Groupama survived a huge late scare when a holed hull threatened to sink her before she edged home to become the first French boat in 34 years to win a Volvo Ocean Race leg into Auckland yesterday.

After more than 19 days of sailing from China, Franck Cammas’s crew looked set for a comfortable cruise home for a 100-nautical mile victory into one of the sport’s most recognisable ports in the so-called “City of Sails”.

But with around eight hours left to race, the crew spotted water entering a forward compartment of the bow with the level steadily rising to two-thirds full.

For several frantic minutes, the team baled out around a tonne of water before the leak was eventually located and a wooden bung inserted to seal it.

Early indications were that the bow had suffered a serious gash caused by massively testing conditions as the fleet approached New Zealand with waves rising to eight metres high.

Swede Martin Krite said he and fellow bowman Brad Marsh had found the leak after noticing that the boat was dipping deeply into the water.

“I went downstairs to have a look in the bow and discovered we had a lot of water in the boat and more water was coming in,” said Krite on, appropriately, French Day at the Auckland race village.

“Then Brad and myself went looking for holes in the boat and managed to find a leak.”

The victory ends a streak of three leg wins for Spanish boat Telefonica in this year’s edition and gives France a first victory in Auckland in offshore racing’s premier event, previously known as the Whitbread Round the World Race, since Alain Gabbay triumphed in 33 Export in a handicap in 1977-78.

Going into Leg 4, Telefonica were 18 points ahead of second-placed Camper on the overall leaderboard and 28 points clear of Groupama.

With the French team taking 30 points for the leg victory, they briefly went to the top yesterday, though barring accidents Telefonica will regain the lead when they come in this morning.

Marsh won the race to be the first of the 20 Kiwi sailors in the race into New Zealand.

“It feels amazing,” Marsh said.

“It’s a childhood dream for me. I didn’t allow myself to think about winning up until today. But the excitement set in as we came down the coast and I realised it was all going to happen.”

The nine-month, 39,000-nautical mile race visits 10 ports, four oceans and five continents before reaching its climax in Galway, Ireland in early July.