Mike Golding ends Vendee Globe career with fastest time yet and new record It has not been the easiest of Vendée Globes, in fact it has been the hardest without any question because of the weather. The race itself has been hard for this group of boats right up to the end, right up to Biscay where I had 50 knots. He becomes the only skipper ever to have finished the race three times and his third place in 2005, when he lost his keel just 50 miles from the finish, serves as his most successful achievement with a time of 88 days and 15 hours. "I didn't do this Vendée Globe, or any other, to stack up the numerical supremacy," he added. I did them to compete, and to win it would have been a dream. I haven't done that, but in pursuing that dream, I have made several others come true, including this one of having finished the race successfully three times. It's an honour to hold that accolade. In 2001, where he was competing alongside Dame Ellen MacArthur, he finished seventh while four years ago, he was forced to abandon after suffering every sailor's worst nightmare, a dismast in the Southern Ocean. This race will be remembered for an epic duel with French skipper Jean Le Cam, which has lasted from the middle of December, just one month into the race, until a few hours from the finish line when Le Cam took advantage of Golding's problems with the keel box on his IMOCA Open 60 Gamesa which forced him to throttle back. Le Cam crossed the finish line six hours before Golding and gave an indication of the intensity of their rivalry when he was asked whether he would have minded finishing last. "Finishing last wouldn't have been a problem, as long as Mike Golding is even further behind," he said.