Drone shot of Vestas furling the J0 (I think) with the J1 set under it. Rain clouds and sunset on the horizon beyond. Crew on the weather rail looking at the other boats in a line to weather. Clouds. Gull flying overhead. Tony on the helm. Rain coming toward them. Charlie: Should we dump some water here? Nick talks about sailing really lifted, and now it's a bit tougher. Boats to weather doing well against them. Big rain cloud coming here. Drone shot of them sailing toward rain under J1. Rain comes down toward them. SiFi as the rain hits. SiFi checks his tablet.Stern cam 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."Instruments on the mast. Light winds and flopping. Rain. TJ: Last night? Yeah, it wasn't much fun. Started off fun, then as we got closer to the front got gnarlier and more hectic... No sleep. But that's part of the Volvo Ocean Race. Then no wind, rain, bobbed around in the rain. And now we're making our way to Newport. Stacking forward. Crew sitting on the bow looking tired. Cockpit. Stacey on the bow preparing to hoist the J1. Hoisting, with Charlie and Tony on the forward pedestal.Rain dripping off the boom. Frederico yawning. Martin trimming. Dee: Just came out of 35 knots into the trough of no wind. Quite remarkable. Got the position report at the same time; unfortunately we didn't do too well. MAPFRE and Vestas are going better than us. Wind is starting to fill, but bizarrely from the wrong direction... Final 200 miles; never worked so hard.Evening drone shots of them drifting in light winds with rain on the horizon. Parko, on the helm: This part of the world is known for a relatively easy crossing. The land breeze helps. Clouds. Peter brushes his teeth. Ben mixes up something in the galley. Bird on ddeck (black tern?) Ben looks at clouds. Trystan says Libby has a good point that looking at the scheds for the next few days will be pretty depressing. But there will be a compression coming into Newport, and that will make or break the leg.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.Blair: Getting used to sailing on their own. Broke through a cloud line, and had to stick with our line. Got a bad sched; lost 20 miles on the leaders... Every cloud is very different. Haven't done the best job. The ones that screwed us the other night developed on top of us, and we couldn't do anything about it. Certainly not our best friends at the moment, the clouds. Willy talks in Spanish about the comptetition, the weather. Shots of them sailing on starboard. Drone shots of them triple-heading with the MH0 with clouds and rain behind them.Drone shot with competitor in the background. Charlie talks with crew in the cockpit. TJ steers. SiFi: It's a little different than forecast. He talks about the clouds, the convergence line. Big header coming into Brazil. Squashed hte fleet up a bit. Made good gains on Dee, but Brunel has closed up a bit... Have to see what happens during the day. Land breeze now; sea breeze later. TTToP to port with a rainbow. Drone shots. TTToP approaches on starboard; they gybe ahead to cover. SiFi talks about tomorrow. Crew stacks to weather. TTToP on their starboard quarter. A small fishing boat; Mark waves. TTToP astern in rain. Crew shirtless in the cockpit. Phil showers under the boom. SiFi looks at a tablet to explain the latest sched. Stacey: It's been a busy day; rain clouds and shifts. Gybing. But a good result for us. We're all in a line, going out to sea, bow forward and leeward boat. And we had a shower. It was overdue; it is day 8. First shower of the race. Drone shot of Vestas triple-heading.Time lapse of the cockpit from the stern at night. Jules, at the nav station, explains that they're trying to negotiate some current, but didn't do as well as the boats ahead of them. Emily, below, sprays water on herself. Jules: Using larger sails, VMG running. Less concerned about the current, more about the clouds. Unstable wind; lots of rain.View looking up the slot. Drone shot with morning sun. Stu: Lots of nice sailing for today. Which is a nice change from the last day or two, which had unbelievable cloud activity. Talks about having a sudden squall with everything on the wrong side (stack, water ballast, OBR). Didn't work out well; lost a lot of miles. Shots out the cabin at night with lightning on deck. Horace works in red light as thunder rolls. Rain. Kevin reads a sched on the PA. "So we've been the slowest of the fleet except (someone)." Pascal talks in French. A bird (gannet? booby?) flies over the masthead. Drone shot. Carolijn on the helm.Reefing in a squall. Rain. Parko in the rain in slomo. Parko eating below. Clouds. Parko: Each morning it's a rollcall. We get smacked by a fresh cloud, sail change... Trying to balance that so the boat's on course with not too much or too little sail. Near the equator at sunrise and sunset there's a lot of clouds. When they rain they're pushing or sucking air. In the light conditions have large sails up, and then it's easy to be caught out. Slomo foredeck work. Stacking. Libby on the helm. Annemieke grinding. More stacking. Shot of spray washing off hte foot of the headsail. A skua flying overhead.Night vision shot from the stern camera as they deal with squalls and rain. Shouting, grinding.Stacey at the mast. Rain squall behind them. TJ bagging up the J1. Stacking forward. "Ready, two, six!" Deploying the MH0. Stacey working in the pit. She laughs: I was just thinking how different this evening is from any evening on the last leg. Sun hats and tee shirts, no one is complaining about anything weather-related. Even when it does rain it's short-lived. Quite warm inside the boat. In the Southern Ocean it's constant condensation dripping down below. Nick and Tony in the galley. TJ grinds. Wake. TJ on the helm. "Where'd the hat come from? Australia. I asked my dad what's the best hat to buy. Akubra." He talks about the hat, about sun protection.Drone shot with sunset behind the boat. Crew sailing in rougher conditions. Frederico: Finally sailing on starboard, close reaching, after three days upwind. Did very well. We're the eastern boat. We think it will pay off, but is quite risky. But we are confident in our navigator. We see out the cabin as Dee comes out and relays the sched. Dee explains: We were the fastest boat in the sched. We've got more breeze, which is why we positioned ourselves furthest east. Just need to keep it up and stay focused. Annalise: A lot of upwind, which is slow. Prefer to do 20 knots... but it makes it easier when the position report comes in and we're doing well. Drone shot. Frederico's hand on a winch. Frederico below: The race is quite brutal.... It's just about self management. To take care of your emotions when you are so tired. It's hard, but you ahve to learn how to cooperate with everyone around... It's hard. I think I've grown to be a different man in all the legs so far. When we started very fresh, I never had experience offshore. Now we can sail the boat close to the other teams. I think everybody step up, and we're a really strong team now. Drone shot with rain in the distance.Rain in the cockpit. Witty in the hatch jokes that the boat should have been designed longer and higher, so it would be more comfortable. Libby talks about tacking. We see the tack. Annemieke: "There's another breeze coming." Slomo stacking. Stacking below. Another tack on deck. Libby at the nav station talks on the PA: "Yeah, that's Akzo on the bow." Ben below: Another tack? J1 going up, with Ben then hauling on the furling line to furl the MH0 (or J0). Parko, below: That was a four-hour frenzy. Plenty of tacks. Plenty of MH0 to J1, and moving all the equjpment. We can see almost everyone in the fleet, so pretty much restarting. Libby: This is racing like people race at their club. Nip and tuck. And we're doing that for 20 odd days at sea. Sunset with clouds.Drone shot of Dongfeng sailing into the sunrise. Slomo of Marie grinding. Kevin on the foredeck gesturing. Looks like their going from J1 to something else. Charles, with a buzz cut: "My haircut has been done by a non-professional as you can see. His name is Black. And he tried to do his best. But unfortunately we do not have the good tools. No one can see my hair until Newport. You can Photoshop it. Horace: One of the other Chinese crew has a big injury. I know it is very disappointing for him not to sail the race. And for the moment all we can do is win this leg and sail well. Drone shot. Jack, in his bunk, talks about Itajai being the longest stopover. Hard to get back into the sleep rhythm on the boat. Not too hot yet. Take it while we can. Charles: Quite complicate situation. Lots of clouds, lots of shift... Were in a good position until this morning. Now the fleet is going in a different direction. Next 24 hours will be key. Rain. Crew working the cockpit in the rain. Slomo of Daryl on the helm. Kevin brings up treats. Drone shot of the sunrise again.Grinding. Trystan on the foredeck hauling down the J1. Witty on the helm: I can't see how they're lifted and we're not. Peter, below, talks about the clouds. Shot of the cloud ahead of them on deck. Stacking below in prep for a tack. They tack onto starboard. Stacking aft. Witty on the helm. "Well, at least we're going to where Newport is." Trystan talks about how the gauge they've gained has not really helped out. So now we're the first to tack to starboard. Witty at the nav station. Talks about how MAPFRE must have tacked. Sunset, rain clouds.Sunrise. Alex on the helm. Clouds. Alex: Massive header. Ben sleeping against the stack. Witty at the nav station: Not very good. Brunel got a bit of speed and got through to leeward of us. Decision on where to tack today. Computer screen with routing software. Parko looking through binoculars. Annemieke: We have our moments when we do well; other times we struggle. Difficult conditions. Very choppy sea state, and the windspeed is up and down. You see it in the whole fleet. Rain showers to windward. Peter on the helm. Witty talks to Parko about what the boats to leeward are doing. "We might not get over all of them but we'll get at least some." Ben wrestles the MH0 (I asssume) aloft on the bow.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.Peter: Bonjour. We're in France. [Yann chuckles.] France is just over here, 50 miles apparently, can't see it. Bouwe: Here we are in stealth mode. Is quite light. Have to punch through the light air. Below, closeups of the engine (?), galley stove burner, tea kettle, someone sleeping as loud hydraulics noises can be heard. Peter talks about using earplugs to sleep. How easing the runner is so loud. Sally: Ear-piercing. Alberto, on the helm, talks about how loud it is. Closeup of the runner being eased slowly. Sally, in her bunk with earbuds, tries to sleep. Peter talks about how loud the runner is. Also the engine. Closeups of cranking. Peter listens to it below. Pedestal grinding. Alberto tries to sleep in the bow. Flopping at night with the sound of the sail filling. Sound of rain on deck.Daryl smiles at the camera, making a picture frame with his hands. Black reaises his eyebrows. Kevin has a black eye. MAPFRE is two boatlengths to leeward. Then they pass them; MAPFRE points up off their stern. Then we see a shot of MAPFRE two miles astern. Marie: You have to change my fan. She jokes with Kevin. She says something to Black, below, about finding a bag. Kevin cranks a winch in the rain. Stacking in the squall: bringing the sails aft and to weather. Shot of the mainstail, looking up. Carolijn: I didn't expect it to be such a delight to leave the doldrums. But it is. "Not 100% sure. But keeping my fingers crossed and hoping I'm right... We're finally alone. We've split tacks with the other red boat. The bungee has snapped... See if we can catch the others now." Kevin on the helm. The crescent moon off the leech of the main. Black explains that they have finally broken away from MAFPRE, and can't see Brunel. Sunset.Peter goes aloft. GoPro shots. He calls the wind: "Absolutely nothing 2 miles in front." Bouwe: "Can we get him a bit higher? I can still hear him." Laughter. Back on deck, he points around at the lack of wind. Crew stacks forward behind him. "Just giving the guys some shit about their trim." On the bow, Carlo: "Had a bit of a fight with Turn the Tide. We parked and they sailed around us and never stopped. About 12 miles ahead of us. We just had no breeze at all. Shots of TTToP sailing past them. Lowering the J1 to peel to the MH0. Stacking aft. TTToP sailing a quarter mile to leeward. Sally: "I feel like they had no board the whole time." Carlo talks about the frustration, heat below, almost impossible to sleep. Especially when we have to run the engine. Shot below with engine running of crew trying to sleep in the bow. Sunset clouds in glassy conditions. Rain in the distance. Crescent moon. Rain in the dawn. Bouwe: It's still all right. Breeze should fill in from the east, and we are the easternmost boat. Not going to be a good sched because they've been very slow for the last several hours. "A crystal ball would have been nice."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.Glassy conditions. Sunrise. Ben cranks the runner. Annemieke on the helm. Flopping. Sailing in rain. Marcus on the bow talks about a bad sched, and TTToP slipped through. And Brunel had a breeze from the east. Still in touch with everyone. A long way to go; can't get too hung up in the emotions of one sched. Pole shots. Trystan stands on the boom looking ahead. Libby and Witty talk about "dot to dot." Witty: I'm going to the bow; I've heard enough. On the bow, he talks about the luck of the draw. Sounds discouraged. Pole shot of the keel underwater. Instruments.Beautiful sunrise drone shots. Dee points out Brunel on the horizon ahead of them. Brian talks about how they've held onto Brunel, and gained ground on Dongfeng and MAPFRE behind them. Closing in on Brunel. Drone shot showing both boats in light air, with rain cloud in the distance. Drifting conditions with Brunel a few hundred yards off their bow. Nicolas talks with Brian as Brunel drifts a hundred yards off their starboard beam. Brunel falling behind them, then just ahead of them. Dee, on the helm, about how it's crazy to sail three and a half thousand miles and be side-by-side with their buddies. Suddenly wind is ahead of them. They cross Brunel on port, with Liz giving a "woo hoo!" on the helm. Lucas talks about how good it was to gain and cross ahead of them. Brunel crossing behind them. They wave.Gybing at sunrise. Jules: Still unresolved on how to get through the band of doldrums. Depends on what you'll find on the other side, but that's still 10 days away. "Pretty random really." Sunrise. Nicho on the helm talks strategy with Jules and Simeon. Luke washes in a rain squall. Martine and Brad shower in the rain. Brad: Three showers so far today. Looks like number four shower. Rolling up the J3. Light winds. Martine: Still going through a lot of clouds. Everybody can catch up with us. You just deal with it. Hoisting the J1. Simeon: Hope we end up well. To win the race you need to win legs. That pressure is bigger for us than for any of the others. Jules talks from the cabin to Nicho on the helm. Cecile puts on a shirt below. Nicolai pulls down the J1. Nicolai: Just had a sched, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad. This was a bad one. Lost 25 miles on the fleet. Knew that was coming; they're sailing into lighter conditions. Luke, in the cockpit: "A lot of snakes and ladders in this game." Sunset as they sail in light winds. Red-lit instruments show them sailing at 0.6 knots.Pablo, in the cockpit, talks in Spanish about the competition. Rob gives a recap: heading southeast through the monsoon. Westerly breeze, big clouds, 10-30 knots of wind with big direction changes. A lot of work. They're a day behind the fleet. Giving it their best shot. Dongfeng on the bow. Fingers crossed we'll see AkzoNobel again before Auckland. Xabi looking through binoculars. Louis on the clew. Easing sails in a squall. Slomo spray on the bow. Blair and Willy grinding in slomo. Grinding in a squall. Rain clouds. Slomo rain. Tamara makes the shaka sign.Rain falling on deck. GoPro (Garmin) view as Kevin (I think) helps grind. Black trims the main as darkness falls. Kevin on the helm. Black explains how the wind pressure has dropped. Behind him, on the helm, Kevin is shouting to someone in French. Stacking with sunset clouds behind them. Carolijn explains how they're sailing in about 15 knots. Rain behind them. Traveling in the right direction now. "Life's good." Charles: Nearly last, with MAPFRE... I think we deserve it. The leg is still very long. Very complicated; there's still hope. Reduce the gap to the leader and maybe have an opportunity. Who knows what's going to happen in the doldrums. Kevin steers in the sunset, wearing Charles' jacket. (sigh. making my life difficult.)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."Rain in the cockpit; crew showering. Alberto is very happy, after a week. Grinding for a sail change. Sailing upwind. Carlo fiddles with a pedestal. Below, he and Kyle inspect the pedestal, which is broken. Kyle explains that the pedestal started slipping. To fix it they've had to pull the pedestal apart, requires coordination with the guys on deck. Found the issue, which was a chip in one of the sprockets. So he's shaved that down, and will put it back in place in the position of the pedestal that they don't often use. Carlo works n the sprocket. Lubing the chain. Kyle: I've seen a lot of people do this stuff, but I haven't done it much myself. On deck, Louis comes up to report on a very good sched. "Only 2,500 miles to go." They flp in little wind. Below, Kyle works on putting the pedestal back together. Coordinates with Carlo on deck. "Just be a bit rough with it, Carlo." Kyle: "Done."Justin looks at clouds. Talks about the wind. Simeon on the helm looks tired. Rainbow to leeward. Justin: Basically have been bouncing from cloud to cloud. Playing snakes and ladders with the other boats. Puffs that last for 30 seconds to a minute. Brad on the bow as they hoist the J1 and furl the MH0. Justin on the helm. Rain. Stacking below. Jules looks at the computer. "Until we find some wind out of the westerly quadrant we won't make any gains." Sailing into the doldrums now. Guys behind have all seen them slow and have turned left (east), taking a lot of miles out of them. Luke: Jules and Chris and Simeon have spent a lot of time over the last week deciding where to cross the doldrums. Jules at the mast. Nicolai and Martine lower the MH0 after hoisting the J1. Lowering the J1, Justin gathers it in on the foredeck. Jules emerges from below to annouce the sched: Brunel is closest to the finish now. Brad in the sunset. Justin on the helm after sunset: Dismal couple of days. Who knows what's next.They sail on starboard toward a rainstorm in light conditions. Drone shot circling them with the MH0 up. Trystan explains what the doldrums are with rainstorms on the horizon behind them. Alex: "It's a shitshow." Rain. Witty: "Roll the dice time." Cloud management. Can't really worry too much about what the other guys are doing. Rain on the horizon. Sped up drone shot circling the boat. Light conditions. Fisheye lens. Libby on the helm; Annemieke wearing goggles (why the goggles?).Louis, in the cockpit, talks about how the last few days have been challenging. Transitions. Sail changes all night. Other boats have come past them with pressure. In the back of the fleet now. Lot of transitions to go. Trick is not to get too happy when you're in front, not get too sad when you're behind. Just keep on sailing. Sophie on the bow: Back in the doldrums, I guess. Half an hour of sleep in the last two off watches. Xabi talks in Spanish. Sailing with wind, then flopping as Joan points out wind. Xabi comes up with a tablet and reads a bad sched. "We lost 16." High drone shot of them flopping with no wind, then a drone shot of them sailing on starboard with a raincloud on the horizon beyond them.Brad and Martine on the foredeck peeling from J1 to J0? FR0? Stacking. Luke in the pit. Luke bailing below. Filling up water in the galley. Brad: Nine days in. Not the easiest 9 days. Blast reaching, throwing the boat around. When they get to the doldrums they'll want to get this again. "As long as you keep your gear dry." Richard asks, "Is your gear dry?" Brad shakes his head and smiles. "Soaked all the way through." He eats. Jules talks about their lead over Scallywag and MAPFRE. They'll lose some of that as they lead into the first doldrums area. He talks about strategy with someone. Shots of the conditions lightening on deck. Nicolai talks about light winds coming. Frustrating, but they knew it was coming. Ready for hard work. Unfurling a bigger sail (MH0?). Jules talks about strategy. Simeon scans the horizon for wind. Squall with rain and wind. Grinding. Winch drum. Jules talks about the nearby boats. Luke in the cockpit. Jules, in the companionway, talks about the clouds, and strategy.Least-favorite thing about the leg: Carlo: going upwind. Kyle: The upwind start, going upwind in 40 knots. Alberto: The humidity downstairs. Bouwe: The rain. Alberto: The rain in the first days. Sally: The beginning of the leg. It was horrible. Rough, a little seasick. Enjoyed the most? Bouwe: When the northerly wind came in and we were sailing at 26 knots in flat water. Kyle: Being with the leaders. Louis: Being competitive. Sally: Racing against the other boats, quite close. Peter: The transition we went through with all four of the leading boats right next to each other. Alberto: I like days like this. Sunny days, nice, warm. Carlo: Sailing to Auckland. Alberto and Carlo below.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.Rome points out MAPFRE on the horizon. Bouwe steers in the dusk. They sail in the darkness in light wind. Sunrise astern. Very low-altitude drone shot overtaking them on a glassy sea. Drone shot circling them high overhead. Flopping in the morning sun. Jens points out more breeze ahead. Sailing in a building wind. Shot of the plot. Bouwe explains that a big rain cloud appeared, and they kept going in the same direction, while the two nearby boats put up a jib and sailed higher. And then Brunel parked up under the cloud, and the two boats behind saw that on AIS, and the two boats (especially MAPFRE) made a lot of distance on them by pointing higher. Now TTToP is just to leeward of them. "Just a matter of keep pushing hard and never give up. The race isn't over until the finish" (he says through slightly clenched teeth).Sunrise. Vestas sails toward a raincloud. Nick, trimming the headsail: "We are coming into a cloud line; the morning rollcall of clouds." He points back to where AkzoNobel and Dongfeng have been closing in on them. Radar screen showing clouds, and with what I assume are the AIS positions of two boats to their southwest, 2 and 4 miles away, respectively. Shot of AkzoNobel and Dongfeng a few miles away. Nick and someone (Tom?) in the cockpit in the rain. At the nav station, Mark talks about how they're stuck in a cloud with no wind, while AkzoNobel, a mile away, is doing 11 knots. "Pretty annoying. Build up a nice lead on them overnight, and it's evaporating very quickly... Let's go." Shot of Akzo in the rain. Shot of routing software. Drone shot of Vestas bouncing with no wind in leftover chop. Someone on the foredeck. Shot of the mainsail looking up, with Stacey standing next to it. SiFi at the nav station, looking at what I think must be the 2018.01.12 01:00 UTC sched, in which MAPFRE had surged north well to the west of them. "Wow." He eats. Amory: "Brutal." SiFi, as he eats: "They probably got in the western edge of this. But they're only in 3 knots [of wind]. So they've gotta deal with the wake [?] as well. The hope is that we break out of this first." SiFi comes up on deck: "Yeah. As scary as we thought it would be." Tony: "Those guys sailed around?" SiFi: "They're due west of us, about 26 miles. They're only in 3 knots, but they are in an easterly." They peel to the MH0. Hannah sits on the lowered J1, tying it with sail ties. "Just put themasthead back up, and got breeze from closer to the direction we're looking for." SiFi: "Pretty painful morning. A cloud moved through last night and decimated the wind field... Filling in now. Got 8 knots of breeze from 060. And it's northeasternly, which is the future. And actually it's gonna continue lifting." As the wind builds we see them unfurling the J3 to double-head with the MH0. Wake shot with them moving at 10 knots.Rain pounds down with light winds. Carolijn in the rain. Franck, and everyone else, looks off to port. Franck talks in French. Camera pans forward to show a rainstorm; ahead of it is a competitor several miles away (probably AkzoNobel, but possibly Vestas). They tack the MH0. More rain. Shifting the stack in the rain. Sailing on port tack with the MH0 after the rain has stopped. Horace, on the bow with no wind, gives a recap. [Interesting that no headsail is visible forward of him. J1 is on deck, and the sail on the bowsprit appears to be furled. Are they bare-headed? using the J2 or J3 as a windseeker? Oh; I bet that's the MH0 on the bowsprit, and it's partially furled to make it a little windseeker, with the unfurled part invisible above him, out of the frame.] At one point a competitor is visible, out of focus, behind him. Again, probably AkzoNobel. Justine, on the bow, recaps the strategic situation. Closer to AkzoNobel, but Vestas, sadly, is a little further ahead. Shot of AkzoNobel. Sailing at 8 knots with dolphins under the bow. Then, flopping again. Franck, in the companionway, talks about strategy in the doldrums; picking the right side of the cloud, getting the wind. Now wind is down, but he's hoping to get into the tradewinds tomorrow morning. Carolijn steering at sunset. Jack sleeping in the bow. Dusk. Horace asks about Vestas' wind in the latest sched, the other competitors; Franck explains.Joan, in the cockpit, talks in Spanish as MAPFRE flops with no wind under cloudy skies. Rain; slomo of Sophie, Joan, Xabi grinding in the rain. Sophie and Támara on the bow in the rain. Moving fast in the squall, and... becalmed again. Crew looks for wind; Xabi discusses it. Blair hauls the clew aft.We see the position readout tick over from S hemisphere to N. [Oh god. Here it comes. Please may the hazing ritual be merely silly, rather than cringe-worthy. (J/k. I know it will be fine. Goofball Boat Mom and Her Trusty Wisdom-Voicing Sidekick don't do abusive hazing.)] Sitting on the stack forward in the morning light, Bernardo says it's done; off the bucket list. Bleddyn looks at him: "One part of it, mate." Brian, in the cockpit, talks about how they've stuck within 2 miles of MAPFRE all day and all night. Slomo shot of MAPFRE. Time lapse sequence from a camera mounted on the starboard side of the stern showing them approaching a big squall, rain falling on them. Brian talks about the big squall in front, and the satellite showing a light patch of wind. Slomo of people grinding in the rain. Dee talks about the pollywogs, and how Neptune doused them with a rain shower. "And strangulation!" as Liz throws a sheet around her neck and mock-tugs on it. Liz points forward: "Neptune is pretty angry. And prolonging it. And Neptune hates waiting." Bernardo grins at the camera. "I'm terrified!" Francesca, on the middle pedestal: "Save the eyebrows!"Opens with a shot of the boat moving, yay! Shot of the keel. Mark talks about their "totally crazy" night last night. Splits in the fleet, reconvergence. Shots at night of Dongfeng super closer to them. Dongfeng's running lights, sail tapes, silhouetted by a lightning flash. Crew in the cockpit working in red light, illuminated by lightning. Best thing, he says, is they came out ahead, and now they're moving at 12 knots. Looking forward to the NE tradewinds. Stacey talks about how they got showers in the rain last night, and now it's super hot again. In the midst of it, Tony, on the helm, asks her to traveller down; she does it as she continues talking. Interesting that they're trimming the main via traveller from the starboard forward cockpit winch; mainsheet appears to be cleated off. Then we see Nick trimming the headsail; Tony on the helm says, "Stand by for puff. 3, 2, 1, [something]." Nick eases the sheet. "Good puff." (Or maybe "Good pop"? Not sure.) Below, at the nav station, SiFi says they're at 3 degrees south. Slowly making their way through the doldrums. Now in a much more stable breeze of 6-8 knots. Probably another 24 hours of slow going; another night of looking out for clouds. "Wanna make sure we're on our toes." They came out on the good side of it last night, but want to make sure they don't do the opposite tonight. In the cockpit at sunset SiFi gives an update. Phil comes through the hatch, shirtless to show his tattoos, including a full left-arm sleeve and some writing I can't make out on his left side. "News is not good." [Joking? Then he continues to the stern to use the head, I'm assuming.] Mark: "We've got one more night." Phil sings, "One more night!... What song is that?" Martin (I think?) answers: "Phil Collins."Crash cam/stern cam night shot. Boat gybes (or I guess the wind suddenly changes direction) such that the MH0 backs from the port side and they lie over with the keel on the wrong side. Bouwe: "Furl, furl, furl!" "I don't have any runner; I've gotta get the keel up." It's a little frustrating that Yann cuts off the crash-cam footage as soon as he does to go to Rome, the next day, describing what happened. "When you're going that fast and you have big sails up it's hard to keep up with it." More of the stern cam footage. Sally, the next day, explains that they came out of it okay, but lost a lot of distance in the process. Night shots with lightning flashes. Rome: "We were pretty close to MAPFRE and AkzoNobel, and we kinda were on the wrong side of that cloud. The other guys got the best of it, but that's part of sailboat racing, I guess." More night shots. Sally describes how they could see the other boats gaining on AIS, but there wasn't really anything they could do based on their position. Night shots of showering in the squall. Rome and Sally recap that, including the tight space in the optimum shower area under the boom.Annalise stands on the bow with a glassy sea and clouds around her. Shot of raincloud behind them. Frederico points to port. "We have a twister. It's somehing new for me as well. And this one is connecting to the water already. It's not as big as the other one we have, but it might have a lot of breeze... Wait and see." Shot of the funnel cloud. Rain falling; crew rushes into the cockpit to shower. "Give us some soap!" Francesca, on the helm: "Main on. Someone!" Dee interrupts washing her hair to grind. Slomo of Martin grinding, grinning at Dee. Shots of dolphins under the bow. Dee, sitting in the forward hatch, points out where the different boats are. "It's the first time we've been clear north of everyone."High drone shot showing Dongfeng in the foreground and AkzoNobel in the background. It's a pretty distant shot, and makes me wonder: The OBRs haven't been using this opportunity to get drone closeups of their competitors (which they did, a little, in Leg 2). I bet there was some kind of agreement to limit that, presumably for competitive reasons (i.e., an extension of the "OBR shall not contribute to the racing" concept, such that they shouldn't be potentially helping their crew steal info about setup on the other boats). Anyway, Sam's voice is lapped over the shot: "Nicho, tell me about the art of sailing through the doldrums." We see Nicho, who tells a story about meeting with a meterologist who talked about clouds all day, and he asked him how to tell a good cloud from a bad one. "There is an element of luck... I"m lucky I enjoy it." Luke talks about being stuck in the doldrums, playing cat-and-mouse with Dongfeng. Overlapped with a time-laps of the drone shot of the two boats - which I realize now shows a third boat, Vestas, ahead of them both. Simeon, on the helm, talks about trying to sail from puff to puff. Shot of Dongfeng ahead of them and to leeward. Luke talks about how he thinks Dongfeng is probably tense on board, with their close competitor MAPFRE close by. Shot of a rain cloud. Drone shot from astern as the sun is setting to port with a competitor on the horizon while Brad is hoisted up the mast. Drone shots circling him at the masthead showing rain clouds and the other boats around them. Nicolai talks about them sending Brad up to look for the beeze, having 5 boats in the same area. Simeon, shirtless with the low sun on him, talks about being pretty happy with the situation. "Fighting, you know, every single watch and hour." A shot of them approaching a competitor (I think; unless it's a low-altitude drone shot of their own boat) with the sunset sky behind them. We see the other boat just a few boatlenghts away. Someone says, "There's somebody standing on the prod." [?] Brad (I think) calls out to them: "Who's the monkey on the bowsprit?" We hear the response. Something like, "Go back to Kerikeri, mate", which makes Brad chuckle. [Brad and Blair Tuke are both from Kerikeri, NZ.] I think this must be the super-close approach they had with MAPFRE around 2018.01.10 08:20:10 UTC, so that would make it either Blair or Louis who's answering. Brad, invisible in the dark: "It's nice to talk to somebody from another boat for a change. As much as I love these guys, it's nice to hear a different voice for once. Especially one from Kerikeri." Awesome drone shot passing AkzoNobel at low altitude, flying toward MAPFRE. Lightning-flash illuminated shots of them sailing in the squall that night.Night, in the rain. Lightning flashes. Heh. Brian Carlin beat Martin by less than 8 minutes in getting his video up from TTToP. The crew works in flashes of lightning. Kevin, shouting: "Ease up the luff, Jack!" I kind of love this one, and love the contrast it makes with Brian Carlin's on TTToP, in terms of each OBR's different filmmaking style. Ima favorite both of them, though I'm not sure I would have favorited either by itself. My tags, my rules. :-)At night, in the red light, we see rain coming down on deck as the crew trims the sails. There's a flash of lightning and almost immedaitely a crash of thunder. Brian [Thompson], who was in the cockpit in his shorts getting a shower, heads below. "Instruments went down." The camera follows him to the nav station, where Dee is sitting. "We just lost everything... I think it's coming back on. Whoa; the computer's just went funny. Okay; it's coming back on." On deck it's pouring rain. There's another flash, and several seconds later the thunder. Brian, looking at the radar screen. "Half a mile. We're getting out of it pretty quickly."Kyle, on the helm in glassy conditions at sunrise, talks about how slow it's been. They've been going 1 knot; "with 3 and a half knots now it feels like 20." Jens trims, chuckles. "Hot. Hot and slow." Yann's longer-lens closeups are cool-looking. Sally: "Torture." Abby sleeps in her bunk. Closeup of a fan. Sam, at the galley sink: "Frustrating. Extremely frustrating and slow." Awesome drone shots of Brunel sailing upwind with a giant, dark rain cloud behind them. They peel from J1 (I think) to the MH0 while the drone videos them. Abby looks through binoculars at their competitors. "I see a boat with red sails, so could be Dongfeng or could be MAPFRE." Jens: "They're still ahead of us, but catching up just now. Got some good breeze now." Then a shot of them slatting in no wind again. Fish breaking the surface. Sunset. Favoriting this one just for that drone sequence.Glassy conditions as sails slat back and forth. TJ points out the sights: "Little puff over here; little puff over there. Kinda caught in the middle." Chuy steers. Tony on the bow: "Do you want the jib back on the other side?" We see three boats on the horizon behind them: two relatively close and one, in the middle, further away. I'm guessing that's, left to right, AkzoNobel, MAPFRE, and Dongfeng. On the bow, Tony and SiFi chat about neighbors, where they'd live if they lived in town. SiFi reminisces about the 2008 Volvo. This one is pretty up there for light conditions. Tony talks about how the boats behind have closed up. "Everyone's sailing the boats pretty similar now, based on what we can see with the binoculars." Talks about the weather, sunshine. "Might be trapped here forever." Shot of a distant funnel cloud. Tom: "That one's moving towards us. And we're not moving." Drone shot of them ghosting along about 1.5 knots.Drone shot of Dongfeng sailing on starboard, double-heading with the J0 (I think?) and J3. As the drone circles ahead of them from port to starboard we see an island - Ghupuna, off the east end of Makira, also called San Cristobal, in the Solomons - behind them on the port quarter. Drone circles behind them and we see a dark raincloud ahead. Another shot with Makira behind them. More nice drone shots.High drone shot of Brunel. More drone shots. Drone closeup of the cockpit, with Yann on the drone controls. Shots on deck of them going through a squall with rain and spray. Slomo of Carlo wiping water from his face in the pit. Slomo washing machine shots from the cockpit, the stern. Bouwe, below, explains that they're heading north toward the doldrums. Mentions that Neptune has a victim coming, because someone in the crew is a polliwog (or whatever it is they call them). Maybe that's Sam? Capey at the nav station. Bouwe describes the results of the latest sched. Boats ahead have less breeze now, so they should catch up soon. Lightning in the distance. Crew showering in a rain squall. Flopping with the J0 in no wind. Kyle, below, describes how they got stuck in a rain squall, then stuck in no breeze for an hour and a half. Drone shot circling them with no wind.Night shots: looking up from the stern at the full moon behind clouds. Wake. Jérémie's hands on the wheel; him steering. Charles, standing forward of the wheel, talks in French. Looking up the mast at stars. Then, in the daytime, we see rain falling to weather. Franck and Jérémie look that way. Horace looks through binoculars. To weather we see three competitors. From left to right: AkzoNobel, MAPFRE, and Vestas. Justine explains: They were leading, hit a squall, the boats to weather stayed in more pressure and now they're all in a line again. "It's a bit disappointing but it happens sometimes." Jérémie jokes about how he was on watch and lost 10 miles. Daryl jokes with him; Charles steers. Crew works in the cockpit (sail change?). Charles: Not sure they're already in the doldrums. But for sure is a new start. And after leading the race most of the time from the start of the leg, all the boats are in the same line now: Akzo, MAPFRE. Now they'll have two or three days in light winds, and maybe will determine the race who escapes from it first and gets the new wind. Shot of AkzoNobel close to leeward. Horace: "Not easy, not what we want, but this is the Volvo Ocean Race. No one knows what will happen at the end." Talks about how it's too hot, and he wants to take off his "everything."Drenched in rain, Stacey works the pit during a squall. Reefed main visible behind her. She takes a washing machine wave over her head; smiles. Stacey: "Bad hair day." TJ takes spray by the mast as he works on the main. SiFi talks about the increase in "convective activity", how this is probably the "gateway to the doldrums"; they've had a big cloud system come through, some pretty big thunderstorms. "We're now reaching along in 28 knots." Stacey clears a line by the boom as they rehoist the full main.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.Shot of a raincloud to weather. Rain dripping off the boom. Jules talks about the morning squalls, weather patterns. Nicolai talks about how they're leading the fleet (based on being so far east), and how Jules put them in a good position. Now they need to see if they can hold onto it as the wind goes left. Nicolai: "Hopefully pick up a bit of low pressure soon and head to Cape Town." Drone shot of AkzoNobel's masthead with a reefed main and some masthead sail (J1?). Wider drone shot showing AkzoNobel triple-heading with reefed main. Slomo of Nicolai on the helm. Simeon, on the stern, talks about their having had a good 24-hour run, separating from the fleet. Simeon: "Always a bit of risk when you sail away from the others... Everyone's positive. Everyone's fit and strong." Shot up the mast. Slomo grinding.Peter, Kyle showering, shirtless, in a rain squall. Carlo working the bow.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.Támara talks below in Spanish. Xabi works the pit in rain. Rob talks at the nav station about being under the FR0 when a squall caused them to do a big frenzy of sail changes. Talks about competition. Shot of crew (including Ugo) showering in the rain. Pablo, on the helm, talks in Spanish about the competition.AkzoNObel reaches on port gybe with a reefed main. Simeon sits on the weather rail; Emily sits forward of him on the mainsheet. Simeon talks about having a rough night, having been stuck under a cloud and lost a bit. Slomo of bow. Shot of them racing in a rain squall. Nicolai talks about two kinds of clouds: a "sucking" cloud or a "dropping" cloud. "Dropping clouds are the good ones, they come with rain but they also come with winds. The sucking clouds are the bad ones; they just take the breeze and you park up." Shots from inside the cabin as rain pours down on the cockpit. Below, Jules talks about the squall; it was their first big one, 33-35 knots. They saw it on the radar but were late reducing sail and so "got a bit low in it". Jules: "I just got washed back by a wave as I was trying to go forward, got knocked back on my backside, which was a little embarrassing." Shot of Jules being washed off his feet in the cockpit by a wave. Jules talks about seeing the size if the cloud after coming out of it. Slomo shot of water pouring in the cockpit. Martine, soaking wet below, talks about not being able to find her shoes, but it being a good opportunity for a shower, then she resumes looking for fresh clothes.Wake shot. Shot from behind of Tom at the helm as Vestas sails reaches on port in 20 knots of wind. In the cocpit, SiFi talks about the conditions and their position entering the region normally associated with the doldrums. Behind him, Tony steers. Close up of the rudder as they sail fast. Nick goes forward to the mast as they reef the main; a wave knocks over the Martin (or at least the camera). Nick, leaning against the stack and wiping water from his face: "Right now we're moving right along. We're coming into a cloud line and we're stuck on MAPFRE, so we're making sure we're getting every inch out of the boat." Shot from the cabin of the pit area. Mark: "(something) the tack down?" Stacey works a winch. Wake shot with rain. Dark clouds behind them, with Charlie on the mainsheet and Tony on the helm. Shot looking forward from the stern as a rain squall blows over Vestas, under reefed main and J3. SiFi smiles into the camera. SiFi: "I told you it would get harder." Jena grinds. Jena, below, describes dealing wth the squall, with sail changes and lack of sleep.On deck during a rain shower (with sun and blue sky in the background) Kyle, shirtless, showers in the water dripping from the main. Alberto steers in light airs. Bow shot with the stack forward in about 5 knots of wind. Below, Peter works on a metal part held by vice grips. (Update: Per Bouwe's text update today, believe this was Peter repairing the broken end of the outrigger.) Abby below in the bow, laundry hanging below. On deck, shot of the runner blocks with clothes hanging from the stern lifeline. Maciel stands in the pit. POV GoPro shot of someone (not sure who) up the mast checking the rigging.