For Paul Meilhat this transatlantic victory comes on the back of his win in the same boat (then called Biotherm) in last year’s – mainly light wind – edition of The Ocean Race Europe.

“The boat is not the latest [design],” he said. “It is fast, but we had some bad moments because it is not really fast in the big waves. Three days ago we had a really tough night in big waves in the wrong direction. But we know that in medium and light wind on flat water it is really, really fast. A lot of races finish in these conditions. We are a good team with this boat and that is working well.”

11th Hour Racing skipper Francesca Clapcich said she and the crew were frustrated to have not been able to close out the victory, but pleased with the result, nevertheless.

“It was quite epic. When you get so close to winning the race you want to fricken win it, right? But a few hours ago – six hours or so – we could not have hoped for this result. In the end, at Glénan [islands on the way to the finish line] we had the chance to win it, but we ended up second – and we are super happy. ”

“Doing a transat like that of 3,000 miles and ending up just a few minutes apart is a dream. It’s why we go racing, we want to race other teams and it’s pretty cool. You get so close to the other teams that you are not even looking at the numbers anymore because you can see them. You are sailing against them, just looking at them – it’s pretty awesome.”

DMG MORI Global One’s Samantha Davies (GBR) said the crew had been expecting the four-way battle to the finish to be close for several days.

“It’s amazing to have such a close finish,” she said. “We saw that coming from quite a few days out. I think what is more impressive is that we crossed the ocean that close together and that there were place changes, so that it wasn’t just one person dominating. For me the interesting part was that there was a bit of boat speed, a bit of strategy, a bit of luck – so it was fun all the way across the Atlantic.”

Davies said the one-week race had been a great learning process for the crew – made up of two Japanese sailors plus a Brit and a Frenchman – whose main goal was the around-the-world edition of The Ocean Race next year.

“The best team-building exercise is taking your team out of its comfort zone and we definitely did that in this transat, because it was brutal for quite a few days. We pushed the boat and ourselves to our limits. That’s where you learn: how each person is in the team, how to support each other, and how to communicate with each other. We just saw strengths coming out of each team member and this crazy communication that we have in this international multicultural team.”