ABN Amro One won the Volvo Ocean race yesterday with two legs to spare, organisers said.

The yacht, whose team suffered the death of sailor Hans Horrevoets washed overboard from sister boat ABN Amro Two last week, crossed the line at Portsmouth nine days after leaving New York to win the sixth of seven legs.

ABN Amro One has now amassed an unassailable 81 points. The Dutch boat's skipper Mike Sanderson said the crossing had been very tough with high winds.

"This leg has been hideous from the start," he said.

Sanderson said Horrevoets had been a very experienced sailor. "Experienced enough to be on any of these boats. He was a great sailor and will be tragically missed," he said.

"From the minute we got the message about the man overboard, I had that sinking feeling that it might be one of us.

"We felt every minute that the guys were looking for him and they did an amazing job to get back to him. It was just tragic that it wasn't soon enough."

"We had to go on and finish this leg in first place and win the race," Sanderson added.

"It is amazing really. It is such a special moment. For me this is the Olympic medal, the climbing Everest, it's a childhood dream to have skippered a boat and to have won the Volvo Ocean Race."

Keel problems on Movistar forced the crew to abandon ship late on Saturday and transfer to ABN Amro Two which had been standing by, some 307 miles of England's south west coast.

The seven-boat race ends in Gothenburg in Sweden in the middle of June.