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.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.SiFi mixing a coffee in the galley. "Morning coffee to charge up. Actually afternoon coffee now." He talks about the two groups of boats; it's getting interesting now. Big area of high pressure in front of us. The new low pressure is coming in from the west. Going to be a question of whether we can get across their bow before the front catches up with them... In the next 24 hours the wind will build; 30, 35 knots. Likes his coffee black. "With a decent amount of cold water in it so I can drink it straight away."Charles, below, talks about getting the wind, finally. But less than forecast, so they lost a lot to the fleet to the south. Now they're in a better position, though, for the next 6 hours, and the 6 hours after that. Fleet could join again. Pascal at nav station: 2 or 3 days everybody is going to arrive quite at the same time at the corner of the exclusion zone. 35 knots of wind with close reaching coming up. Charles: Next 24 hours are going to be very complicated to manage. Lots of wind. Not possible to always have the good sail; have to manage, to be smart, to always make the good call.Bouwe eats below. Talks about the split. An ideal scenario for Brunel: if the southerly route pays off they can be ahead of the two red boats with lots of boats between them. We see Peter run out barefoot as Kyle gets his gear on. "Gybing" he says sleepily. Sam, to Capey below: What time is it Capey? Capey: Gybe time. We see the gybe through the hatch. Peter, below: Talks about the scheds being good, where the northern boats were light. They'll get the new breeze first; hopefully we'll be able to keep some of the lead. Kyle talks about hitting something. He's going to try to sand the leading edge of the rudder. Bouwe jokes with him about doing it naked. Kyle: Too cold. He tapes the sleeves of his survival suit. "Safety's no accident Sam." Pole shots of Kyle going over the side, sanding the leading edge of the keel. Drone shots of him ridding the tiller like a bucking bronco. Sam casually stands on the stern running the drone. Kyle, back on board. "It was so pitted." He jokes that the guys last night saw a fin the size of the mast. "We kind of think it was the Megaladon." He explains how there was a chunk out of the leading edge of the rudder. Shot of Peter, i slomo, grabbing something along the leeward rail while getting hit by waves. Noting that he wasn't clipped in. Sheesh.Xabi summarizes the first 2 days of the leg in Spanish. Discusses the complicated conditions, the relative positions of the northern and southern groups. Tamara, on the bow as they flop, talks in Spanish. Xabi repeats his summary in English. First time they've seen such a big split in the race. Very slow for them and Dongfeng and TTToP. The fleet in the south always kept in front of the front. They have a lot of work to do now to get to the north. They look quite strong. We need to wait and see. Tamara repeats her comments in English: In a transition. Hard to wait for the wind. Hope they'll be sailing fast soon. Xabi trims. Sophie and Blair grind. Stacking forward. Flopping. Xabi rubs his head. Instruments show them doing 3 knots. Drone shot of them floopping from above the masthead, then low and alongside in very flat water.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.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.Bleddyn: 24 hours after the start. Lots of fog. Haven't seen other boats. Split this morning; we've gybed heading more northeast. Other guys are still going southeast. Expect they'll come north at some point. We're in lighter breeze, but we're going in the right direction, which is a positive. Crew in the cockpit talks and laughs about Welsh. Bleddyn gives langauge lessons to Bianca. Lucas, trimming the main, talks about hearing Bleddyn talking on the phone in what he thought was English, but then not being able to understand any of it. Lucas: "Wave. Main on." Surfing. Lucas sings "Surfing USA". Dee comes up with the latest sched. Everyone else is still sailing together in the better pressure. We fell out of the pressure, and we have the shift so we had to gybe. Hopes they'll come together and have a restart. Lucas talks about going north, and splitting, which will be cold. Annalise: Not looking forward to the cold. So it better work out for us. Bernardo working in the pit, tidying lines. Stacking forward. Liz slaps Bernardo on the back. Liz: "Nice one." Bernardo: I started sailing in Portugal when I was 8 years old. I wanted to start before that but my parents didn't allow me. So when I turned 8 I started straight away sailing the Optis. My background was always dinghies: Optis, 420s, 470s, a bit of Laser, then did the Olympics (London 2012) in 49er. Then did Youth America's Cup, World Match Racing Tour, and chasing a little bit this world, more big boats. I tried to do the last race. I couldn't make it. And fortunately this time I got my chance, my opportunity. And this is a lifetime opportunity, a dream come true. Not only a challenge, the toughest race on earth, but it's a ride with a big team, where the teamwork makes a big difference. Most is how to manage yourself. It's a challenge in a lot of different ways. That's what makes me wake up every day. Best memory: Arriving in Lisbon, in my home port. Getting home on the first leg of the Volvo means a lot. Toughest moment: When we lost John Fish. It's hard to believe and understand that he's gone. That was a really hard and a sad moment. Liz: Why did we choose Bernard? Mostly his good looks. We needed a charmer on board. Someone who could sell ice to Eskimos... Needed people who have their mind on the game, looking for the next step, on the right side of the shift. A key person to have around.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.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.