A sailing passage between UK and Majorca in 1991 revealed that there was more to life than London bar work and a job as packer in a plastics factory for 17 year-old Alex Thomson.

It would be a further seven years before Sir Robin Knox-Johnston spotted this prodigious sailing talent and Thomson led a crew of amateur sailors to victory in the 1998-99 Clipper Round The World Race. Aged 24 at the time, Thomson remains the youngest skipper to have ever won a round the world race. Over the following five years, Thomson launched an assault on the solo and shorthanded sailing establishment, competing in the 1999 doublehanded Transat Jacques Vabre, then, the following year, taking third place in the singlehanded Europe 1 New Man STAR and winning the Round Britain & Ireland Race. In 2003, he bought Roland Jourdain's highly competitive Open 60, Sill and entered the Transat Jacques Vabre from France to Brazil with Jourdain on board as co-skipper: a combination that resulted in an outstanding second place. However, Thomson stunned the solo sailing circuit soon afterwards during the singlehanded Défi Atlantique race from Brazil to Europe by setting a new solo monohull 24-hour record of 468 miles at an average speed of 19.5 knots and finishing the race in third place: this double result confirmed his status as offshore solo sailing's wild card.

Winning the non-stop, round-the-world Vendée Globe is Thomson's ultimate goal and armed with a powerful and committed sponsor he entered Hugo Boss in the 2004-05 edition of the race. Setting a blistering pace down through the North Atlantic and across the Equator, Thomson kept pace with the vastly more experienced solo skippers on their new boats in the lead pack, consistently in the front six from the Bay of Biscay to the coast of Brazil: precocious racing from a virtual newcomer and behaviour that caused one French sailing pundit to tag Thomson as "a mad young dog" during a mid-race radio interview. Plagued by light winds and technical problems, Thomson hung onto the race leaders until - after 26 days at sea - a Force 10 gale in the Roaring Forties broke the attachment of his boom to the mast, forcing this carbon fibre spar through the yacht's deck.

Since retiring from the Vendée Globe, Hugo Boss has competed in numerous inshore and offshore, fully crewed races including the 2005 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. On the crewed delivery from Tasmania to Europe, the yacht dismasted in the Southern Ocean, 1,000 miles west of Cape Horn, but Thomson and his team sailed the yacht safely into port under jury rig.

Thomson has the skill and nerve to sail an Open 60 very, very fast. This was witnessed again in the VELUX 5 OCEANS when Thomson and Golding brought out the best of each other as they sprinted into the Southern Ocean to chase down Stamm and stay ahead of the other. Unfortunately, Hugo Boss suffered major structural failure to the keel in the middle of the Southern Ocean. Upon inspection of the keel, and in light of a fast approaching storm, Thomson informed Race Director David Adams that he would have to abandon his yacht. His bitter rival Golding was the closest, and the experienced yachtsman did not hesitate to immediately turn back to rescue his fellow Brit.

The pair carried out a text book rescue, with live images broadcast around the world to TV news stations of Thomson jumping off Hugo Boss. It was the end of the race for Thomson, who watched his beloved boat drift off into the distance and his dreams of winning a solo round the world race go with her.