Winners of The Transat Québec St-Malo

Achille Nebout, Alan Roberts and Gildas Mahé  winners of the 10th edition of the race, adding panache to their victory by finishing the last 850 miles of the course on a single rudder!

There were three main parts to it - the exit of Le Saint-Laurent river which felt like a Figaro race... pretty intense, lots of decisions, current, the local wind effect - it was really challenging and really interesting with a backdrop of beautiful scenery.

"Then the transatlantic crossing in the next major part of the race. Very variable conditions with the weather changing a lot from one grib file to the next - you had to be really decisive with the decision making and then try and define your own logic in how you thought the weather was going to play out. It was pretty interesting for the whole fleet.

"We made the option to dive south which was a bit longer in distance travelled, but we felt like it was a lower-risk option. It worked out well for us in the end, so we were really happy. We had quite a few challenges crossing the Atlantic. We had some technical issues, the major one was breaking a rudder, which meant we had to switch the rudder from side to side during the race to be able to spend time on the other tack. That was quite a big decision for us internally - to decide what to do and how to manage that. We managed to find a solution that worked for us, but obviously when we did that - we were never sure if we'd be able to finish the race. So we were obviously really happy to come out on top.

"The third part of the race was entering the English Channel. The fleet compressed as we approached the European shoreline and it was back into intense racing again, 24 hours of light winds, local effects, current, making the right decisions. We had to sail the boat very differently because we were limping on only one rudder. That was a challenging aspect for us. Right up until the last five miles we weren't sure how we would deal with it, but then we had a nice finish into the end and a brilliant arrival into St Malo. A really fun race, I got on really well with the guys and I was really chuffed to get this result - a transatlantic race win in the Class 40 under my belt. I had a lot of fun, and learnt a lot from this type of boat racing in a really high standard of flee