Battle for the podium places in the 23rd Mini-Transat decided: Happy ending for Melwin Fink: "I didn't expect this"

Furious finale: Melwin Fink finished the second leg of the 23rd Mini-Transat EuroChef 2021 in 22nd place. He fought for every metre and every minute until the end of the demanding transatlantic stage. Fleet Benjamin, 19, was rewarded for his tirelessness today. His time of 16 days, 19 hours, 44 minutes and 30 seconds after his winning coup on leg one was actually enough to put him on the podium when both leg times were added together.

With third place overall, the young "SignForCom" skipper also achieved one of the historically best German results in this ancient French classic. Before Fink, Jörg Riechers from Hamburg had finished second in the Proto classification in 2017. Morten Bogacki had also sailed to third place on the Proto "Lilienthal" in 2019.

Melwin Fink himself no longer expected this success when he crossed the finish line: "I had written off the podium place. On the morning of the penultimate day, I was still more than 100 nautical miles behind Léo Debiesse, who was now in fourth place..." Despite this, Fink reduced his sleep to one hour a day over the last 48 hours. "I've been pretty exhausted over the last few days," he told YACHT online in the first interview after crossing the finish line, when he could barely stand up on the foredeck of his Pogo.

Fink "hadn't even realised" his success in the first few hours after crossing the finish line. However, the cheering family, a press boat with half a dozen photographers, thumbs up and excited shouts made the young German realise that he had actually made it onto the mini-transat podium. In the emotional moments of his arrival, Fink's thanks went not only to his family and supporters, but also to his two companions in the Dream Team: "Vorpommern" skipper Lennart Burke and "All Hands on Deck" skipper Christian Kargl from Austria: "We were a super cool group. Lennart and I have done so much together over the past two years and have grown really close. And my mum says that Christian Kargl and I are like dad and son when it comes to sailing. Christian is also a great guy!"

At the top of the final ranking of the series boats, of which 62 were still in the race after a total of only three retirements, is the highly deserved favourite Hugo Dhallenne. "It's amazing what Hugo has delivered. He definitely deserves the greatest respect. What he does with his boat is incredible. He did the best job by far," said Fink, paying tribute to the beaming winner. After finishing in second place at the start, the "YC Saint Lunaire" skipper Dhallenne completed a magnificent Atlantic leg and reached the finish line on Sunday around an hour ahead of the second-placed Italian Alberto Riva. After finishing eleventh in the first race, his brilliant transatlantic performance catapulted him to silver among the series boats.

Despite his coup and counterattack victory on stage one, Fink was unable to catch up with these two. However, Fink underlined his fighting qualities with third place overall. The "SignForCom" skipper was rewarded for this with a dream result and a podium finish and even clearly surpassed his own hopes of a top ten result, which he had expressed quite ambitiously before the mini-transat start.

Fink was greeted at the finish line by his overjoyed family at the dark night arrival off Guadeloupe. Father Matthias Hampel had calculated fourth place for the junior the evening before. But he was able to work his way up again during the night. The Austrian Christian Kargl and "Vorpommern" skipper Lennart Burke had already crossed the finish line ahead of him in 20th and 21st place on the second leg. They were separated by around an hour at the finish. Fink crossed the finish line a further hour later. The self-proclaimed "dream team" was together again.

For Kargl, his performance after third place on the first stage as a result of the jury's decisions should be enough to finish in the top six overall. Lennart Burke is in the top 20. Official confirmation of the overall standings was still pending on Monday afternoon. Click here for the tracker and the intermediate results (please click!).