Kingfisher wins EDS

After a tense, anything could happen finale into St Malo

No one could accuse the final leg of the EDS Atlantic Challenge of being boring or a procession. The last few days have seen leader changes, severe damage forcing competitors to work relentlessly to hold their boats together in order to race on to the finish line. Four days ago it was the Italian Open 60 Fila that held what appeared to be a commanding lead. Their mainsail shredded and they are currently limping home in fourth place. Mike Golding's Ecover took over first place, but in the light conditions the race effectively restarted and right up until this morning any of the top three boats could have won.

But it was Kingfisher with Australian skipper Nick Moloney at the helm which materialised out of the Brittany fog this afternoon at 15:13GMT to take first place in the EDS Atlantic Challenge's fifth leg across the north Atlantic from Boston to St Malo. With wins in the last two legs they also take first prize overall. "We're the luckiest people on earth," commented Maloney immediately after finishing. "It is probably the hardest event I've done. It was a dream come true for us. It was a dream come true for me. With my desire to do the Vendee Globe I couldn't have asked for a better race."

40 minutes later, the red form of Sill Plein Fruit came out of the mist to take second place with Mike Golding arriving at

Maloney said that their race very nearly came to a swift end when after a prolonged 24 knot bout of "crashing and bouncing across the ocean", they noticed while in the middle of making a sail change that the rig was completely out of column and the shrouds had gone slack. "The tube was three sections out of column," commented Moloney on this heart stopping moment. "The whole thing was pumping out of control. Immediately we reefed and went to the genoa, but we were still surfing at 14 knots."

Although Moloney said they have yet to pinpoint the exact problem he thought it likely that the cause of the problem was Kingfisher's Kevlar/Spectra forestay elongating through the severe punishment they had been putting the rig through. A crewman was sent up the mast to tighten the verticals to try to bring the section back in column, but Maloney said the top third of the mast was still very unstable.

They backed off briefly but then decided this was the wrong approach. "After an hour of stewing on it we decided that we'd rather go home jury rigged than come home third overall. We didn't want to sail Kingfisher home at anything but full throttle. For the last 1,000 miles we were just going for it. But we didn't dare look up the rig," he said.