A perfect evening follows a perfect finish for Dee Caffari as the sun starts to think about going down casting a warm glow over the still waters of the canal and the marina Port Olona. Dee is on the foredeck with her boyfriend Harry as they come into the channel, waving to the big crowds who have turned out in force to greet Dee and her yellow Open 60.

A fortnight after reaching Ponta Delgada on the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores, Veolia Environnement was loaded on to a cargo ship yesterday. She is due to reach Lorient on 23rd February. As for Bilou, he was aboard Safran, alongside Marc Guillemot during the night as they made their way into the harbour in Les Sables.

You can hear an interview at the finish with Dee Caffari by clicking here:

Here are the highlights of the interview:
There were people there waving and saying hello and I thought that was pretty cool and then a random motor cruiser came up and shouted Go Dee! And I thought wow I’m close to the finish now. Then when everybody came out towards me… I knew there would be some Ribs and stuff, but this sight was brilliant and it’s such a gorgeous day. The sunset was beautiful and a lovely sunrise and I had dolphins, so I knew it was going to be a good day.

On finishing sixth: If you’d said that in the beginning, I’d have laughed in your face. I had an awesome start, then I made a few mistakes tactically in the Atlantic and the intensity of the race in the South Atlantic was just phenomenal. I sort of said, I’m not sure if I can do this. I was OK in the south, then I lost a bit of confidence in my first storm. Everybody was having lots of problems and that was when all the damage was happening and there was Yann’s injury and I lost all my confidence then.

Cape Horn was interesting. It was quite nice to hang out and know that the other two were with me. And I had an awesome Atlantic – I suddenly turned the corner and I’d grown into my boat. I did the repair on the main to keep it going a little bit longer. We just decided as a team to go for it and if it fell apart we’d deal with that later. I was really pleased to close the gap and then the Doldrums were a nightmare. A horrible two days, the worst two days of the race. I lost 300 miles to Brian in two days. Then I spent the North Atlantic closing the gap, but I just ran out of runway today. So I didn’t quite get him, but I’m happy to have pushed him all the way to the line.

Literally I started sailing in an Open 60 eighteen months ago. In my first solo race I hated it and cried all the way and got dismasted right before the end. I thought, Oh my God! What have I let myself in for? But I loved this and have grown into the boat all the time.

And your team? The reason why I’m here is that they did such a good job preparing the boat. I owe them lots of booze and I know I did them proud. They’re really chuffed with their project and we did it together. They did the boat and I just had to go and sail it and they’ve been there whenever I needed them.
 

And Dee reaches the finish line on Aviva in sixth place at 13:12:57 hrs GMT

- Race time : 99 days, 1h, 10 minutes and 57 seconds
- Theoretical speed : 10.45 knots
- Distance covered on the water : 27,907 miles
- Average real speed: 11.74 knots

Dee finished 14 days, 22 hours and 1 minute after Michel Desjoyeaux.

And just one third of a miles to go, Dee was making 10 knots in the puff as the breeze picked up for a few minutes.

1.6 miles to finish and Dee can see the line clearly and is steering her Aviva, trying to fix her eyes on the sails and concentate, just savouring these moments, storing them up never to forget them. And all the time now her gaze drops back to the line, shimmering in front of her. The end of the adventure is in sight. And her team have their bags on ready to leap on board with a pizza for Dee. Seven knots of boat speed.