Zephyrus V pipped at the post

Match race to the finish line in Rolex Fastnet Race

After a nailbiter of a finale, Alfa Romeo has collected line honours in the Rolex Fastnet Race.

Neville Crichton's 90ft maxi finished at 19:12:00 BST in Plymouth this evening. The Australian maxi beat another Reichel/Pugh design, Robert McNeill's maxZ86 Zephyrus V, to the finish at Plymouth Breakwater by just 10 minutes to continue her already impressive resumé of line honours for major offshore classics.

But the final miles back from Bishops Rock to the finish were a full-on match race. Just eight miles from the finish line Zephyrus V, who had taken an inshore course since Falmouth, had benefited from a little bit more wind and moved into the lead. As the pair approached Rame Head, the last headland two miles short of the finish, the wind died away to almost nothing, giving one boat and then the other a small speed advantage. In the end the advantage went to the boat slightly further offshore and Alfa Romeo moved back into the lead that she held to the finish.

In late December last year Alfa Romeo was the first boat to finish in the Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. In late June this year the all-carbon maxi finished first into Genoa in the Rolex Giraglia Race collecting the race record at the same time. Today Alfa Romeo collects the Rolex Fastnet Race honours.

The silver-hulled New Zealand registered super maxi took the lead on the water from Zephyrus V at Portland Bill on Sunday afternoon. Although the pair were separated by more than an hour at the Fastnet Rock, the dark green American yacht has always been a threat hanging over Crichton's ambitions for another line honours accolade, McNeill and his crew crawling back to within 400 metres just 40 miles from the finish.

The 18-man crew on board Alfa Romeo spent 57 hours and two minutes at sea and missed the course record for monohulls by almost four hours. The light conditions of the 2003 Rolex Fastnet Race being in marked contrast to the perfect high speed reaching race of 1999 when another New Zealander, Ross Field, skippered the Maxi RF Yachting to set the current record time of 53 hours and eight minutes.

"Sometimes you can get too far ahead!" joked an elated Neville Crichton. "On the way back from the Fastnet Rock we had a really big lead, of over an hour and a half, we couldn't see them [ Zephyrus V] behind us. But they were tricky conditions and we sailed to the north of the route and I think they sailed to the south. Anyway this morning at first light, there they were beside us again. We had to work really hard to beat them all day.

"That was the toughest battle for line honours we have ever had. This boat has started 54 races and collected line honours on 53 occasions. It feels really good to have collected line honours for the Rolex Sydney Hobart and the Rolex Fastnet in the same year."

Zephyrus V's American owner Bob McNeill was philosophical. "Gentlemen build yachts, they go racing and someone has to win. But it wasnt us!!!

"Alfa Romeo got away from us well at the Lizard on the way to the Fastnet, but we caught them back nicely last night on the way back from the Rock. Then it went their way again when we were held up at the Lizard on the way back. At the end it was wherever the wind filled in from that decided each particular moment. Sometimes it was for them, sometimes it went our way. The last puff went to them and that¹s the way it is. But ten minutes is close. That's yacht racing."