Simone was not going to be beaten : "I immediately started to secure the mast to see if I could save it. If I could keep that section of the mast in the boat I knew I would be able to make the finish. In any case I knew I was going to make the finish even if I had to swim towing the boat."

At the Newport Shipyard, the news of his dismasting sent a shock wave through the team there readying to meet him. At this time, all three Open 60’s were not far behind, and theoretically this could have spelled the end of his quest for the 3rd spot on the overall podium. And then just one hour later Bianchetti called again : "I am back sailing at 8 knots and have less than 16 miles to go. Make sure everyone is there to greet me."

With the mast upright, Simone had set his staysail and lashed any dangling parts of the rig to stop them from smacking into the boat. He was able to bear off and still make course, and with the mainsail flapping in the wind and the staysail drawing, he nursed his crippled yacht, tacking slowly across the bay and crossed over the finish line in Newport at 08:01:30hrs local time (12:01:30 GMT). There was a palpable sigh of relief. Tiscali has taken second for Leg 5, and should either Thierry Dubois on Solidaires or Bruce Schwab on Ocean Planet beat Emma Richards on Pindar, he will take third place overall in Around Alone 2002-03.

At his finish, French skipper Thierry Dubois on Solidaires was 65 miles behind him closing in at 12 knots boatspeed. He is expected to finish at 15:30hrs local time, which will secure him the second place on the overall podium for Around Alone 2002-03.

QUOTES FROM THE PRESS CONFERENCE

"Last night the wind was blowing over 50 knots and the seas were very bad. I knew that I was going to lose my mast. I even called my project manager and told him that it was going to happen and then a little while later the mast broke. 400,000 Euros was a bit of an expensive way to take a reef - but after the dismasting the mainsail was set perfectly ! But I knew that I was going to finish. And now here I am. And now I have the record Record #sailingrecord for the most number of masts broken ; three in eight months !"

" The last leg I knew my route, I wasn’t concerned about Solidaires or Pindar over to the East because when you are heading for America, the only way to cross the Doldrums is over to the West."

"The hardest part of the race was in Cape Town, when I realised I had only 3 days on land before I had to restart again. After everything I’d gone through with the dismasting and then racing to get Tiscali to the finish in time, to turn the boat around in 3 days was the toughest job. The best moment - well, it has to be now."

"I want to thank my shore team, who have had the hardest job to do during the race because I keep breaking things ! Also I thank my sponsor Tiscali, for having faith in me to see this through, because we started the project very late on, and had setbacks with the first dismasting even before the race began. Now I have finished Around Alone, I will go back to Sardegna and talk with my sponsor about the vision for the future, and find out what we need to change in the programme. Of course my objective is to do the Vendée Globe again."

A divinely orchestrated orange sunrise greeted Open 50 Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America when Class 2 American skipper Brad Van Liew crossed the finish line in Newport at 05:53:58 local time (09:53:58 GMT). His final 24hrs of the 28,000 mile Around Alone race had been one of Van Liew’s worst in his entire career, as he explained in his final log : "I have 40 knots on the nose. The waves are coming from every direction. On deck the boat is so sideways that the coach roof is in the water. I have not slept in 2 days. I feel like I am going to be sick or start hallucinating. This is not a good place to be, but there is zero possibility of sleeping right now."

But Van Liew, the only veteran of Around Alone in this edition, has now written the next page in the history books of the race, as the only American skipper to have won all the legs of the race, and by quite a margin, thereby scoring the full 50 points to take overall victory in Class 2. His Open 50 was always immaculately prepared and often found racing amidst the larger Open 60 class, notably arriving just 3 days behind Class 1 winner Bernard Stamm in the final leg. This remarkable achievement places Van Liew squarely among the best solo sailors in the world. The Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America campaign has been very professionally run from the day they announced their partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, and this has been the secret to Van Liew’s success.

And now the overall rankings for Class 1 of Around Alone have finally been confirmed after a close and unpredictable short leg, which kept the suspense until the end. French skipper Thierry Dubois finished his last ever solo circumnavigation yesterday, when he crossed the line on Solidaires at 19:54:01 GMT (15:54:01 local time) in a moderate easterly breeze, which allowed him to hoist his Amnesty International spinnaker painted by children in each each port for the one and only time during the race : "For me, this was a symbol that I have carried the message of human rights around the world, and come to the end of my ten year project with Amnesty International." In finishing third for this leg, overtaking Bruce Schwab on Ocean Planet in the last 24hrs, not only has Dubois secured the second place on the overall podium in Around Alone 2002-03, but also completed his first race around the world out of three attempts.

Consequently, Italian skipper Simone Bianchetti finally knew that he had taken the third spot on the podium for Class 1, as all he had to do was to put one boat between Tiscali and Pindar to overtake Richards in overall points. He actually finished with a two point advantage over Emma, because next to arrive at 03:35:57 GMT on 4th May (12:35:57 3rd May local time) was American Bruce Schwab on Ocean Planet. Schwab was delighted with his performance in the 5th leg, holding third place and keeping ahead of the formidable Frenchman for the entire leg until the last and nasty weather system saw Dubois better placed to shoot over the top of the narrower Tom Wylie Open 60.

Schwab’s first solo circumnavigation was a campaign of simultaneous non-stop fundraising and sailing. It had not been easy, as after a great first few days in the top three, the boom on Ocean Planet broke mid-way across the Atlantic in Leg 1. On Leg 4 he broke the second boom forcing a stop in the Falkland Islands. With his unstayed rig, narrow design and unconventional mechanics, Bruce was still dealing with teething problems right up until Cape Horn. "Ocean Planet is a work in progress," Schwab always commented. "But I hope to evolve these concepts for the boat to achieve her potential and be a very competitive entry in the next Vendée Globe.

The last arrival over the busy weekend at the Newport Shipyard closed the rankings for Class 1 of Around Alone 2002-03, that of British skipper Emma Richards on Pindar. On a perfect sunny Sunday afternoon, with the biggest grin on her face, Emma gracefully maneouvred her Open 60 Pindar across the finish line, and at 16:15:26 local time, she knew that her bittersweet solo circumnavigation was over. Richards was undeniably happy that she had accomplished such a feat, and in doing so become the first British woman and youngest ever competitor to complete Around Alone in its 20 year history.

However, Emma was adamant that this was the last time she would race single-handed. "I set myself this challenge to race solo round the world, but I didn’t like the solitude, and I really want to sail with crew from now on. You will not find me doing another Around Alone or a Vendee Globe !" The mark of her success is undoubtedly the incredible amount of support she has had behind her all the way in the form of her family ; this includes her ’surrogate family’, sponsors Pindar, headed up by Andrew Pindar, who has during this race personally extended his generosity to other skippers in the race, notably supplying the new mast for Spirit of Canada after Derek Hatfield’s dismasting off Cape Horn.

In fact, the Canadian skipper and his Open 40 were at Barra lighthouse 4 miles from the finish going at 4 knots in squally conditions and is due to arrive in Salvador imminently. He intends to depart as soon as possible after the enforced 48 hr stop, after doing a few repairs to his new mainsail.

 Thierry Dubois : "When I knew that my route I took to the east right at the start of Leg 1 was not going to work out, I had a lot of time to think about this second place ! I did try to race ’a la Stamm’, and have never been so tired in my whole career as when I finished this leg ! I did not know how to balance pushing the boat much harder than normal and not breaking anything. So I exploded my gennaker in two, just trying to take 10 measly miles out of Bruce Schwab - a costly end to the race ?"

"I am happy to end my career after a night like last night, the sea state was terrible, and also there was a musical symphony of blips on my radar screen, so not much time to be nostalgic ! But I managed to put up my Amnesty International spinnaker, painted by children in every country we have visited, for the first time ever during the race, and sailed for the last 3 miles with it. It is the symbol of my project for human rights, which has lasted for ten years."

"My next project is to build a boat which will be only similar to Solidaires in length. She will be 60 foot long, but built in wood, epoxy and kevlar, to be a functional working expedition boat, but also with a classic design. Everytime I have raced around the bottom of the world I realise that I never stop there, but only see sea, sea, sea. So I decided I want to build this boat to run polar expeditions. I want to build her myself, with a small team and in a boatyard cycling distance from my house - the easy life ! So in the meantime I will become the technical manager for Solidaires as I pass her into the hands of Patrice Carpentier for the next Vendée Globe. I’m happy to see her racing again around the world, but happier that I will stay ashore to drink beers with my friends !""

 Brad Van Liew : "The biggest lesson I learnt from the last time I did the race is how to put together the ingredients of a quality campaign. I owe my success to my family, my wife Meaghan who runs my campaign on shore, and the best family of sponsors, who are all top shelf suppliers for the boat, including Honeywell, Raymarine, Spectra and Profurl. It really is very much a team sport."

"Being a new father just changed the whole dynamic of this race for me. Tate was merely a baby when we left last September, and it’s incredible to see her walking and so grown up at the end of this trip - it makes me realise how long I have been away, but also how much of a family affair this race has been for me."

Emma Richards

"I took on the race as a sailing challenge, not the solitude, to put it into perspective I wanted to go out and have a race and that is what I got. The solitude is something you have to deal with, I think there are some solo sailors out there who like it but I am not one of them."

"I can’t believe I managed to circumnavigate the world by myself, I’m thrilled to bits about that. I’ve been on the podium since the end of Leg 1, so to loose it on the last leg is disappointing but I’ve had 3 weeks to think about it, so I am not that disappointed anymore."

"I saw this race as a series of transatlantics. Once I’d done one leg, I’d then gear myself up for the next race from Torbay to Cape Town, then the next race from Cape Town to Tauranga, and so on."

Just over a day after Class 2 Around Alone 2002-03 winner Brad Van Liew arrived in Newport, his close friend and rival, the ’tenacious’ Tim Kent, breezed across the finish line in Everest Horizontal at 11:50:47 local time (15:50:47 GMT). All in a second not only had Kent’s life-long dream become a reality, but also he had earned 34 points and so taken second place overall in his class with his Jim Antrim designed Open 50.

This 50 year old man from the Midwest, who had one year before never even crossed an ocean, took up the challenge of Around Alone initially as an inspiration to his two daughters, to teach them that anything was possible in life. Kent’s grass roots Everest Horizontal entry complimented the immaculately prepared Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America campaign, and throughout the race, Van Liew and Kent had been in daily contact, despite being rivals in the competition. In New Zealand Van Liew even donated all the rope on the boat to Kent after securing a new rope sponsor.

Kent’s race was a struggle to keep pace with Van Liew, but mostly because he had a struggle to keep his boat together with virtually no budget as the wear and tear of racing around the world took its toll. Aided in each port by volunteers, and his one shore crew thanks to a personal donation from a fellow mid-westerner, Kent was just amazed that he had got round : "I can’t believe it yet, but I have climbed Everest." 

The high point of his circumnavigation was reaching the end of Leg 3 in second place after he had spent the best part of the race in a soot-covered boat from a leaky exhaust valve : "My daughter Whitney wrote a simple statement on the hull of the boat : ’the difference between an ordeal and an adventure is attitude’. Having the boat covered in grime was most certainly an ordeal, but I learned how to deal with it and in the end I think I am most proud of the fact that I finished that leg without stopping."

Kent is an incredibly articulate man, and now that he has also become a solo circumnavigator, intends to go on to compete in the FICO-Lacoste racing programme for this year, ending in the Transat Jacques Vabre Transat Jacques Vabre #TJV2015 . "I will never again do a grass-roots campaign, and during this race I’ve learned from Brad and the others about running a professional campaign. Now I’ve completed Around Alone, I know what I’m doing, and I want to come back and do it again."

Class 2 skipper Derek Hatfield completed Leg 4 of Around Alone in Salvador Brazil at 23:01:58 local Brazilian time 4th May 03 (02:01:58 GMT 5th May 03) : "To put it mildly, I am happy to put an end to Leg 4. It has been a formidable adversary. Now we must get the boat repaired and turn it around in record Record #sailingrecord time and get on with Leg 5. The to do list is not so long, the biggest item is the mainsail which must go to a repair loft to be brought back to racing trim. My plan is to be back on the water as soon after the 48 hour mandatory stop is complete."

QUOTES FROM THE PRESS CONFERENCE

"Emma told me that I would really enjoy the sailing in the Southern Ocean, and she was totally correct. It was awesome, a real highlight of the race. What will stick in my mind as well is the quality of people I have met during this race, not just the other skippers but the shore crew and race organisation Organisation #organisation here with us. I am already getting destination blues because I don’t want to leave these guys, they have become my new family."

"My daughter Whitney wrote a simple statement on the hull of the boat : ’the difference between an ordeal and an adventure is attitude’. Having the boat covered in grime was most certainly an ordeal, but I learned how to deal with it and in the end I think I am most proud of the fact that I finished that leg without stopping."

"I took up this challenge to be an inspiration to my daughters that you can do anything in life, but they, along with the hundreds of other people who followed my race, became an inspiration to me. I could not have completed this race without the support of so many people, especially the countless volunteers who worked on my boat for endless hours just to be involved."

Around Alone Overall Rankings

Class 1
 1. Bobst Group - Armor Lux : 49 points / 115 days 18hrs 27m 23s
 2. Solidaires : 45 points / 118 days 13hrs 54m 1s
 3. Tiscali : 35 points / 159 days 20hrs 53m 11s
 4. Pindar : 33 points / 131 days 20hrs 45m 49s
 5. Ocean Planet : 30 points / 159 days 6hrs 41m 42s

Class 2
 1. Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America : 50 points / 148 days 17 hrs 54m 42s
 2. Everest Horizontal : 44 points

Leg 5 Rankings

Class 1
 1. Bobst Group - Armor Lux finished at 11:20:10 GMT 1st May 03 after 17 days, 19hrs, 20m 23s
 2. Tiscali finished at 12:01:30 GMT 3rd May 03 after 19 days, 20 hrs, 1m 30s
 3. Solidaires finished at 19:54:01 GMT 3rd May after 20 days, 3 hrs, 54m, 1s
 4. Ocean Planet finished at 03:35:57 GMT 4th May after 20 days 11 hours 35m 57s
 5. Pindar finished at 20:15:26 GMT 4th May after 21 days 4hrs 15m 26s

Class 2
 1. Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America finished at 09:53:58 GMT 4th May
 2. Everest Horizontal finished at 15:50:47 GMT 5th May