What I’m going to remember is that I was first over the line – no one can take it away from me. It’s normal for boats that stop to help others to have time compensation and that’s out of my control. But whatever the outcome I’m here in front of you now and I’m happy that I’ve done a good job.

Before leaving I said that finishing this round the world race would be a victory. Now I am even more aware of it – each of us has had many problems to overcome – and just to finish is a victory.

You feel lonely when there are big problems to deal with – when you go up the mast alone, when you have to repair the foil alone – you operate alone, but still have the team at a distance

You feel the solitude with things are difficult, when it’s difficult to solve problems on your own. Otherwise you don’t feel lonely – there’s so much to think about all the time – the wind is changing all the time. The boat dictates everything – some people told me to take TV series and books – I watched half a TV programme, didn’t open a book and didn’t use the Rubik cube I was given. I was not bored for one second – when it’s quiet there are always many things from the to-do list, or to sleep.

My boat is no longer the same on port and starboard tacks – I spent eight unpleasant days on starboard tack, heeled at 20-30 degrees, which I can tell you was not comfortable – the boat sails much flatter when you can use the foil.

It was a difficult moment to experience when the foil casing broke and even when I resumed racing I knew the boat would be compromised. It was worse than a foil I couldn’t use – I still had to look after it all the time and maintain it. You probably saw the ropes on the port foil at the finish. I had to keep replacing them – even last night one of the broke and I had to slowdown to replace it.

It was difficult to live aboard at times and in the Indian ocean when the sea was very short it was frustrating to have a boat that didn’t handle it very well. At one time the boat was nose diving every 10-15 seconds in the Indian ocean – it gets on your nerves

There were also many great moments. When you see your first albatross it’s always an amazing moment. The first times I ran for my camera, but when I got on back deck they were gone – like an illusion. Going along the anticyclone towards the end in a flat sea with a good wind was fantastic and magical. I took great pleasure in it – it’s not all difficult.

Dalin describes his most proud achievement as recovering a 160m2 headsail that came off the bowsprit, flapping in the wind and held to the boat by the halyard.

“It was night and I honestly don’t know how I got it on board without tearing the sail or losing the halyard. Two days later I had to go up the mast for one hour to replace an aerial – that seemed easy by comparison.

Overcoming these technical damages gives more trust in yourself – it gives the feeling you are able to succeed. When I fixed the foil case it felt like I could fix anything.

When we spend so much time on the boat, living the boat, your intuition becomes very well developed. Sometimes I looked at my routings, but then looked out of the boat and said that’s wrong – and then the wind changed in the way my intuition predicted. The intuition develops over time, because you spend so much time with your machine, your boat, that you become one. I felt this happening more and more every week.

I had more interest in getting away from the boats with compensated time – so I was happy to be with Louis. He came back into the race for a very nice duel going back up the Atlantic, each of us with our own problems and handicaps, but a really nice duel where we didn’t know what the outcome would be.