Spirit of Australia has won the Clipper Round the World Race after a four-place finish in the penultimate leg.

The crew only needed one point on the leg from Cork to Ijmuiden, Netherlands, which they secured simply by finishing.

The team’s elated skipper, Brendan Hall, from Brisbane, Queensland, said: ‘Words can’t describe right now.

‘It is amazing. We raced so hard, again our result was not our best, but to win a round the world yacht race, how many people can say they’ve done that?’

Team Finland took the line honours in Ijmuiden, crossing the finish line at 9.39pm local time last night.

The first nine boats finished within 91 minutes of each other with Hull and Humber second, less than two minutes ahead of Cape Breton Island, after the final spinnaker run went down to the wire and both teams can still make the overall podium.

The fleet leaves the Netherlands on Thursday for the final leg to Hull, where they are expected to arrive on Saturday.