Sailing: Our longest day ends in sweet victory

Merit Cup won the fourth leg of the Whitbread Round the World Race in a gripping fight to the finish with Toshiba. At the end of a 1,270- mile ocean sprint, the two boats were only a quarter of a mile apart. Here Merit Cup's triumphant skipper describes the final 24-hour battle to be first from Sydney to Auckland.

The crew was magnificent. There have only been two days like this in my life and the other one was bringing New Zealand Endeavour through the finish line four years ago to win the Fremantle to Auckland leg in the 1993-94 Whitbread. But this time, for a high-pressure final 24 hours, the crew work was really sharp. I don't think they made a single crew error, while towards the end we could see that little mistakes were being made on Toshiba as they perhaps tired a little, perhaps realised that, if they could not catch us by then, they weren't going to catch us.

When we reached the northern tip of New Zealand we were thinking more about protecting our third position than expecting to win. Then we saw what we thought was a sophisticated cruising boat sitting offshore with a hi-tech mainsail. There was no way it could be a Whitbread boat as there was no way we could have caught the two boats in front of us.

Then we saw another with a more white sail just ahead, perhaps a sister ship. Then we saw that it was Swedish Match and Toshiba caught in a hole. There was wind on the beach, but even if they could see that they couldn't do anything about it because they had no wind to get across there.

So we got in among the breakers right under the cliffs along the shore, where we wouldn't normally go because normally there isn't any wind there. Chessie Racing and EF Language followed us, with Toshiba wriggling across late behind them. And then started the battle of the windshifts, change after change in wind direction as we worked our way along the shore, always protecting our place on the best side of the course as Chessie and EF kept coming after us.

In that situation Tom Dodson, one of the tactical thinkers in New Zealand's America's Cup winning crew, was masterful. He would take a spot and hold his ground until it came right, choose the most advantageous way to go even if it meant going off course. Without him we wouldn't have won because we would not have mastered the short course tactics in the way he could.

And things started to come together. Everything went up a beat. The boat started to produce real upwind speed in the flatter water. Merit Cup simply took off. We noticed that some of the other boats had very few crew on deck, they were allowing them to take some rest below. We had been in a normal watch system since the start of the leg, as I said we would be, and so had been able to pick up some rest.

But for the last 24 hours, when we moved from thinking we might just protect third place to thinking we might be in with the chance of a win, we had everyone on deck nearly all the time. The helmsmen were given occasional rests. When we could let someone below for an hour or two, we did.

There is nothing like coming down the coast of New Zealand where we know every inch of the route. We hardly need charts at all and we all know the distances between every headland as we counted them down to the entry to Auckland Harbour.

From being the pursuer we became the pursued. I think I prefer to be the pursuer. All the time the wind, coming unusually from the south, built up to 40 knots. That meant additional worry about damage to the boat as well as fears that the rougher conditions would suit our attackers more than us, because we have a narrower, and therefore less stable, hull.

But the guys were aware this was an important result for us. It repositions the campaign on a more credible platform. It meant we could arrive home in Auckland and hold our heads high as we renewed links with friends and family, instead of having to make excuses. We have done that, and we have moved to second overall.

The boat was generally calm, but my heart was in my mouth right until the moment when we crossed the finish line. And at that point, making the last tack, we blew the mainsail. If that had happened just a few minutes earlier it would have cost us victory.

In 1994 we beat Chris Dickson home by two minutes and 38 seconds. This time we have beaten Dennis Conner's Toshiba by two minutes and 36 seconds. We know that this race is still wide open, but no one can take away the boost to our confidence which this win has given us.