, it's almost dark, we see out from the cabin hatch as water washes into the cockpit.

Charlie and Simon at the nav station looking at routing (I think?). Charlie is eating. Charlie jokes about how when the wind gets high enough there's no sail in the sail chart. Charlie: "It's just like, good luck. Bare poles?" Simon chuckles, jokes about how you don't bother with some data points: "100 true, 1,000 knots." They talk about apparent wind angle. Simon: "You can reach down; this is where you end up on the ice gate... Then it passes over and you're back to running again." Charlie: "Realistically is the J1 getting hanked on? Probably not." Simon: "No." Simon says J2, probably. "A bit like the Trans-atlantic, probably." Charlie: "It would be pretty tough. 25 knots is when the J2 becomes a realistic outrigger sail." Charlie: "So how are we going to get the A3... We could to the J0 for a little bit. J0/J2, something like that?" Tony, from his bunk: "How much wind you got in that low?" Charlie: "In the center of it?" Tony: "No, in the route." Charlie: "The part that affects us? 37 in the listed result." Tony: "So that's a good chunk into the 40s." Simon: "Yeah." Charlie, lookng at Sam: "We've gone higher." Tony: something I can't understand, like: So when you (something about being on the A3?) you get the (something) down there quick." (?) Simon: No, exactly. Tony: "Actually faster at 25, 23, 20 boat knots of breeze." Simon: "Yeah." That's a lot of experience talking there.

Closeups: binnacle compass, hands on the wheel, easing the mainsheet. Marie, trimming the main, talks about the weather being warm, and no birds. It's sad they are too far north, not in the Southern Ocean. "Maybe tomorrow; we will see." Stu, on the helm. "Definitely not the Southern Ocean. We don't wear sunglasses in the Southern Ocean." (He laughs.) "This is far too nice." Black talks about the blue sky and being quiet warm. Wake shot. Below, at the nav station, Pascal talks about strategy with the approaching low, gybing during the night to get the good position, the good pressure. Difficulty of routing with the exclusion zone/ice gate. No way to get away and be safe. Tomorrow night, maybe gusting to 45 knots. Increasing wave state. He shows the routing software with the low moving through.

Drone shot of Vestas with the sun low behind them reaching in 15 knots of wind on starboard tack. (Think this is from late in the day on 2017-12-11.) Charlie, below, talks about the race so far. The plan they had when they left was not the best one, which put them on the back foot. "We've hit the reset button in the ridge." Simon, at the nav station, says they've just had the 0700 sched, and they look pretty good. He points out their position vs. the other boats: Scallywag, TTToP, then the other pack of boats about 20 miles south. Good to be further north. In 24, 48 hours it's good to be further north. "Certainly a more seamanlike [i.e., safety-conscious] way to go about it." Charlie, below, talks about "the weather, Friday, looks pretty fresh with nowhere to run." Setting yourself to be in the right place in three days' time in 50 knots of wind is more important. Simon shows the scary low on the computer forecast. Have to be careful to not get into a position where the wind and sea state are so bad you're pushed against the ice gate and have to slow down. Charlie: "Have to watch the weather pretty closely to make sure we don't find ourselves in a bad spot." Drone shot from ahead with the sunset behind them.

Drone shot passing close over Scallywag's mast as they sail on port gybe in 10 knots of wind with the MH0 (?). Alex, in the cockpit, says they should finish around midnight tomorrow. Expecting light winds coming into Cape Town. Drone shot from the weather bow showing Scallywag triple-heading. At the nav station, Steve talks about how close it's going to be, and what great racing it's going to be. And hoping they're not last. Witty, on the stern, pointing to the leeward bow: "Turn the Tide's 2 miles; Akzo's another 2 in front of them; 4 miles between three boats. We're at the wrong end of the three boats. Hope we're at the right end by the time we get there." Witty quotes Churchill: "Remember this: We will fight them on the beaches. We will fight them in the sand. We will never surrender, and we will never give up." He points ahead. "We are coming for you two, right now."

Pascal, at the nav station, talks about the last 100 miles to Cape Town. Standing in the cabin hatch, Stu talks about one time coming into Cape Town having a breakdown at the end that almost cost them a position. He sprays fresh water from a drinking bottle onto his face. Stu: "That is beautiful." Slomo shots of the cockpit: Carolijn trimming a line, Pascal (?) looking thoughtful, taking a line off the pit winch. Loud wind audio; mast cam view of two crew working on the bow in the spray. Looks like changing down to the J2, maybe? Bow cam shot, looking aft, of the new sail unfurling. Crew pulling the old sail, bagged, off the bow. Stern cam view, looking forward, with reefed (double-reefed?) main and crew at the mast. Grinding. Charles on the helm. Spray.

Vestas sails in 20 knots of wind on starboard tack. Spray. Crew on the foredeck; only one I can identify is Tony. Looks like they're getting ready for a headsail change; J1 is up, so maybe they're going to the J0 or FR0? Or maybe going down to the J2? Wind appeared to be building for them over the morning of 2017-11-24, so maybe they're switching down? SiFi at the nav station talks about how they have maybe 8 hours to go, and expect the wind to build from the 22 knots they have now up to 30 knots due to the "Cape Doctor". SiFi: "It's gonna be tough on the boat, tough on the people. But it's the last day, so we can push." SiFi makes a model with a small box to illustrate the effect of Table Mountain on the wind. Shot of hoisting the new sail (J2?), then lowering the J1 with the J2 not yet unfurled. So maybe they switch down to J3-only in the foretriangle during the sail change, rather than unfurling the J2 outside the J1, then lowering the J1?

Steve, at the nav station, talks about the strategic situation with Witty. Witty, to Konrad: "It's an extremely difficult situation which looks like a lose-lose for us either way." Shot of computer screen with routing visible. Steve, to Konrad: "It's obviously the most complicated thing I think I've seen. I'm not shitting you." Witty, looking tired, talk about how they've fought to get ahead, and now it looks like it's actually going to hurt them. "This leg is getting more and more... We've worked so hard to get from nowhere to where we've got to, and now we're acutally being handicapped... It's like beating my head against a brick wall." Steve talks with Witty about the decision [to gybe south?]. In the dark, we hear a maneuver happening. Shot of routing software. On deck, we see the cockpit with two crew grinding in morning (?) twilight. In the morning, Witty, on the weather rail as they sail again on port gybe, talks about the decision to gybe south. Says the other boats went earlier, while they went later, and that it gave them (Scallywag) a little jump on the competition. Annemieke: "And we are again on the same tack, as if nothing had happend in the last 24 hours." Witty talks about how they have two more scheds of stealth, and when they come back online they'll have made a jump on the other boats, which will give them a psychological advantage.

Steve, at the nav station, talks about the strategic situation with Witty. Witty, to Konrad: "It's an extremely difficult situation which looks like a lose-lose for us either way." Shot of computer screen with routing visible. Steve, to Konrad: "It's obviously the most complicated thing I think I've seen. I'm not shitting you." Witty, looking tired, talk about how they've fought to get ahead, and now it looks like it's actually going to hurt them. "This leg is getting more and more... We've worked so hard to get from nowhere to where we've got to, and now we're acutally being handicapped... It's like beating my head against a brick wall." Steve talks with Witty about the decision [to gybe south?]. In the dark, we hear a maneuver happening. Shot of routing software. On deck, we see the cockpit with two crew grinding in morning (?) twilight. In the morning, Witty, on the weather rail as they sail again on port gybe, talks about the decision to gybe south. Says the other boats went earlier, while they went later, and that it gave them (Scallywag) a little jump on the competition. Annemieke: "And we are again on the same tack, as if nothing had happend in the last 24 hours." Witty talks about how they have two more scheds of stealth, and when they come back online they'll have made a jump on the other boats, which will give them a psychological advantage.

Carlo, below, talks about being in the southern ocean conditions the last few days. "There's definitely times we're on deck that I'd rather be anywehre else than on this boat, and I just hate it. But there's a lot of times when I just love it." Annie, eating below, talks about the wind ligtening. Capey talks about how the pecking order may be already established, but they're doing their best to see if they can change that. Abby, on deck in the dusk, says they think they're deserving of a podium finish. "I think it will be disappointing if we're not on the podium." Capey, at the nav station: "It's a rich-get-richer situation." Annie: "It doesn't really matter where we were a week ago; it's where we finish." Shot of crew working on the bow for a sail change as spray comes over the bow. Peeling to a ligher-wind headsail (MH0?). Bouwe on the helm. Annie eating below. Abby bailing out the engine compartment. Clew of the headsail. Closeups of instruments below, and at the mast. Stacking below. Night shots of maneuvers in the cockpit. Day shot of coiling lines in the cockpit. Someone with a meal pack below.

Below, Lucas talks about the importance of catching waves when the wind isn't as strong (like now) to increase average speed. Drone shot of TTToP on port gybe in borderline-surfing conditions. On deck, Lucas talks about how he does more surfing than sailing. Liz, on the aft pedestal, talks in surfer dialecdt about his surviving the ECC ("east coast current"). Lucas sings: "Let's go surfing now..." Below, Liz talks: "Lucas is a natural with any water sports, who does all water sports and does them all very well." She talks about the first time she took him sailing on "one of these boats", and there were "massive waves; he jumped on the helm and absolutely sent it." Francesca and Bianca do an embarrasing/culturally insensitive wind dance in the cockpit. Dee: "We desperately need to arrive in Cape Town as soon as possible." At the nav station, Dee and Nicolas talk about the strategic decision to dive south to avoid the high ahead of them. Nicolas, laughing: "At least we all agree. Perhaps we are wrong but [we] agree." Dee talks about being surprised AkzoNobel didn't activate stealth. Dee, later, talks about how they've gybed, and AkzoNobel and Scallywag are on AIS but have not gybed. Later, closeup of AIS screen. Nicolas explains that AkzoNobel has gybed. "At least if I have made a mistake I will not be the only one who made it."

At the nav station we see an AIS screen (I think?). Steve talks about how they did a good job overnight holding onto the "big sail", and have stayed in the front, making a 7-mile gain on TTToP. Also, AkzoNobel has been farther to the south and has made a big loss. Steve: "We've just made an 18-mile gain on them." Shot out the cabin of Alex and Parko (steering) in the cockpit. Below, Witty talks about how they've done well, looking forward to finding out if it's continued in a few minutes. After getting the sched, Steve announces that they're ahead of AkzoNobel. Witty: "Yes!" In the pit, Ben says he's happy about it.

At the nav station, Xabi talks in Spanish about the other leading boats. Shots on deck of MAPFRE sailing fast on port gybe. Slomo spray. Pablo, in his foulies hood, smiles in slomo. Slomo spray on bow, water dripping off the clew of the reefed main. Slomo washing machine in the cockpit.

Slomo shot of a dark albatross gliding in their wake. Emily, below, getting out of her bunk: "It's cold." Jules, at the nav station, talks about how they're still riding the front, but have high pressure a few days ahead. Simeon repairs some piece of gear, hands it to someone, and talks about the upcoming winds and strategy. "In general we've been sailing the boat well." Nicho, on the stern: "Number one challenge is how we're gonna get ahead of some of the boats ahead of us." Talks about how boats can get stuck in the approach to Cape Town. Slomo of spray coming into the cockpit.

Below, Blair talks about being in the lead but it being tense. Brunel in stealth mode. "Somewhere behind us, we hope." Pablo, below, talks in Spanish about the situation with the competition. Shot from the cabin as Blair brushes his teeth in the hatch; spray on deck as Ñeti and Támara grind. Nav station. Washing machine shots on deck as MAPFRE sails fast on port gybe with Xabi on the helm.

Spray over the bow. Closeup of routing software at the nav station. Steve and Witty are talking as Steve looks at what looks like a wind forecast map. Steve explains that they're at risk of dropping off the front at the back of the fleet and falling into a hole. Steve; "So we could end up with an enormous split forced on us..." Talks about the risk/reward decision: go all out for a big gain, or try stay in front of TTToP. Witty makes a meal, talks about the conservative call of just trying to stay ahead of TTToP. Witty: "It's the most effort I've ever seen go into a sixth place in my life... Let's just get this leg over and done with. And start again." Witty goes on deck.

Below, Stacey puts on multiple layers of cold-weather foulies. She talks about how it's a long process getting dressed. Stacey: "Like Charlie said it's Monday; we've got one week of work and then we're on vacation." Shots of the crew in the cockpit as Vestas sails fast on port gybe. Wake. Washing machine. Tony on the helm. Tony goes below, takes off his cowl. "Wow. Another wet one." Tony talks about their performance being good, good scheds, 24-hour longest run possibility. Says there's a sched coming in now. Tony takes off his foulies and layers. Jena talks about how it's cold, but fast, and that a sched is coming in. "Hopefully still fast." Charlie, in his bunk, looks at SiFi at the nav station. SiFi: "Yeah; we're longest run again." Later he talks to Martin: "We're going well in this windy stuff which is nice. It's a race to the east, to stay in front of the front." Talks about it being tricky, needing to try to avoid the high pressure above and behind. "A couple of days of fast sailing, then it's going to get tricky."

Kyle sleeps in his bunk. Carlo touches his shoulder to wake him up. Kyle: "Fuck." Kyle talks to Bouwe, off camera, about Dongfeng's location. Bouwe: "No, no. They're 40 miles away." Kyle, to Carlo: "Wet hands." Carlo: "It's so wet outside." Kyle: "Yeah, it looks it." (Wonder if this is referring to the same fog from the 09:12:27 MAPFRE video.) Dishing food, eating. Annie eats in the background. Kyle: "Having lunch, which is rice slop, with tomato, I think. Which is very similar to every other meal we eat." Carlo walks by. Kyle: "He likes to wake you up with wet hands, which is very uncomfortable." Carlo: "C'mon, seagull; you like it." Capey, at the nav station, explains their situation. Kyle puts on his foulies. Goes on deck (yeah; looks heavily overcast at least, if not foggy), takes the wheel. Slomo shots of passing water. Shot of the "Team Brunel" branding on the foulies hanging below.

GoPro footage of Brad being woken up below and getting dressed. He does voiceover about his commute not being too bad. Drone shot of him emerging from the cabin and getting on the middle pedestal. GoPro shot of him grinding, then looking at the mast. Brad (in voiceover): "Sometimes you do an overtime." Drone shot from above of Brad near the top of the mast. At the nav station, Jules tells him how far to Cape Town. Brad: "But I'm always looking forward to my off watch." GoPro shot of him climbing back into bed. Brad: "That's four hours of bliss." Voice: "You're back up in 10, mate."

Slomo of spray coming over the bow. Below, Capey talks to Bouwe in red light at the nav station. Bouwe announces below: "Gybing." mast cam view looking down, pit cam view looking aft, as Brunel gybes from starboard to port at sunset. We also catch a glimpse in the pit cam view of Richard (OBR) on the stern with a camera, then see his footage of Kyle grinding. Bouwe, in the cockpit, talks about the strategy of when they gybed, hope to cross Vestas. Below, Abby stacks. Sunset.

High drone shot of Scallywag sailing on starboard gybe in the afternoon. Witty on the helm with TTToP behind them. Witty, on the helm: "I just feel like this is ridiculous, because all we're doing is getting further and further behind the rest of the fleet. But no one wants to be last, do they?" Drone shot of Scallywag with TTToP behind them. Steve and Witty talk at the nav station. In the cockpit, Steve explains they want to split and get south and west [of TTToP]. How even though it's a terrible heading, it's setting themselves up for 12 hours' time. Sunset. Stacking in the sunset. Dusk. Ben, in the cockpit at dusk with TTToP visible on the starboard quarter behind him, talks about how it's been a busy day, "gybing back and forth with the Plastics, who are behind us... Yeah; been a pretty enthusiastic day." Shot of Witty on the helm with TTToP visible next to him with their red masthead running light.

At the nav station on port gybe, Steve talks strategy with Witty. Steve explains the strategic situation to Konrad: The boats ahead are going to be doing well against them, but they're focused on beating TTToP to the gybe. There's a call from the deck: "They've gybed behind us guys" and Witty and Steve immediately jump up and head on deck to gybe. We see the gybe to starboard happen from the port cabin hatch. Looks like it's fairly early in the day; I think this is the gybe that happened around 2017.11.18 07:28:10 UTC. On deck, Witty talks about strategy, and how he thinks they need to split to the west to set up for more wind later, and have a chance of catching one of the boats ahead vs. settling to just keep battling TTToP. But then he second-guesses himself, saying they've spent all this time clawing their way ahead of TTToP; it would be foolish to throw it away now with a rash decision. Shot of TTToP on port gybe behind them. Parko, standing at the forward pedestal, relaying information from below: "Halesy really thinks we should gybe." Witty: "Okay; let's gybe." Parko: "Yeah. [turning below] Okay, we're gonna gybe Halesy!"

With Charles at the helm, Dongfeng gybes from port gybe to starboard as dawn is breaking. Slomo of the crew working in the cockpit. We then see them gybing back to port? Sunrise. Then they're on starboard again. Jack, sitting in the cockpit, talks about the tactical situation and the remainder of the leg. "We'll find out in two hours at the next sched report. Everyone's a bit anxious for that." Pascal, at the nav station, looks at the latest sched. He rubs his face. On deck, Dongfeng is sailing on starboard gybe around midday. Marie, sitting on the cabin: "I think it is not really good. We did a mistake, maybe, gybing too late. It's not a good moment to talk to Pascal. We have to let him... alone." Pascal stands in the cockpit, reading from a piece of paper. Marie and Horace stand close to him; Daryl steers. Pascal: "MAPFRE is 89 miles at 244." Marie: "Eighteen, uh, eighteen, uh..." Daryl: "Eighty-NINE." Marie: "Eighty-nine!" Pascal: "We are fucked. [beeped in FB video] Daryl: "We are what?" Pascal: "We are fucked. We are completely fucked." Stu: "Well, well, well. Three holes in the ground. I've seen some very strange stuff happen out here on the ocean. It's never over till it's over... Nothing we can do about it now, except keep sailing our boat. Who knows what might happen." [NOTE: This video does not appear in the Raw Content feed. I'm taking this from the version posted on the VolvoOceanRace YouTube channel, and taking the time of it from the time of the two stills posted to the Raw Content feed showing the same events.]

At the nav station with Charlie, SiFi talks about the 1300 sched, and where the other boats are. Akzo moved well on the inside (to the east), even though they appeared to be in an area of less wind. Now Vestas is on the outside (west), and hopefully will be able to gain ground.

Emily gets dressed below, clips on a fanny pack. She talks about how it was a big risk for them to cut the corner by positioning themselves east of the fleet. A big risk for Jules, because there are all the other navigators saying no, we think this western route is faster. Peter, on deck, trims the main and explains that if you stay with the fleet you know you'll be close. But if you take a risk you have a chance of making a big gain. Behind, Martine is on the helm, beaming (as usual when steering). Luke talks about taking the risk. Luke: "Looks like now maybe it hasn't paid off, but it's certainly not over yet. We'll see what happens." Jules, below at the nav station, about the risk of diverging from the four boats ahead. Shot of routing software on the computer. Talks about how the weather pattern was evolving ahead of them, so they wouldn't necessarily be in the same weather pattern as the leaders when they got there. Jules: "We're sill gonna be a fair way behind, and we'll have to look for the next opportunity." Super-low-altitude drone shot (well below deck level) of AkzoNobel from close ahead and to weather, pulling back and ascending.

Below, Capey is at the nav station. Off camera, Bouwe asks, "When do we start cutting the corner? Tomorrow? Or the day after?" Capey: "80, I think's, the true wind direction where we've gotta start. Around that, yeah." We see an instrument display showing TWD of 085. Kyle, on deck, talks about how AkzoNobel is to the east, having "cut the corner" earlier, but at the risk of missing the good part of the front that Brunel is hoping to hook into in a day or so. Maciel, looking through binoculars to starboard: "Yeah; Copacabana." Then, pointing: "Yeah, there they are." He lowers the binoculars, hands them to Kyle. Maciel: "Vestas. On top of the wheel." Annie, at the galley, talks about smelly boots and wet foulies getting dried out. Kyle, on the wheel, points out his "cigarette legs... very powerful legs as well." Row of boots hanging along he weather rail. Spreading a sail out to dry on the cabin. Kyle, on the helm, jokes with Bouwe and does a Crocodile Dundee impression: "That's not a knife."

Pascal talks in the cockpit. They're off Brazil, can't see the girls on the beach but they're there. Talks about going around the St. Helena high. Below, at the nav station, Pascal talks on the intercom about the latest sched. Time-lapse view from the media station looking forward of Pascal at the nav station. Shots of Dongfeng reaching fast on port. Jack working on a piece of hardward (roller fitting from the head of a sail, maybe?). Jérémie, on the pedestal, slaps the top of the winch drum while spray covers him, then grabs a winch handle to bang on it. Carolijn in the washing machine. Charles grinding on a pedestal.

Horace sings happy birthday in Mandarin (?) to Achille, Jérémie's son. Below, Jérémie explains that Achille is his older son who is 14 today. "When he was born I was already racing, the Transat Jacques Vabre. I was around this place. I miss his birth; I miss every birthday. But every time I send him some words, with pictures. It's hard but it's funny, something between us. It's always hard when you leave home, but things like this, small emails, and when you come back it's happy days." Carolijn reads a letter from home, marked on the outside in a child's writing, "You are only can open when you are on the equator." Has a photo of the Lisbon bridge. Carolijn reads: "Dear Mum. I love you and good luck from Kyle. And I don't like it that you are away so much. Well, guess three times. Okay, it is the Volvo. That's all. Go fast." She thanks him and blows a kiss. Carolijn at the computer, talks about the emotions of the contacts with home.

Sunrise (wonder how many more OBRs are going to open their video with that shot?) Witty on the helm, John on the mainsheet. They seem kind of glum. Below, at the nav station, Steve talks about the sched with someone off-camera. Steve: "We were one mile further on Akzo but they were five degrees higher, but other than that we had the equal/worse run. The Plastics have the best run again of the whole fleet." Steve, to Konrad: "We had pretty good vision on them yesterday, and then they started moving really quickly. And we've just been bleeding miles to them ever since." Steve talks about TTToP having more people, making them heavier and that might be helpful in current reaching conditions. Witty, below, looking tired: "We don't have enough time in the boat, sailing at certain angles. Costly lessons." Witty pours hot water into his insulated bowl. Witty: "It's a new place for our team to be in, getting our head kicked in sched after sched and not really knowing how to fix it, not knowing what's wrong. Just gotta keep trying, mate. Becoming a little bit embarrassing. Hopefully the next sched will be better. Just gotta keep looking forward. Stop the bleeding, and then think about how we're going to gain. It's quite hard. Bloody hard, this race. And the opposition are bloody good." Oh, Witty. Don't make me have feelings for you. Witty sits at the nav station and puts on his reading glasses.

Bouwe, on deck, talks about passing the equator and heading south in the tradewinds. Below, at the nav station, Capey talks about strategy for the south Atlantic portion of the leg: Getting south as quick as they can now, then hooking into a front. Capey: "Last couple of hundred miles will be the decider. So that's what you've got to get in position for." Closeup of instruments. Hands holding a sheet. Slomo shot of Vestas a mile or two ahead of them. Slomo shot of Alberto on the low side, squinting up into the slot. Carlo working on the foredeck. Spray on the clew of a headsail. Closeup of winch turning, easing. Kyle talks about speed gains of 0.1 knot being quite significant. Artsy slomo closeups: Winch, Alberto. Below, Richard asks Capey about Vestas: "Do we follow or do we do our own thing?" Capey: "We do our own thing." Sunset.

Charles, at nav station, talks in French. Intercut with sunrise shots on deck. Charles talks on an intercom to the cockpit: "It's about 10 miles behind us on our course." Wolf shows his hands with discoloration from salt water. Sunset. Various shots of crew working on deck. Daryl on the bowsprit gives hand signals to the back of the boat.

Drone shot of Scallywag close reaching on port. Cockpit shot looking forward. Annemieke, at the nav station, talks about sending an email. Annemieke: "I think it's day eight? Nine?.. This is the first I've sent. They must have been waiting for a message. I have to be honest [laughs] I didn't know exactly how it worked."

Sophie brings a wrapped present from below and leads the crew in singing 'Happy Birthday" to Joan. Joan talks at the nav station in Spanish. Rob talks at the nav station about the equator and King Neptune. Blair talks to Ugo about how they're both pollywogs. Ñeti talks in Spanish. Támara talks in Spanish.

We see Charlie on the weather rail grinding a winch, shirtless. Brunel behind them and to leeward. Charlie looks through binoculars at Brunel. Charlie: "They have a staysail." Nick, looking forward: "J0 or J1 on Dongers... J0 on MAPFRE." Below, SiFi talks about wind, competition at the nav station.

Steve, at nav station, talks about the clouds and rain. Shot of crew grinding in the cockpit in the range. Luke, grinding: "Almost got caught with our pants down on that one." Luke talks about rapid and large windspeed and direction changes. Alex: "This is like reverse doldrums. There's been wind, but we're getting screwed by clouds all the time." Steve talks about the weather systems, clouds, winds, how every time is different.

We see a whiteboard (?) below with what looks like a child's drawing of a birthday cake, a person at a steering wheel, and "Happy Birthday Patan!" Blair emerges from the cabin with what look like three chocolate suckers. They sing Happy Birthday to Pablo, who is on the helm. Xabi (referring to the chocolate): "To share." Pablo takes a bit of the chocolate, drops a piece, and scrambles for it while Blair holds the wheel for him. Below, at the nav station, Pablo watches videos of what sounds like birthday well-wishers. Pablo talks in Spanish.

On deck, in a shot titled "November 9, 2017" (2 days previously), Liz talks about how Nico's wife is due to deliver, and they have a chocolate mousse stashed in a food bag to celebrate. Liz: "I don't really mind about the baby, but I'd love to nail some chocolate mousse at the moment." Sam to Henry, on the helm: "Hank, do you have any kids?" Henry: "I have no kids, but I'm excited for the arrival of Nico's new girl. I've decided it's going to be a girl because Nico can only produce girls... And there's nothing sexist about that because girls are awesome." Camera pans to show Liz miming shoveling; the crew laughs. Frederico talks how it's awesome, struggles for word "born". We see TTToP reaching in stronger winds in a shot titled "Two days later..." Nico below, smiling: "I'm a father for second time, a small girl." Liz beams from her bunk in the background. Liz: "You happy?" She reaches out a hand; Nico clasps it. Henry, standing, smiles. They discuss her name: Catherine (in Britain). They joke about the chocalate mousse. Nico tells the people on deck, who cheer. Henry, below: "I'm super happy for him. I know Nico well from our days in the Figaro." Nico and Henry examine the chart at the nav station; Nico explains that he and his wife agreed that the child's middle name would be from somewhere near where the boat was at the time she was born, so he's looking at placenames in the Cape Verde Islands. Screenshot of the nav station computer running Outlook; Nico looks at pictures of his new daughter. Nico, to Dee: "It's better than a good sched." Dee: "Yeah. Much better news." Shot of Nico, smiling, on the after grinder pedestal. Dee, below, talks about how Brian Thompson's breaking his leg changed their navigator situation. She thanks Nico's wife for the sacrifice of having him on board during the birth of their child.

Joan, at the nav station looking at a display of a chart showing the leg, talks in Spanish. Closeup of the chart as he zooms in on the Cape Verde Islands. Xabi, below, talks in Spanish about strategy and the other boats. He repeats it in English. Xabi: "Everyone's happy. We just overtook two boats last night. We just hope to catch Dongfeng. We will fight very hard with these two guys, with Vestas, and with Dongfeng of course." On deck in the dawn, Ñeti sits, Tamara grinds the aft pedestal, and Pablo steers. Shot aft, through the wheel, of Vestas a few miles behind them. Slomo shot looking up at Xabi on the helm. Slomo shot of Sophie during a sail change taking spray on the bow.

At the nav station with Nicolas, Dee sounds morose as she recounts how they have lost ground against the leaders, who have moved into new pressure. Sam: "In regards to our stealth experiment, how does this bode?" Dee shrugs, grimaces. Dee: "Hasn't really had a good effect." On deck, talking to the crew in the cockpit. Dee shrugs. Dee: "Bugger." Dee, against the sky as she sits against the stack in the cockpit, talks to Sam about the strategic situation. Dee: 'It's a bit weird to be reaching. It's very unusual. I feel like we had the doldrums at the Canaries, and now we're reaching. God knews what's ahead of us." Sam: "And how are you feeling?" Dee: "A bit deflated. I'm not having a happy-Dee day today, and that hasn't really helped. But we're sailing in perfect conditions."

Pretty low-altitude drone shot of TTToP sailing at sunset on port gybe. Drone moves in toward bowsprit, where a sailor is standing. Below, at the nav station, Liz, Dee, and Nicolas are looking at the computer. Liz plays with Wisdom. Dee explains that they've just received a position report and they are the furthest-west boat. She says they're discussing doing stealth mode. "I think we're gonna go for it." Liz has Wisdom explain (or explains to Wisdom; not completely sure) what stealth mode is. On deck, Lucas: "You watch. We're gonna come out of this, bang! Like a ninja!" Bianca covers her face with her hands, then flaps them open. "Stealth mode!" Martin: "Now you see us, now you don't." Wide, high drone shot circling TTToP in the evening with clouds.

On the foredeck, Nick and Tom wrestle a new sail into place as they do a sail change (maybe peeling MH0 to FR0?). Charlie at the wheel; grinding in the cockpit. Below at the nav station, SiFi explains the current strategy. Out of the lighter winds, into stronger reaching conditions, fairly far west for how south they are. Maybe the doldrums won't be too bad. Talks about the competition.

At the nav station, Nicolas talks with Dee about the latest sched. Nicolas: "It's not that drama." (?) Dee: "Yeah, thank god." Nicolas: "It is possible to think that they were 150 miles ahead." Dee: "Easily." Dee talks to Sam: "So where we thought life was ending for us, all is not lost. We're the furthest west, which is where Nico wanted to be." On deck in the evening, standing in the pit, Liz says: "I'm gonna go and have a celebratory dump because we just had a great sched." Lucas: "You made that word up. Celebrate-y isn't even a word, is it?" Liz: "Celebratory? Yes, celebratory is totally a word." Lucas: "It's not a word." Liz: "It is. It is a word. I just said it, so it must be a word. It came out of my mouth, so it is a word. Celebratory, celebratory, celebratory..." On the stern, Liz squats down and acts like she's about to pull down her shorts, then straighens up and laughs. Liz: "Get out of it." Two crewmembers (I think maybe Annalise on the helm and Bianca sitting forward of the helm?) laugh.

Rob, at the nav station in red light, talks about strategy. Getting south, far enough west away from the Canaries. Rob: "We've been gybing the last 48 hours to try to stay in pressure, and get west whenever we can... Difficult shifts to predict, cloudy and stuff... Vestas did well, they got across our bow, about 10 miles in front of us." Joan, below, talks in Spanish. Xabi, below (now in daytime), talks about doing the hard job of lots of gybing and maneuvers. Xabi: "And now we have all a drag race, racing south." Joan talks more in Spanish. On deck, MAPFRE sails fast on starboard gybe, triple-heading. Crew shifts the stack aft, with the helmsman (Pablo) calling the cadence and giving one hand to pulling the sail. Interesting that they don't do the "two-six-heave" chant. Just "one, two, three" (moving on "three"). Downward mast cam view of the deck, then relatively high-wind drone shots of MAPFRE sailing fast on port gybe. Looks like the wind is around 20 knots; triple-heading with Masthead 0, J2, and J3.

Drone shot of Scallywag sailing on port gybe with A3, J2, and J3. Looks like it's near sunrise, with pretty clouds. Audio is Steve and Witty talking at the nav station. Witty: "Crossing us?" Steve: "Not crossing us... We're probably 20 miles ahead of him?" Steve, talking to Konrad at the nav station: "We're being as proactive as we can, trying to be smart abou where we put the boat, but... the doldrums can create an awful lot of mixup, and for sure these leaders are going to start losing miles. So what we're losing right now, we'll definitely get back a chunk of that if not more. Basically it's two days of really keeping the faith here now. A day from now I think we'll really have a different feeling on board in that we'll be gaining rather than losing. This sort of slow, steady loss is hard for everyone on board to swallow... At the moment we're not happy with where we are, but we will make gains. There's a very long way to go in this race." Shot of pre-dawn sky with crew silhouetted on the stern. Another drone shot like the opening shot. Witty, in cockpit: "Every time Steven Hayles comes on deck on another sched and says we've lost they have to put their trusty Leatherman away so they don't slash their wrists. It's quite depressing for 6 to 8 hours and find out that you've lost." Shot of Alex on the helm. Witty: "It's not all over. There's still a bloody long way to go. As they say, 'Keep plugging away.'" Drone shot from above.

Night-vision shot looking aft from the bow cam as Vestas sails on starboard gybe. Looks like they're triple-heading, with the J2 in the foreground and the J3 in the background; presumably there's a Code 0 or A3 set on the bowsprit. We hear cockpit audio; a voice (Nick's?) says, "Yeah; I'm gonna go to the rig. Wait 'till everybody's ready." Then we see a night-vision shot of the stern camera looking forward with four grinders on the handles; maybe the beginning of a sail change or gybe? Then we get an artsy shot out the cabin looking aft with the crew at the back of the boat silhouetted by the rising moon. Waning-gibbous moonrise would be in the early evening, so I'm guessing this shot is around 2000-2100. There's a light visible low, near the horizon; it might be on Madeira, but at their closest after gybing they were 22 nm from Madeira, which seems like a long way. The other possibility is that it's Brunel's starboard masthead running light, which was in the right place about 10 nm behind them. Slomo shots of the crew silhouetted against the moon; washing machine. Below, we see crew stacking gear on the starboard side. SiFi, at the nav station, talks about how they're west of Madeira looking for wind acceleration, and about the nearby competitors. Slomo shot from the cabin of someone securing one of the two cabin hatches in place.

Major washing machine as Vestas sails fast on starboard gybe toward the sunset (think this may have been from the first afternoon; this is the first video to come off the boat on Leg 2). Nick, on deck, talks about taking a break for 40 minutes. Chuny and Jena on the aft pedestal. Charlie takes spray in the face while holding the mainsheet. Someone (I think Charlie?) talks to Mark: "Nick's working on the rudder." Closeup of Mark taking spray on the stern. Jena, on the mainsheet, wipes spray from her eyes. Below, Charlie (in foulies) talks to SiFi (in his bunk) about the competition. SiFi, at the nav station, talks about strategy. It's 0100, and they've been highest and fastest, but now they want to get south to avoid ending up with less wind. "We're gonna see if we can find a faster route to the south. We've got good downwind conditions for the next 24, 48 hours and beyond... Gybing is hard work in this weather because we've got so much internal stack at the start of a leg. But that's life I guess." On deck in the dusk, crew shifts the stack. "Two, six! (shift) Two, six! (shift)"

Capey, at nav station at night, refers to chart and talks to someone off camera (I don't think he's talking to Richard, though): "We could always just go down the coast, if we wanted to kick our ass." (?) Annie, below in daylight: "There was a point last night where I sort of thought it would be really nice if there was a bit less wind and it could be really dry. But I'd regret thinking that in a couple of days when we're in the doldrums and it's hot and no wind. So we should enjoy it right now... The America's Cup boys they do a good job, yeah. Driving hard. They may not like the lack of sleep, but none of us do. Yeah; sending it." Slomo shot of Peter on the helm. Epic washing machine shots. Bouwe, below, talks about the weather patterns and winds. "The more you're getting down to the equator, the breeze will go further to the east. If you go too early you never can make westing anymore. So the more westing you make, it looks very horrible, the more cheap it is in the end." Annie: "We've got some miles to make up now; the others got a better shift, Dongfeng and MAPFRE. Just trying to chase them down again now." Shots on deck: Kyle on the helm looking dour. Peter, Alberto, and Kyle shifting the stack in preparation for a gybe. Slomo spray on the foredeck.

Shot of them in the evening sailing past Porto Santo Island on its north side, surfing on starboard gybe. Steve, below at the nav station: "Second night, just to the north of Porto Santo, which is actually the island we rounded in Leg 1 of the race." Slomo shot of them approaching Porto Santo with the sunset behind it. Steve: "Just down to leeward now, well, 20 miles away, is Madeira. Always a bit of a decision which side of these islands you go in the tradewinds, because they leave a huge wake of disturbed wind beneath them. So we're passing over the top here. And also just trying to keep in contact with the fleet. Been a fairly windy first 36 hours of the race, so people are pretty tired. Breeze has calmed down now; just good fast sailing." Slomo shots of cockpit washing machine in deep dusk.

Steve at the nav station below at night. Steve: "Few issues on board. We've got a big leak at the nav station, and we've wiped out the main navigation computer. Which is pretty annoying 7 hours into a 21-day leg. A fair bit of work, trying to swap things around and make it work off our other computer, and I'm feeling a little fragile in terms of not having a lot of backup."

SiFi at nav station talking about the other boats in the latest sched. "Looks pretty good." Brief shot of Hannah sitting to weather, forward, on the stack. Tom, shirtless, talks about trying to power up with the Code 0 after the wind dropped to 8 knots. "Just tweaking things; a bit of DJing" (gestures at pit area).

Shot out the companionway as Dongfeng goes to weather on starboard in 15 knots of wind. Carolijn on the helm; Jack leans on the grinder pedestal. Charles, at the nav station, gives a position report (I think?) over a microphone to the cockpit. Horace, getting his foulies on below: "It's getting exciting. We are getting closer to the top three boats, and AkzoNobel is visible in the AIS area... We still have 20 hours until we are arriving in Lisbon. So... we are working hard." Above, Horace stands on the outrigger rigged at the shrouds, doing something to the clew of the J2 (?). Richard: "Smile!" Horace makes the "shaka" gesture. Jérémie on the helm, talks to Charles in French via the intercom, while Stu listens from the grinder handles. Horace works on the stack.

Ross talks to Simeon at the nav station. They're pointing out different boats. Simeon to Konrad: "MAPFRE slipped away underneath us. We thought we were doing the righ thting, but it must have gone still on the inside, and the rich got richer basically. Hopefully it will happen the same to us. We still have a little to go to the waypoint. But hopefully we'll make a gap with the rest of the fleet, and go for the hunt." Simeon rubs his face and forehead in apparent discouragement.

Steve, at the nav station, talks about the addition of the virtual waypoint to the course. Steve: "The nice thing is we're going downwind, and we're going fast. The boats are averaging over 20 knots now." Intercut with slomo shots of the washing machine. Steve: "It's a little bumpy at times. When you're reaching in these boats it doesn't take much wind for it to be uncomfortable. But no, so far it's been a relatively easy trip." Talks about benefits of racing next to Dongfeng and Brunel, "second-generation" in this race. Steve: "It's an opportunity to test and to learn." More slomo of the washing machine, Witty on the helm joking about the water on deck.

Nicolas, at nav station at night: "We are rounding Porto Santo, just behind Brunel and Scallywag. We are going to hoist the A3 in a few minutes, and then go to the next waypoint which is a virtual mark." Night shot of working the pit as the sail change happens (unfurling the A3?).

Night-time shot of the chart at the nav station showing the approach to Porto Santo. Night-vision shots of the crew working in the cockpit, changing a sail on the foredeck with spray. Below, Pablo talks in Spanish about their passing Porto Santo, the widely varying wind conditions they've been racing in, and the other boats. On deck again: more sail changing, a shot of the nighttime lights along the south shore of Porto Santo.

Tony washes dishes in the galley. Tony: "Best way to wash your dishes: Salt water." SiFi at nav station discusses the latest position report. Charlie, from his bunk: "Interesting." SiFi talks to James about how it's been a tough night, but they now expect it to get a bit better.

Dee and Liz at the nav station at night. Dee talks about adding the virtual waypoint as a palm tree.

Charles, at the nav station, talks in French (about their position relative to the other boats? No idea, really. Need a french-speaking obsessive to help out with translation).

At the nav station at night, Ross points out things on the computer screen while Martine looks on brushing her teeth. Ross: "Yeah; super light. So we're just hanging into this stuff here, which was the lefty we got. Now we're into this righty, which is the header." Ross, talking to Konrad: "I think we've gone okay. Both Vestas and MAPFRE are both going really well. But I think it's been a trickier night for them... We've just got a little light spot to get through in the next hour, hour and a half, and then we get the breeze and can start pointing for Porto Santo." Shot of crew at the back of the boat before sunrise, with the dawn and Venus visible behind them.

Charlie, at nav station at night, checks the latest position report. Charlie: "That's... whoa. If I did it right. SiFi's sleeping, so you never really know. But I just downloaded the 0100 position report and it looks pretty good. We gained back a bunch on everybody, which is nice." Shot of crew below eating in the red light. Someone (Tony?): "Nice job. We're back racing again."

Drone shots: Distant shot with sunrise; very low-altitude shot overtaking boat from the starboard quarter. Shots on board of slatting sails, instruments with low-wind/low-speed readings. At night, Joan and Xabi talking in Spanish at nav station about a position report. Then, in the dark, we hear Joan (?) relaying the position report in English to Rob (?), talking about how they're doing vs. Vestas (ahead of them) and the peleton (behind them).

Stacey, on deck in drifting conditions at sunset: "I've been looking to see the green flash my entire life. I reckon I saw every sunset in the last race and never once saw the green flash." Tony: "A lot of people think it's mythical, but I can assure you it's real. I've got non-believers laughing at me down the hatch right now." Nick (?) from below: "No, no, no, seriously; I'm sure there'll be a unicorn under that flash." Other voice: "I've seen it." Tony: "Also a member of the Flat Earth Society." Shot of dusk, young moon over calm sea. SiFi, at nav station: "MAPFRE up here to the north. She's going quite well. She's still in an easterly... Have to hope a little bit. Hope we get round in front of them."

Shot of boat sailing fast on starboard gybe around dawn, with Nick (I think?) on the helm and Hannah (I think) on the mainsheet. SiFi, below at nav station, looks at the latest position update. SiFi talks strategy on the exit from Gibraltar. "Good to see they're behind us and not well down inside us... Hopefully we can stay on this gybe for a while, start getting south, I can get some sleep, and, yeah, start sailing towards the light stuff." Slomo shot of Damian on the bow in spray.

Dee, at the nav station at night: Talks about exiting through the Strait of Gibraltar, winds up to 35 knots with lots of gybing. Now they're still in the acceleration zone, but are taking things a bit easier by extending out to where the wind falls a bit before gybing. "Good to have an idea of this before we actually head into the south."

$Night. Talking in the cockpit as they've furled the Fractional 0. Discussion of rudders. A crewmember (Nicolai, maybe?) probes with a boat hook off the stern, then straightens up. Crewmember: "Gone." Other voice: "Gone?" First crewmember: "Gone." Simeon below, at the nav station: "We're here off the African coast, and we hit something pretty hard. Twenty-two, twenty-three knots. Some plastic on the rudder, vibration on the keel. We furled the fractional and did a bit of a back down. Seems to be gone." He shrugs. "No water in the boat. Rudders still in." He gives a "let's go" gesture and smiles.$

Sunrise shot of silhouetted crew (Martine?) on the helm. Simeon at nav station, talking about their strategic moves. "It came out well. We're in second position, behind Vestas. But it's still close racing."

Pascal, at nav station, is not happy. "We lost a lot to the fleet, so not really a good choice." Night shots of crew gybing, grinding. Shifting the nav station below, stacking below. Pascal and Charles at the nav station, looking concerned.

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