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Alex commented at the finish line: "The sail was absolutely lovely. Shame about the wind direction between The Needles and St Catherine's, otherwise we could have gone for the record." The crew of eight included Josh Hall and Alex's brother David.

On the second leg "Needaponsor.co.uk" was evenly matched with the Volvo 60 "Venom" but managed to pull ahead. Alex continued: "We took a 120 degree angle and raised the spinnaker from St Cat's to Bembridge doing about 20 knots."

In the battle of the Farr 52s "Bear of Britain" (Kit Hobday/Tim Louis) came out the winner, but by a slender 14 seconds on corrected time from Nick Hewson's "Team Tonic". "GB Paralympics" skippered by Andy Cassell with his crew of fundraising MPs was the third Farr 52.

In the SB3s Volvo Ocean Race CEO Glenn Bourke was in contention just behind Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie but later lost his rudder and had to head for home at Hamble.