The skippers of Wild Oats XI and ICAP Leopard have revealed how Alfa Romeo and its skipper, Neville Crichton, beat them in the 2009 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, to take his 144th win in the second super maxi to carry the Alfa Romeo name.

Alfa Romeo, the Line Honours winner of the 2009 Rolex Sydney Hobart, is the second of three yachts owned and skippered by Neville Crichton to carry the Alfa Romeo name. Alfa Romeo 1, a 90 maxi took 74 line honours with Crichton at the helm; Alfa Romeo 2, a 100 maxi now has 144 wins in her account, and Alfa Romeo 3, a 71 foot mini maxi which has taken part in a limited number of events this year, has nine line honours and two regatta wins from her debut season.

Despite this record of success, before the Rolex Sydney Hobart race started on Boxing Day Alfa Romeo, Wild Oats XI and ICAT Leopard were, to most commentators – and the skippers themselves, inseparable for line honours. At the start Alfa Romeo lead Wild Oats XI and Leopard out of Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day, having over taken them both in the sprint out of the harbor and, even during the race, it was so close that all three yachts were in sight of each other.

Yet, at the finish it was not even close. Wild Oats XI finished at five minutes after midnight, two hours and three minutes behind Neville Crichton's Alfa Romeo. Leopard, a Farr 100, finished at 0545, five hours and 40 minutes behind Wild Oats XI, nearly eight hours after Alfa Romeo.

Wild Oats' Mark Richards was gracious in defeat. "It was a tactical race and we never got a look in really," Richards said. "They had a little edge on us on the first night and the next morning we were in a big parking lot together. They got out first and put 30 miles on us before we knew what had happened."

Mike Slade, owner and skipper of ICAT Leopard, had an historical perspective of the close three-way battle of the maxis: "When Napoleon turned up at Waterloo he knew he was in for a bad day, he had a bad day at the office didn't he? I've been a bit like that. It was a fantastic race and well done Alfa, bloody marvellous." Slade said that Leopard had gambled by sailing farther offshore than Alfa and Oats down the east coast of Australia rather than sailing in Alfa's wake. "We went offshore because there was no point in covering Alfa's tracks; she had about 20 miles on us and we just got locked out. We had about four shut-downs and it was as frustrating as hell. We sat there for hours, watching them go away. That cost us. We got punished."

Rounding Tasman Island was the worst Slade had experienced. "There was no wind and appalling seas; really nasty because it's a lee shore, you've got no steerage because there's no wind, but the seas were huge and that took us a couple of hours. "Alfa and Oats had already gone round. The rich get rich and the poor get poorer, that's what the game's all about. So it was a shocker but we loved every minute of it. We will be back to do another one I think - the boat's a glutton for punishment."