The Down Under Dogs, a six-man voyageur team from Australia won the 2012 Yukon River Quest in spectacular fashion.

They arrived to the finish line in Dawson City in just under 42 hours, nearly an hour ahead of second place finishers, Such a Blast from California.

The time was good enough to be just over two hours behind the 2008 record set by Kisseynew, a voyageur team composed of Martin Bernardin, Tony Bond, David Dahl, Dennis Fosseneuve, Tim Hodgson and Paul Pageau.

The Dogs were in close contention with Such a Blast from the moment they launched out of Whitehorse.

The Californians beat the Aussies into the Carmacks checkpoint, the halfway point of the race and the mandatory 7-hour layover.

Such a Blast pulled in at 6:59 a.m. with the Aussies arriving 15 minutes later.

But in reality, the Dogs were lucky to arrive at all.

In the early morning hours of Thursday, with the temperatures plummeting to just above zero degrees, the Dogs were surprised by an eddy near Big Salmon and were thrown into the water

In an effort not to lose any ground, the team rushed back into their boat without drying themselves off or changing clothes.

When hypothermia began to set in one of their lead paddlers, the team was forced to stop again, strip his clothes off and re-dress in warm and dry gear.

The team was visibly exhausted by the time they pulled into Carmacks, struggling to walk and falling into the arms of their support crew.

After their obligatory rest, they came back to the checkpoint in good spirits, eager to get back into the water and continue their pursuit for the lead.

Such a Blast departed the Carmacks checkpoint six minutes behind schedule and the Aussies left right on the second but encountered another setback in Five Finger Rapids, where they capsized in the high water and rushing waves.

The weather was on their side this time though, as the team quickly dried out under the sun that hung in the sky for most of the remaining journey.

Motivated by the setback the Dogs kept paddling and finally got the Californians back in sight, overtaking them just before Fort Selkirk, about two hours outside of Carmacks.

The Dogs reached the final checkpoint at 60 Mile 15 minutes ahead of Such a Blast and pulled into the finish line all alone just before 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon.

The crowd spotted the Dogs about a kilometre from the finish line and their families that had made the trip to support the team began bellowing chants of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi” from the shore.

When the Dogs pulled into Dawson, they were elated.

"It feels great, it feels wonderful. For us it was big achievement just to be here, but to finish first? It's unreal,” said Caleb Wiles, as he gained his footing on dry land.

"We had our eyes on the prize. We wanted to win.”

The common thread uniting the Dogs is their passion for paddling outriggers in Australia.

But the boat they raced in the River Quest was much longer and far less stable than what they are used to.

When they took to the water for the first time in the rented vessel, they thought they were going to be in trouble.

"The first time we took it out, we flipped it and thought ‘oh my god, what have we got,'” said Keith Vis, who has been paddling outriggers for six years and is the current Australian OC2 (outrigger canoe) champion.

Outriggers are stabilized in such a manner that paddlers can basically move around without worry, in their racing canoe, the Aussies had to learn to coordinate their weight and movement, something that was more difficult than they expected.

"That's the first time we've been in a craft like this,” said Geoff Wright, whose experience comes in the form of open ocean 6-man outrigger racing.

"This thing just tips over all the time. It was absolutely the very first time we ever sat in at the start, we put the canoe in the water we all jumped in with our paddles and we made it about 20 feet before we were upside down.”

Despite the learning curve, the Dogs found a way to make the vessel work.

The team has been training together for more than a year and had a positive outlook about their struggles with the canoe and their dips into the chilly Yukon River.

Wiles referred to the Dogs as the Australian swim team after they capsized for the second time.

"We're aware of the competition so we figured we had to make it a little challenging

for them,” he said, with a smile.

"We worked hard to get here, we gave it everything that we had.”

Bodo Lenitschek was the only member of the team with previous River Quest experience, finishing second overall in 2008 alongside partner Jane Vincent in the mixed tandem canoe division.

"It was pretty exciting,” Lenitsched said of the final stretch into Dawson.

"We knew it was getting closer and closer. We're pretty happy and pretty sore. It's an amazing feeling and we've had great support along the way.”

Grant Davis, who has 17 years of experience as an outrigger, described the race as more of a mental challenge than physical.

"It's a hard race, it really is,” he said.

"The first day is okay but it just starts playing with your mind after that and it's really hard to stay mentally relaxed. Anyone can get fit enough to paddle but getting mentally prepared is the big thing, really anything over 100-km you have to mentally prepared to do that or just plain stupid.”

Davis said the team trained for the mental fatigue by staying up for 24 hours and then going on 11 hour paddles.

"We wanted to see how our bodies would react to it,” he said.

When the team started making their way into Dawson, Davis said they could finally relax as they became more and more excited to finish.

"The closer you get the more stoked you are especially when you overtake the lead boat and know it's yours,” he said.

"We had 25 minutes on them last night when we camped (at Kirkman Creek, were they arrived just after 4 a.m. and were forced to take the mandatory three hour layover). We were so stoked so we just pumped all day.”

"The whole thing is a mind game,” said Ralph Seed, who has 20 years of outrigger experience.

"It's amazing what you can keep doing, you've just got to slog through it. We had a great crew, a good bunch of guys and we had resilience. To flip that second time and keep going, we just dug in, battled it out and decided to just paddle through.

We got a lot of encouragement from our support, which gave us a lot of strength.”

Davis said the warm afternoon sun aided the second plunge into the Yukon River.

"All we did was bail the boat out and jump back in, we knew with our paddling and with the sun we'd get warm again so we just got straight back into the boat and paddled our little hearts out,” he said.

Along the way, the Dogs were treated to some Canadian wildlife, spotting a moose and calf and many beaver swimming in the water.

"It's magical countryside,” said Vis.

"It's absolutely beautiful and we had an absolute ball.”

Vis said the team felt threatened by the Californians but were always aware of their standing.

They were sure to depart Kirkman Creek right on time and didn't want to give the competition a chance to catch up.

"We woke up about an hour before we had to leave and them moved out straight on the money,” he said.

"We didn't give the Californians a second. We knew we had to get our tail into gear and get going.”

Vis said the team also benefited from a very strong camaraderie in the boat, which had an average age of 51 years old.

"You always have a little tiff now and then but it quickly gets sorted out,” he said.

"We've been training together for a year and we got along really well. Now we have a lot of plans to celebrate and we intend to have some good rums.”

Even with their success, Wright said if he were asked to do the race again he'd "rather be hit in the head with a hammer.”

He said one of the toughest obstacles the team faced was adjusting to the temperatures.

"Where we come from a cold morning is 16 degrees (Celsius), that's when you just don't go outside. That's been our biggest issues is the temperatures, where we are in Cairns and Queensland it's always sunny and very humid and the water is 30 degrees.”

Wright said the only time the team came close to calling it quits was the first time they capsized in the early morning cold.

"We spent a lot of time in the water and we made the mistake of not getting dry before we took off again,” he said.

"About an hour later we had someone freezing so we had to pull in again, take them out and wrap them up. We were all absolutely wiped.

"It was six hours in the canoe in a very solemn and wet state (into Carmacks). But we're all very competitive men and we knew we couldn't give up because everybody is relying on each other.”

The team will now make the most of their trip to the North.

They are heading to Fairbanks, AK then to Denali National Park before spending a week salmon fishing in Anchorage.

"It's an excuse to get a holiday,” said Davis, before acknowledging the fact that most people wouldn't call paddling 715-km in just over 40 hours a holiday.

"It was a great time, a great event and now we're looking forward to celebrating.”

*** Be sure to pick up Wednesday's edition of the Star for a complete recap of the 2012 Yukon River Quest.