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August 1977: Four years on and already, the Whitbread Trophy had become one of the most coveted titles in offshore racing. This time, 15 yachts representing 12 nations with 168 crew jostled for the best position on the Portsmouth start line, with 1973 winner Ramon Carlin, the Mexican washing machine millionaire, firing the gun to send them on their way. Their exit from the Solent was accompanied once more by thousands of spectator boats, including cross-Solent ferries, British warships and a vast fleet of yachts and dinghies.

Chay Blyth had surrendered his place at the helm of 23 meter ketch GBII to Rob James, a competitor in the first race, and new contenders included the much-fancied Flyer, skippered by Dutch industrialist Cornelius van Rietschoten and Heath’s Condor, commissioned specially for the race by Robin Knox-Johnston and Les Williams who took a gamble on a revolutionary new carbon-fibre mast to maximise her speed in the strong following winds that prevailed around the 27,000 nm race course.

Their crew included a tall, blond, aggressive Kiwi called Peter Blake, who had sailed with Les on Burton Cutter in 1973 and who at the age of 29 was already recognised as an extraordinary talent on any boat, in any waters.

For the first time, entries included a female skipper. Britain’s Clare Francis had captured people’s hearts during the 1976 Observer single-handed Transatlantic Race and her Swan 65 ketch ADC Accutrac, which featured two other women in her crew, was seen as a strong contender. Francis was the first in a distinguished line of petite Englishwomen, followed by Tracy Edwards and Ellen MacArthur, who over the next 30 years were to blaze remarkable new trails in international yacht racing.