Sweet success
By Ellen MacArthur

Ellen MacArthur relates her joy after winning the Route du Rhum on Kingfisher in record time.

For me it's been a very special race.

I have had so much pleasure actually just being on the boat even though it's been very, very hard tactically without respite.

You have to be at your best all the time and I couldn't have given more. It's so cool, I gave it everything I had.

I'm pleased for myself, I'm pleased for the boat, and above all, I'm pleased to be in this position.

You can never prepare yourself for an arrival. It just happens, you deal with it.

During the race from France to Guadeloupe, I had a bit of a fight on with Mike Golding on Ecover.

One day I was in mild conditions, the next day he was mild.

It will be great to talk to him to find out how hard he was pushing, just so I know that I was pushing as hard as I could.

We, on board the monohull yachts, suffered in a big storm, but we were further west than the multihulls and got ahead of it.

I thought a lot about the poor multihulls who were hit badly. I've never seen a storm like it in all my life with enormous waves.