1997-98怀特布莱德环球帆船赛

01

Despite the lively start and some amazing speeds in the first few hours, the weather gods decided to take a snooze for most of the month, stirring just occasionally to deliver a violent squall or fluky gust.

A leg that was supposed to take 30 days ended up, in some cases, taking a lot longer, leaving many crews short on rations. Anxious to save weight and maximise speed potential, the skippers had allowed only bare essentials on board, but this fixation was starting to look a little misguided as the pounds started to drop off the beefcake sailors and cries of hunger resonated across the South Atlantic.

Half way down, fresh winds having filled in after the Doldrums, it was Frostad’s Innovation Kvaerner who was up front with EF Language second and closing, and Dalton’s Merit Cup third, but it wasn’t long before Cayard struck out and took off.

The business of keeping a constant 15 knots on the speedometer had the articulate Cayard firing off an email describing the experience as "a cross between really scary and really fun." It marked the start of a new era in communication as the gifted EF Language skipper assiduously recorded every emotion throughout 32,000 nm of racing. The rawness of his expression struck a chord among the thousands of armchair followers of the race who embraced his updates as an important part of their daily routines. By Day 28, Cayard had taken the lead and extended the advantage over Merit Cup to 113 nm. Not bad for a novice.

The other skippers were fast realising what an opponent Cayard was shaping up to be.

"No one has slept for 24 hours," Dalton reported. "We've been on deck for all that time. At least it has temporarily stopped them moaning about food! But Cayard is sailing well and he will be difficult to catch."

He was impossible to catch as it turned out and EF Language crossed the finish line in Cape Town first, some 20 hours ahead of Merit Cup with Innovation Kvaerner coming in third two hours later.

02

The shock of Cayard’s first leg win was soon overtaken by the announcements that rocked the race fraternity during the Cape Town stopover. Toshiba dropped the first bombshell, revealing that co-skipper Chris Dickson had resigned. The rumours concerning his relations with the crew and syndicate head Dennis Conner were rife, but Dickson claimed the decision was "a personal one” and kept his reasons to himself. Paul Standbridge, a respected and popular member of the crew was appointed skipper for the next leg, but there was uncertainty as to whether this was a permanent appointment and Standbridge was clearly as perplexed as everyone else.

Then Neil Barth, a doctor from Cleveland Ohio, who had been the first to register his syndicate America’s Challenge, but the last to confirm due to a shortfall in funds, announced his campaign was over and the boat would be withdrawn. Sponsorship funds that had been pledged for skipper Ross Field, winner of the 1993-94 Whitbread, and his crew to get the boat round the world never materialised and they, and the boat, remained in Cape Town when the fleet set off for Fremantle.

As usual, most skippers hugged the shore line on the way out except Gunnar Krantz in Swedish Match who stunned everyone when he veered off sharply and headed west. It was only later that the decision was explained, but it was to be one of the all-time great tactical coups.

Co-skipper Erle Williams had spotted a freighter far offshore and could see smoke curving steeply away from the stack. He consulted with Krantz, who immediately swung the nose round and headed in the same direction.

"My legs started to shake a little as we tacked over there," Williams said. "Gunnar just kept driving the boat fast. I think if he had got shaky I would have bailed out and we would have trailed the whole fleet back into the coast."

They found the wind and made big advances on the fleet, which was crawling along at less than one knot, and by the fifth day the lead had been extended to a whopping 205 nm, Innovation Kvaerner hapless in second place.

As soon as they hit the Roaring Forties, the picture changed dramatically and both front-runners took off. They claimed to enjoy the battering they received.

“Yes, we are in the Roaring Forties," reported Knut Frostad "It is windy, wet, cold and wet, wet, wet, wet. And we love it."

Swedish Match reported a 24-hour run of 420.6 nm, just 14 nm shy of the monohull record set by Toshiba in July, but behind them, the pace was a little slower.

Lawrie Smith, stuck in a high pressure system, was not happy. "There is an old saying that below 40 there is no law, below 50 there is no God, and below 60 there is no mercy," wrote Smith. "We think that it should be amended to read that below 40 there is no wind! It is extremely frustrating to be faced with this situation, sailing in very little wind when the boats ahead are worrying about whether they will break the 400 nm day or not.”

Krantz’s early gamble gave Swedish Match a 300-nm lead after a week’s racing and he was still almost 200 nm ahead when they crossed the Fremantle finish line, having achieved the highest average speed sailed on any leg in The Whitbread's 25-year history, at 13 knots.

“They had enjoyed a lot of luck,” he said. “The weather gods looked after us in critical situations. We sometimes looked with panic at the barometer that looked like a profit diagram for Microsoft. It was very scary and close,” he said. The boats had taken a battering in the Southern Ocean, but there were no casualties, except for the prides of Cayard who came in fifth and Hans Bouscholte on Dutch entry BrunelSunergy, which for the second time in two legs came last. The skipper was promptly replaced as another round of crew changes was unravelled during the stay in Australia. Chessie Racing co-skipper Mark Fischer stood down and was replaced by George Collins, an amateur yachtsman who had pretty much funded the campaign, while on Silk Cut Smith said there would be no changes despite their disappointing fourth place, and he found consolation in setting a new 24-hour world monohull speed record of 449.1 nm, breaking the previous one by 15 nm.

03

The 2,000 nm sprint round the south coast of Australia proved a bit of a slog as the fleet was forced to tack upwind, something the boats were not designed to do with any finesse. On the second day, the crew on Innovation Kvaerner, the overall points leader in the race, called for assistance when they discovered a few structural problems in the lower part of the mast just above the step. It compromised their speed and safety so they headed towards the shore and dropped anchor, while a helicopter lowered a repair kit. A few hours later, they were up and running again and back in the race with few time penalties. In fact they were just nine nm astern of leader EF Language.

The headwinds continued giving each crew a deeply unpleasant ride. EF Language fell back into sixth while Toshiba, with Paul Standbridge still in charge, moved into the lead. The discomfort was compounded on Silk Cut who reported chronic watermaker problems, requiring immediate repair.

While the engineers set to work, they relied on hand-operated watermakers. Two men had to pump for six hours to produce enough water to cook a single dehydrated meal, but they did not have to do this for long. The following day, the mechanics were celebrating their cleverness and fresh water was once again flowing freely.

Bizarrely, the same mast problems on Innovation Kvaerner reared their ugly head on Swedish Match, but Krantz was further offshore than the Norwegians, so heading in shore to drop anchor and make repairs was not an option. They continued with a conservative sail plan, knowing the mast could come down at any time. To lessen the risk, Krantz went south to find favourable winds and remarkably, this tactic once more paid handsome dividends.

A few nm out from Sydney, Swedish Match went into the lead.

Cayard was not amused. "It is Monday morning, three days before Christmas, and we have got bogies all over the place," he reported. "There's going to be a big dogfight to the finish.”

He was right and made sure it was even bigger by putting up every available sail. His sheer doggedness and uncanny skill in eking out speed in unlikely situations powered him to the front, but only just.

The fleet were bunched up as they entered Sydney Harbour in darkness and while the battle between Cayard and Krantz proved compelling, the award for performance in the face of adversity went to the crew of Innovation Kvaerner, who were lying in fifth place despite a near disaster onboard when bowman, Alby Pratt, was tossed overboard during an early morning sail change. He drifted off, his harness lying unused on deck and Frostad had to put in a U-turn in a bid to retrieve him, which he did when a crewman caught sight of his strobe light.

It was an extraordinary end to a closely fought leg, with six of the competitors arriving within 11 minutes of one another, Cayard putting five minutes and eight seconds between him and second placed Krantz, after 2,250 nm of racing. Less than a minute later, Chessie Racing also crossed the line and Dalton’s Merit Cup was 16 seconds behind. The welcome party had to wait just another two minutes to see Innovation Kvaerner and Toshiba finish and inside two hours, all nine of the W60s were tied up alongside the Sydney Opera House.

The triumphant Cayard once more was in full flow, giving an animated summary of his amazing race. "It was the tightest ocean race I have ever been in. Everything balanced out perfectly and we had one hell of a boat race."

04

It may have been Christmas, but there was little time to relax as crews were called to arms to get their boats shipshape for the short sprint to Auckland. The mast problems on Innovation Kvaerner and Swedish Match proved preoccupying and although they were made safe for the Tasman crossing, Krantz made plans to have a new mast to be flown to Auckland since he didn’t fancy his chances of making it round Cape Horn on the fifth leg with equipment that was even vaguely dodgy.

Dennis Conner showed up in Sydney to take over from Standbridge on Toshiba, a surprise move bearing in mind the efforts he went to in Fremantle to deny the rumours that he would feature in the fourth leg.

He was desperate to see for himself why Toshiba were lagging behind and the 1,270 nm hike would, he believed, provide some answers. "I've been part of this programme for two years and I don't think anyone would begrudge me a few days at sea.”

His eagerness to push Toshiba to her limits looked a little overenthusiastic at the start and they crossed the line three seconds before the gun. "I just could not wait for the chance to put Toshiba across the starting line first," Conner said later. "Well, I got my wish as we crossed a half-boat length ahead at the favoured end, only to hear another gun, meaning we started prematurely and had to return to the line and restart, which of course meant we went from first to last. Talk about dreams turning to ashes."

This error could have proved costly, but after 24 hours Conner was among the top three boats, his sights fixed firmly on a podium place. When he joined Krantz in the route south, while Cayard opted to go north, their advantage over the rest of the fleet grew, though as they approached Cape Reinga at the northern tip of New Zealand, it was Swedish Match who were up front, with a six nm lead. Cayard was second to last, ruing his tactical error.

Krantz thought he had it in the bag, but within hours of rounding the Cape, Swedish Match slipped into a windless hole and stopped dead, much to the delight of the rest of the chasing pack.

Said Conner, "Someone said it looked like there was an America's Cup boat meeting us, and I told them they must be nuts. Then we realised it was a Whitbread boat and when it turned out to be Gunnar Krantz and Swedish Match we were all laughing."

They sat there motionless while four boats passed them by, giving their windless zone a wide berth.

It was one of their worst moments in the race, said co-skipper Erle Williams. "It's a yachtsman's worst nightmare…when you are leading, to fall into a hole and to know that the others are coming at you."

By the time they moved off, Merit Cup, crewed largely by Kiwis, had stolen a march, driven on by the ecstatic reception they knew awaited them as the first boat into their home port.

Dalton pulled into the lead, but Conner, who was right on his stern, threatened to cause a major upset at the last minute. The two of them scrapped like cat and dog for honours in front of a crowd of thousands, most of them frenzied Kiwis desperate to see Conner put in his place. The weather gods joined in the excitement and for the last couple of nm, delivered 45 knots of wind to make the closing moments some of the most breathtaking of any. Dalton ripped through the convoy of spectator boats at breakneck speed and hurled across the line first and Conner heaved over two minutes later, to see Merit Cup’s mainsail shredded by a fierce gust of wind.

The force, clearly, was with Dalton who was overcome. "I was telling my crew on the way in of the two greatest days in life," he said. "The first was four years ago when we beat Tokio into here, and the second was today."

Cayard came fourth, but earned enough points to retain the overall lead, while Krantz did his best to shrug off the disappointment of arriving in fifth place, after a stonkingly fast leg.

On Silk Cut, brows that were previously furrowed by their consistently poor performances now bore yawning cracks after yet another failure. Tales of crew conflict were rampant and Smith did his best to quash the rumours by declaring on his arrival in Auckland in sixth place that there would be no crew changes.

He then made two changes that stunned everyone. Steve Hayles, the navigator, and watch captain Neil Graham were replaced by Gerard Mitchell and weather expert Vincent Geake, but wizened old race pundits rather felt these changes were too little and much too late.

Forever competitive, Conner filed a protest against EF Language for failing to display her navigation lights after sunset, in violation of race rules. After much to-ing and fro-ing, as the International Jury tried to establish who said what, when and how, the protest was thrown out and Conner returned to his office, leaving Standbridge once again in charge of Toshiba.

05

It was back into the Southern Ocean and everyone was prepared for a right old battering though it came sooner than anticipated. The all-women crew on EF Education, who had had their fair share of bad luck from the outset, had to take emergency action to avoid a catastrophic dismasting. It was dark and the conditions were atrocious, but Bridget Suckling and Lisa Charles were forced to venture up the mast in a bid to fix a rod back into its rivet just above the top spreader. They were unsuccessful so a makeshift repair was made and the shore crew were mobilised to organise full-scale repairs in the Argentinian port of Ushuaia, which meant crawling gingerly towards Cape Horn.

Once that crisis had subsided, the ice reports started to filter through. The leader EF Language sighted a one-nm-long iceberg just off her lee side, which was scary enough in itself, but combined with the turbulent seas, left many of the crew rooted to the spot. Mark Rudiger was stuck in his nav station, fearful that if he ventured 3 metres forward to fetch a cup of coffee, the weight in the boat might be displaced and the bow would nose dive catastrophically into the approaching waves.

Smith’s Silk Cut, in dire need of a good result on the fifth leg, were next to radio in to HQ, but the news was worse than expected. While running hard in 30 knots of wind with a masthead kite up, the crew heard a loud bang and a section of mast, above the second set of spreaders, disappeared over the horizon. So they too were required to erect a jury-rig and decided to head for Ushuaia. The mast on EF Education followed suit a couple of days later having been unable to withstand the loads imposed by 35 knots of wind.

Meanwhile, Cayard was having a fabulous time, having enjoyed the best of the conditions to grab a 350-nm lead. When the breezes were favourable, he was right in the middle of them. By the time they died, he had long since moved on and the mood on Swedish Match, Toshiba, Innovation Kvaerner and Merit Cup grew increasingly tetchy as navigators tried to find a way of getting their speeds above four knots.

Roy Heiner on BrunelSunergy found a solution. While the gang of four headed west round the Falklands, navigator Stuart Quarrie suggested a detour, and they headed east. Leaving the islands to port was not the done thing since the winds and weather on the eastern side were notoriously hard to fathom, so it was a massive gamble. But it could not have worked out finer for Heiner. BrunelSunergy leap-frogged the four and moved into second.

"I always knew we would get it right some day," he reported. "It is difficult to imagine that we thought to have lost it all as we lay becalmed before the Horn."

Dee Smith on Chessie Racing decided to try the same tactic and moved into fourth, just behind Innovation Kvaerner, but none of them had an earthly of catching EF Language, who by now were rampaging towards the finish some 500 nm ahead.

Cayard was wearing the broadest, smuggest grin when he appeared at the wheel in Sao Sebastiao and conceded his success was down to the lessons he learned during his first, bungled foray into the Southern Ocean.

Rudiger agreed. "This time he listened to the guys who had been there before."

Three boats failed to register any points from the leg. Both Silk Cut and EF Education were forced to retire after they were left with no option but to switch on their engines after realising the Ushaia repairs and passage to Sao Sebastiao could not be completed in time for the restart. More shockingly, Toshiba were also stripped of their points.

After finishing fifth, Toshiba were protested by the Race Committee who discovered the engine had been used, but there was no record of it in the log. Standbridge argued the case, claiming they had switched it on to get the boat into reverse, to remove some kelp from the keel and rudder. As to why they didn’t follow the strict rules governing such an eventuality remained a mystery and Toshiba was duly disqualified.

06

The tradition for chaos, that has characterised almost every South American restart since the beginning of the race, prevailed and close calls were many and varied, but finally the fleet extricated itself from the maelstrom and headed north, leaving behind the southern hemisphere which had been home for five months.

Sailing up the east coast of South America to Florida is a bigger nightmare for many professional racers than rounding Cape Horn, not because the waves are big and the weather horrendous, but because there are no waves and not a lot in the way of weather. The frustration has crews going crazy and this fifth leg, after an initial blast, proved no exception as temperatures soared, the seas grew still and the sails flapped indeterminately.

Down below, reported Knut Frostad, it was a stifling 50 degrees and bunks were soaked. "How nice it is to jump into a bunk that is already soaking wet from the sweat of the guy who slept there before you!"

Gunwale bum made its debut on some boats, raging spotty botty on others, but throughout the fleet, everyone was suffering from the intolerable heat made worse by the lack of speed.

Silk Cut’s Vincent Geake opted to stay near the shore – two nm from the beach at one point – to make the most of the breezes and for a while, they were in front but soon after crossing the equator, the spectre of EF Language loomed over the horizon behind them with Innovation Kvaerner on cloud watch in third.

"Every hour is spent watching the clouds," wrote Frostad, whose preoccupation with them was starting to sound a bit spooky. "Will it rain? Where is it moving? How fast? Can we pass ahead or do we have to hike up behind? You just have to make sure you don't end up right in the middle! Some of the clouds are just too big, and you can't avoid them."

Just as night follows day, so Cayard overtook Silk Cut, but the margins were negligible and Smith knew there was everything to gain from keeping up the pressure. Sure enough, he forced an error as Cayard stayed too close inshore and had to rethink his sail plan when he was headbutted by the wind. Smith meanwhile was flying his big masthead kite and a tiny advantage turned into a 15 nm lead.

"Frustrating," Cayard hissed. "Came into Barbuda with a reacher on while Silk Cut got up high on the rhumb line [and] were able to carry spinnakers all the way ... watching a 20-nm lead turn into a 15-nm deficit is not fun."

But all he had to do was stay ahead of Merit Cup and Swedish Match for EF Language to stay top of the points table and that proved pretty straightforward. Smith led the fleet into Fort Lauderdale, four days earlier than expected and one hour ahead of Cayard, while Krantz and Dalton cantered in behind.

Everyone was pleased for Smith. He had sailed a brilliant leg and deserved his first victory of the race, especially after the mast traumas in the previous leg.

Everyone realised, furthermore, that Cayard was now unbeatable, as a grumpy sounding Dalton pointed out when he arrived in Florida. "I guess EF Language has the whole thing in the bag now barring accidents. We are now chasing for second and third position overall."

07

Things on Toshiba were looking like the hokey-kokey as Conner once again displaced Standbridge for the 870 nm dash north to the newest stopover on the race track, Baltimore.

Otherwise, the crews concentrated on what lay ahead though only one, George Collins on Chessie Racing, had any real idea of what Chesapeake Bay would throw at them since this was his back yard and years of racing at weekends had given him an idea of how crab pots and tides could slow down progress.

In fact, this local knowledge offered little advantage. As the fleet approached Baltimore Collins was back in seventh place, but he still commanded the lion’s share of attention since he was engaged in a supreme battle with his main American adversary, Conner, who to everyone’s great shock, was bringing up the rear.

Taking the advice of his tactician Stuart Quarrie, BrunelSunergy skipper Roy Heiner had headed east as soon as they left the sunshine state to find more breeze and flat seas which is exactly what they found, while the rest of the fleet was blasted by strong headwinds nearer the coast.

For a while, the decision looked like being a winning one as their lead extended to 40 nm, but as they approached Baltimore the others started to catch up and it was the other American, the mighty Cayard who cranked up the pressure in closing the gap.

Heiner held him off for as long as possible and crossed the finish line, with a 21 minute advantage over…… over Swedish Match, since Cayard, despite gibing every 90 seconds, had fallen behind the Swedes to the tune of 30 desperate seconds. Cayard was gutted, but the clogs on board BrunelSunergy were dancing, having recorded their first win of the race.

As soon as the leaders were in, the TV crews headed back out on the water to watch the climax of the Collins v Conner head-banger.

They were neck and neck in seventh place, but despite the loudest cheers ringing out for Chessie Racing, it was Conner who squeezed over the line first. He made it by just ten seconds in what was the closest finish in Whitbread history.

He might not have tried so hard had he known that the next five hours would be spent in the protest room, after EF Education skipper Christine Guillou claimed that Conner had sailed ‘recklessly’ on the first night out of Fort Lauderdale, resulting in a port-starboard incident that happened after dark.

Conner countered, saying that as soon as he was made aware of Guillou's protest that night he had performed a 720-degree penalty turn in accordance with the rules, which in theory exonerated him. But the jury were not convinced since there was no way of knowing whether Toshiba had actually made the penalty turn so they upheld Guillou’s protest and Toshiba were relegated to last in the leg, having been penalised two places.

The gnashing of teeth did not stop there for Conner. A few hours later, he was stunned when his navigator Andrew Cape resigned. It came like a bolt out of the blue, but Cape was clearly disenchanted by the Toshiba experience. It had "been a very hard race and I have not especially enjoyed it,” was his only comment.

08

By now, Cayard had a comfortable lead of more than 100 points over everyone else but it wasn’t enough to guarantee victory. If Swedish Match came into La Rochelle first, and EF Language was waylaid, for whatever reason, at the back of the fleet, Swedish Match could still wangle it, a possibility that Cayard and his navigator Rudiger found completely unbearable.

Krantz, meanwhile was prepared to take a few calculated fliers. "We have a slim chance. It's a game of putting the throttle all the way down, but not taking too many risks."

Collins gave up the ghost on Chessie Racing and handed over to another American, one John Kostecki who was to receive his first, but not his last taster of round the world racing. The Kiwi Murray Ross stepped into Cape’s shoes on Toshiba and Standbridge was back as skipper.

It was Standbridge who made all the running out of Baltimore, but his early gains were eclipsed by the inevitable tussle that was set to characterise the leg, between Cayard and Krantz.

EF Language made a poor start and fell some way behind, which had Cayard up on deck in a lather, making sure his crew worked round the clock to catch up. “We have been in our full-race watch system all night. This means we are pretty tired after getting about two hours' sleep each."

But this uncompromising approach saw the gap close to 1.3 nm before the tacticians started to execute their Atlantic plans.

Krantz headed north, followed by a reluctant Cayard who would have rather have gone south, but was terrified of letting Swedish Match out of his sights. "We will stay right with Swedish Match for better or for worse, but it is frustrating to watch the whole fleet sailing off to the south."

Toshiba held the middle ground and promptly moved into second place and then, on day nine, into the lead though only because a dead seal had impaled itself on the keel strut of Dalton’s Merit Cup to slow her right down. Before long, the seal was extricated and despite a collision with a whale, she got back up to speed and overtook Toshiba.

As the fleet approached France, the leaderboard changed again, but this time it was Lawrie Smith on Silk Cut who was competing with Standbridge. For British race followers, this was irresistible. The godfather of offshore sailing was being given a run for his money by one of his former protégés.

Both had fallen way short of expectations though Standbridge’s fortunes had not been helped by all the chopping and changing of crew. For Smith the story was more one of arrogance and undercooked preparation. Until a year before the start of the race, he had been lined up as skipper of EF Language but the decision by Gallahers, the cigarette firm, to commit a big budget to the race found him jumping ship to take control of the Silk Cut campaign.

From the outset, Smith and his hotly-rated young crew created a glamour culture that had more to do with lifestyle than sailing, as contrived by the publicity group who had been engaged to get as much mainstream press from the project as possible. Models were paid to accompany the crew to pre-race events and one became so embroiled with a crewmember that he left his wife. Smith himself was the subject of rumours, but did little to shift the emphasis thinking that once they got on the water, their sailing would do all the talking necessary. His disappointing performances in the early legs gave weight to the criticisms and the dismasting in the fifth leg ruled Silk Cut out of contention, shattering any hopes that Smith would put a British name on the Volvo trophy.

For the moment though, Smith was giving it his best shot and the battle with Standbridge, who had sailed a flawless leg, proved compulsive viewing.

After almost 13 days at sea, Standbridge crossed the line in La Rochelle to claim Toshiba’s first leg victory of the race. Ten minutes later, Silk Cut finished, taking second place.

The improved performance was down to the new navigator, Standbridge said on landing. "We were very fortunate to get Murray Ross at short notice. He fitted in very well with the crew and did a very good job, and we're very grateful to him."

Behind them, Cayard stuck to his guns of shadowing Swedish Match and crossed the line in sixth, three hours in front of Krantz. It had not been pretty in its execution, but Cayard’s plan had finally landed him the 1997-98 Whitbread Round The World Race for the Volvo Trophy, with one leg still to race.

The determined Californian was unusually low key in his praise of EF Language’s performance. "This was a hard leg for us because we had to have a special position. We had to stay close to Swedish Match and minimise any risk to ensure winning the Whitbread. It was unexciting and boring, but it was the thing to do."

09

The last 450 nm came down to filling the two remaining positions on the podium and the contenders included Smith who’s second place into La Rochelle had moved him into fifth place overall with a chance, albeit slim, of finishing third.

There was little respect shown to boats or crew in this final thrust. The teams no longer had to worry about holding anything in reserve for future legs.

"We are going to use every little piece of energy we can drag out of our bodies. There is just going to be nothing left in Southampton," warned Knut Frostad, skipper of Innovation Kvaerner.

Every skipper went hell for leather and after a few hours, less than one nm separated the four leading boats: Merit Cup, EF Language, Silk Cut and BrunelSunergy.

With 60 nm left to the finish, and after a 25 nm detour imposed by the organisers to time the climax of the race so that it was watched the biggest possible audience, it was Dalton and Cayard who were up front, maintaining their fierce rivalry to the end while behind them Smith and Frostad were vying for third place.

The last few miles proved incredibly tense as all the stops were pulled out to steal an extra inch. With strong tides and light airs, none of which were favourable, the going was slow and Dalton’s lead was a miniscule one-tenth of a mile over EF Language.

With two nm to sail, he extended it to six-tenths of a mile and it was Dalton who heard the gun first, with the smiling Cayard just minutes behind.

By this time, there was little love lost between the skippers and the final press conference, involving all nine plus Dennis Conner, was at first a terse affair.

Smith disembarked and immediately blamed the spar makers for his poor showing. "I think you will find that if we did half-decent on the leg when we broke our mast, we would have come second,” he said sulkily and refused to answer questions from journalists who had criticised him on the way round.

After nine months of high tension, it was no surprise that the skippers carried on their rivalries past the finish line, but soon all ideas of lodging protests fell by the wayside and the congratulations were duly offered.

Said Conner, "I would like to congratulate Grant on sailing a wonderful leg. He deserves the win. He then went on to praise Paul Cayard. "I have been a fan of his for a long time. I think that it's time in sailing that he got this well-deserved victory, and so, good on you, Paul."

For Cayard, the moment was one to savour. "It's a special moment for sure," he said. "Going around the world on a sailboat, when your whole life has been sailing, is a big deal. And then to win the race was extra special, and I am sure it has not all sunk in yet. I know from having been in a lot of big races that it takes a certain amount of luck to do what we did on EF Language."

But luck played only a small part. What earned Cayard his remarkable win was an attention to detail that his opponents found at best boring, at worse nauseating. It was a superbly professional effort and few could deny that he thoroughly deserved the 1997 title.

Big question was, would Cayard return?