Sydney to Hobart race veteran Michael Spies rated his overall handicap victory up with the record-breaking line honours glory he secured four years ago.

The 44-year-old Sydneysider skippered 40.7-footer First National to the major handicap trophy on corrected time when they crossed the finish line at 5.32am (AEDT), also winning the IRC handicap division.

Spies co-skippered Danish-owned Nokia to a record-breaking line honours victory in 1999 and said winning the race on handicap was "definitely up there" with the Nokia success.

He finished more than a day behind the 2003 line honours winner, 98-footer Skandia, and that category, as usual, hogged the headlines and television news.

But Spies agreed sailors probably saw the race honours a little differently to some of the media and general public.

"It is very hard to compare because when you are on a line honours boat there's only two or three boats that can actually, physically, have a good chance of winning the race on line honours," Spies said.

"I think that's typified by what happened down here this year.

"When you are racing for handicap honours, there's probably any one of 20 to 30 boats that have some sort of solid chance.

"I think that the public have a little bit of a problem getting their head around the fact that when someone finishes, the boats are still out there.

"If it was just a line honours race, there wouldn't be a race.

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