A great start to the season with Alain. It's been an awesome experience, a fantastic race, and a superb team effort.

Yes, very different to the Vendee Globe, but I'm very lucky to be sailing with such a great skipper and crew.

The atmosphere was excellent onboard, and everyone very determined - even when we were back in fourth place we kept on working hard and saying it's not over until it's over.

And it wasn't!

You can't really compare multihulls and monohulls directly.

For sure the trimarans are more powerful and very very fast - and sailing with a crew is very different, we're pushing so hard all the time.

But the basic principles are similar.

This race was also about the ability to keep the machine at 100%, repairing damage as quickly as possible and trying to avoid downtime.

Big mistake

That's something very important in solo racing as well.

There are a lot of factors in a race like this, not just the tactics. We made one big error which we managed to come back from.

It is certainly a different game to be able to discuss weather and strategic issues with both someone of Alain's experience as well as a shore-based router like Lee Bruce.

On the Vendee what is hard is trying to make every decision without that interaction.

At the finish line it came down to boat to boat tactics - so we've had a bit of everything.

I enjoyed my role during this race, as well as learning a great deal about the performance aspects of these flying machines.

Now we're going to have some beers and Spanish tapas!

We're all pretty tired, sleep has not been high on the priority in the last few days.

Racing in light winds at the finish is harder than when it's blowing hard in some ways.

It's back to England on Thursday to carry on with my book writing although a quick trip back to Les Sables d'Olonne for the Vendee prize-giving next weekend.

I'm really looking forward to sailing on 'Kingfisher' again though in three weeks time at the IMOCA Grand Prix Quiberon. And then it will be back to race with Alain and the guys again in Italy at the end of June...

Ellen