Ecover third in EDS Atlantic Challenge final leg

by Susan Preston Davis on 27 Aug 2001 Mike Golding and his ECOVER crew had to settle for third place this evening
as they crossed the finish line off the breakwater off St Malo, France at
16:17:00 GMT. After 12 days and almost 3000 miles ECOVER were just 26
minutes and 50 seconds behind Sill Plein Fruit and 1 hour, 2minutes and 40
seconds after leg winner Kingfisher.

It was always going to be a close run thing and for the last 24 hours any
one of the three boats could have taken the leg - but it was the blue boat
Kingfisher which emerged first out of the heavy fog that has been sitting
over St Malo all day to take line honours in this fifth and final leg of
the EDS Atlantic Challenge.

Kingfisher, ECOVER, Sill and Fila have been fighting for the podium slots
for the last week - with Sill in particular staging a remarkable comeback,
sailing the leg with a hastily repaired mast after losing the rig within
minutes of the fourth leg, Baltimore to Boston.

The closing 48 hours had been stressful for all the teams with light and
fluky breezes on the final stretch home. The positions have changed at
almost every sched giving fans watching the website a good idea of just how
close this type of racing can be.

At the time of writing overall point scores were not yet available so more
later