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If the first leg was seen as a bit of a blast, the second quickly turned into a reality check of the most brutal form as the fleet were subject to a full scale battering as soon as they hit the Southern Ocean.

Burton Cutter started to break up when it was discovered her forward locker, up to the watertight bulkhead, was completely full of water with bags of sails floating on top. Sections of her hull were panting in and out like bellows. She was in no fit state to continue and was forced into Port Elizabeth, just up the coast from Cape Town, for repairs. Re-welding had to be done three times before she could go back in the water and so she had to withdraw from leg 2.

On board the Italian boat Tauranga, Paola Chamaz was at the wheel with Paul Waterhouse, a British Army corporal who had sailed the first leg on British Soldier.

Waterhouse went below for a minute to light a cigarette and as he came back up, Tauranga broached violently. The spinnaker boom broke at the mast end causing it to thrash around on the clew of the sail. He rushed forward to get the sails under control and retrieve what was left of the boom, but as he went forward the boat changed direction once more and the sail suddenly took off. The sheets went taut under Waterhouse and threw him high in the air, dumping him back on deck then overboard in a second surge of power.

They searched for almost four hours without success, though they knew that in such freezing waters, his chances of survival beyond 20 minutes were zero. It is likely he was badly hurt by the fall onto the deck and since he made no effort to grab a lifeline when he came down, it is also likely he was unconscious when he went overboard and would have drowned immediately.

The word went out in the daily skippers radio chat and although there was deep shock, there was also the realisation that accidents were inevitable.

“We were prepared for loss of life,” said Ainslie. “We all set off knowing that when you are sailing around the world, there would be situations that would be life-threatening or where lives would be lost. But it changed the way we did things on Second Life. The crew became more aware of the dangers and started wearing life lines.”

Three days later, as the fleet battled against gale force winds and heavy seas, some 350 miles west of the Kerguelen Islands, 33 Export skippers Dominique Guillet and Jean Pierre Millet decided to replace the foresail with a smaller one. During the manoeuvre, they were hit by a huge breaking wave which slammed the boat over to starboard. When she righted herself, it became clear that Guillet was missing.

They switched the engine on and spent 30 minutes looking for him, but deteriorating conditions forced Millet to abandon the search to preserve the safety of both boat and remaining crew. They withdrew from the race and headed for Fremantle, the crew profoundly traumatised by Guillet’s death.

It was from these tragedies that crews and race organisers learned most about the perilous dangers of ocean racing and which led to the development of the exhaustive range of safety measures that are in place today.

Sayula II was also knocked down by a mammoth freak wave which left most of the crew in the water and caused carnage around the boat, with knives embedded into the deckhead and tins, bedding and floorboards crashing to one side of the saloon.

“I did not feel upside down. It was rather like an hallucination,” reported Butch Dalrymple-Smith. “It is impossible to believe that your whole world has suddenly been turned upside down. But looking at all these things falling across the boat, you know that something obviously is amiss.

The boat was completely flooded but every member of the crew was either recovered or hauled themselves back on board. Their safety harnesses, all attached when the boat pitch-poled, were bent by the force of the wave and the fear of God was well and truly upon them.

“Three or four of the crew, dazed and shocked, were meandering around vaguely, not knowing what to do. They thought the boat was sinking since bilge-water was pouring from between the two starboard fuel tanks, indicating a leak, but after pumping out the bilges, this threat subsided. The ship was safe and suddenly we began to feel cold. Then followed the coldest night in the world. The only four dry bunks were occupied by the wounded. All the mattresses in the main saloon were soaking. The six of us left to keep watch slept or tried to sleep in full oilskins on the bare floorboards. It was as cold and wet below as it was on deck. For days after the crash, if the boat lurched on any sort of wave, the crew went quiet and hung on tight for a moment then slowly resumed conversation with sheepish glances all round,” reported Dalrymple-Smith.

The passage south, deep into the Southern Ocean, inevitably took its toll on the boats. Adventure suffered problems with her rudder, depriving her crew of a second leg victory and GBII lost her mizzen mast, which left crewman Eddie Hope with a broken arm. Otago, the 17 meter Polish ketch, also lost the top section of her mizzen mast.

Despite these dramas, Sayula II, remarkably, won the leg on handicap though it was Tabarly who took line honours on Pen Duick VI, setting a new 24 hour record of 305 nms and beating GBII into Sydney by nine hours.

It had been a gruesome leg and at the halfway stage in Sydney, crews were left to reflect on what they had taken on. Two men were dead and the fleet had been given a rude awakening, which changed the mood among the crews from one of cavalier excitement to a grim determination to complete their ordeal.