Med Spirit’s crew celebrates arrival in Saint LuciaAfter battling it out for 11½ days at sea only one hour separated the two leading boats in a spectacular finish to this year’s ARC 2011. In the end it was Med Spirit, the 28.7m super-maxi skippered by Vladimir Kulinichenko, who took line honours in 11 days, 14 hours, 9 minutes and 37 seconds finishing at 02:54:37 on Friday 2 December. The second place boat was Alain Delhumeau’s 15.2m Lerouge Pulsar trimaran, Rayon Vert, who had lead the fleet since the start only to be overtaken by Med Spirit in a gybing battle off Barbados.

Although both boats clocked impressive speeds of 25 knots and covered over 300 miles per day, they were unable to beat the ARC crossing record set by Rinaldo del Bono in Capricorno in 2006 with a crossing time of 11 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 30 seconds. Lighter winds on the final approaches combined with a blown spinnaker on Rayon Vert and problems onboard Med Spirit put paid to their record hopes.