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With less than 24 hours at sea, the yacht flooded her bow section so bad that the bow was under water. In a dramatic team effort the crew managed to keep the yacht afloat and got going after two hours and 20 lost miles increasing to 65 at a later stage while others sailed their records.

With remarkable consistency illbruck climbed back the leader board step by step through immaculate boat speed and perfect routing until they led the fleet around Eclipse Island. Across the Great Australian Bight, only SEB could match illbruck's performance and mount a serious threat to her claim for the lead. After SEB broached at high speed when entering Bass Strait illbruck led the way to Sydney unchallenged.

After his arrival at the dock, John Kostecki, the skipper of the winning German yacht said: "I had tears in my eyes, when I crossed the finish line. I will never forget the coldness of the Southern Ocean. Really happy to see Ann Marie again."

Thick and fast they crossed the finish line at the Sydney Opera House. First across at 00:22:26 GMT illbruck Challenge went from sinking to winning. Then the 24-hour record breaking Team SEB followed by home-town heroes News Corp. djuice finally claimed fourth and Amer Sports One's skipper Grant Dalton was stretchered off injured. The last boat of the day was ASSA ABLOY finishing at 20:31:05 local time (09:31:05 GMT).

Crossing the finish line under the cover of darkness, ASSA ABLOY became the sixth and penultimate yacht to complete leg two of the Volvo Ocean Race today.

The gold and blue Farr design passed the Sydney Opera House that signifies the finish a few moments after 20.30hrs Sydney time.

After match racing with News Corp for several days in the Great Australian Bight, a costly error at the entrance to Bass Strait saw ASSA ABLOY plummet from a potential top three place into Sydney to another lowly finish, one place worse than their Cape Town position.

"In hindsight, we could have stayed with News Corp and had a fighting chance at SEB," reflected navigator Mark Rudiger on that decisive mistake.

It had taken them nine hours more than leg winners illbruck to complete the Southern Ocean stage from Cape Town, which started on 11 November.

Meanwhile, Neal's wife Lisa and her Amer Sports Too team are now the final crew at sea with over 620 miles still to sail. They are expected to complete the leg on Thursday evening.

Elapsed time for leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race:

Illbruck: 022d 13h 22m 26s
SEB: 022d 14h 35m 45s
News Corp 022d 15h 17m 29s
djuice 22d 19h 43m 35s
Amer Sports One 022d 19h 50m 12s
ASSA ABLOY 022d 22h 31m 05s

Volvo Ocean Race Position Report, Day 24, 10.00hrs GMT:

PS Yacht Latitude Longitude DTF CMG SMG TFHR DTL DTL-C ETA PO
1 ILBK 33 51.45S 151 12.77E 0 000 00.0 000 0 +00000 04 DEC 00:22:26 16
2 TSEB 33 51.45S 151 12.77E 0 000 00.0 000 0 +00000 04 DEC 01:35:45 10
3 NEWS 33 51.45S 151 12.77E 0 000 00.0 000 0 +00000 04 DEC 02:17:29 12
4 DJCE 33 51.45S 151 12.77E 0 000 00.0 000 0 +00000 04 DEC 06:43:35 7
5 AONE 33 51.45S 151 12.77E 0 000 00.0 000 0 +00000 04 DEC 06:50:12 11
6 AART 33 51.45S 151 12.77E 0 000 00.0 000 0 +00000 04 DEC 09:31:05 7
7 ATOO 38 54.56S 142 17.60E 627 074 08.6 208 0 -00626 06 DEC 20:22 3