Glories of a grand dame

We were looking for a good blow down the Irish sea but it didn't arrive. Cherokee has beaten us. No surprise. Just grumbling acceptance of a faster boat. Bridgestone, despite its magnificence as a racing yacht, was nothing compared with the Whitbread 60. We are the grand old dame of ocean racing, once regal and proud to be at the cutting edge and still majestic, but in relative decline.

Cherokee is nimble, fit and hungry. We are like the sprint champion Merlene Ottey facing up to yet another aspirant in an Olympic 100 metres final - always there competing, but growing in age and being pushed into an honourable twilight.

On board there is no sense of defeat, in truth this race is not about winning but, perhaps anachronistically, to sail and to take something away at the end of it all. It is a livelihood for most on board, from the Dun Laoghaire-bred Irishman Johnny Smullins, currently finishing off a $6 million yacht for an Italian owner, to Jason Carrington and Neil McDonald, both back from the nine-month marathon race around the world.

McDonald is rated by Carrington as perhaps the best sailor in Britain at the moment. A marine architect, he will now focus his attention on the 2000 Olympics.

The last leg has been the easiest. The rain seemed to ease off, or maybe it didn't, but sailing across Dundalk Bay the energy came back as the end of the race came into view and we were spared another night on board.

We sailed over some fishing nets rounding north Donegal, unable to stop or even see them until the last moment as Bridgestone rounded the north coast in intermittent driving rain. The theory on the fishing nets is that the 14ft 6in, 15 tonne keel would push the nets under the water and the boat would be past before the nets resurfaced to snag in the rudder.

At 4.0 a.m. we sat, as we have done on many occasions, our legs dangling over the side of the boat, trying to harvest a bit more sleep in the freezing dawn.

Yesterday, we sat for almost the entire four-hour shift with the occasional dry spell and the relative warmth of the lengthening day lightening the mood.

Coming well inside the record of just under 85 hours is some comfort, but in truth the prospect of the Wicklow Sailing Club bar caused more of a stir. There is too much experience and enviable expertise on board to brood over being beaten into second place by a thoroughbred like Cherokee.

Personal targets have also been reached. No vomit slicks out the back of the boat, no real keel-hauling levels of idiocy - despite the fact that the crew believe that this job was awarded by the sports editor who had asked for the most idiotic person in the room to raise his hand. A mix of exhilaration and mind-numbing squalor. A race, a spectacle, a test of endurance. This race was all.