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Organisers scrapped Sydney as the second stopover in favour of Auckland, taking the boats further south and closer to the treacherous ice fields of the Southern Ocean. Within a week of starting, an iceberg warning was broadcast to the fleet as temperatures plummeted and a thin coating of ice started to form on the rigging.

John Ridgeway on Debenhams continued to head south in a bid to gain the lead, but a few days later he was surrounded by pack ice and icebergs, his problems compounded by a ferocious Force nine gale. Debenhams gave up any hope of a podium place when Ridgeway issued an ‘all hands on deck’ command in an attempt to negotiate a perilous path out of danger, taking them some way off course.

On GBII, the heating seized up when the gas stopped vaporising in the heater. John Deane used his motor bike helmet to keep his head warm and prevent injury as ice started to fall from the rigging. Hands and feet were numbed by the chill and Van Rietschoten was suffering from dead feet. Also in the middle of the Southern Ocean, the crew on Kings Legend discovered a serious leak around the rudder post. Surrounding yachts were alerted and rescue plans were drafted in the event of the leak becoming worse, but after two days it was reported that all was well.

Again, it was Heath’s Condor who became the Leg Two showstoppers with an onboard drama that filled race followers with horror after the tragedies suffered in the 1973 race.

Just after noon on 13 November, Bill Abram was tidying up the foredeck following a gybe, when the spinnaker filled and the lazy guy tautened beneath him. He was flung into the air and hurled into the sea, but when he tried to grab the hull, there was nothing to grasp. The boat was moving along quickly, with spinnaker up and the wind blowing a Force five, churning the seas up into a lumpy mess. Someone threw him a line, but it tangled, so someone else threw a lifebuoy that Bill was able to hang onto. The spinnaker came down and three crew were instructed to keep their eyes fixed on Bill’s yellow oilskins while Blake turned on the engine to bring the boat round into the wind. But the propeller had seized, closed from lack of use and all the while, Bill was drifting further and further from the boat, his position marked only by a cluster of seabirds that were circulating above him in the same way as they had hovered over an injured seal some days previously. By cranking up the engine to full revs, Blake managed to unlock the propeller blades and the boat moved off in Bill’s direction, stopping a yard short enabling three crew to lean over the side and haul the 95kg Scotsman back on deck. He was stripped, towelled and given a large brandy, but apart from suffering a cut hand he was pronounced fit…. and lucky… by on board medic, Dr David Dickson.

Dickson was back in action a few hours later, but this time radioing advice to fellow competitors Nick Dunlop and Rob James on GBII who had both suffered injury when a guy had jammed around their waist and legs, leading to burst blood vessels, severe pain and in the case of Dunlop, unconsciousness. The newly qualified young doctor decided there was little he could do until more was known about any internal damage or bleeding and for the next eight hours Dickson sat by the radio trying to get through to GBII for news. They did not answer but eight hours later, when contact was finally made via the ‘chatter net’, they reported, rather ‘inconsiderately’ according to Heath’s Condor skipper Knox-Johnston, that they had been busy or asleep, but that the casualties were making good progress.

As compensation, the weather gods blessed the remainder of their passage to Auckland and on 25 November Heath's Condor crossed the Waitemata harbour finish line first where Blake, returning to his home city, received a tumultuous welcome. Thirty-one hours behind, GBII came in second. King's Legend beat Flyer, while 33 Export came in fifth though won the leg by eight hours on handicap.

Provisioning the boats for the Southern Ocean leg had, as ever, been an elaborate affair with tasty filling meals seen as key to maintaining crew morale.

As Knox-Johnston grimly reminisced, “Basically, we had porridge or muesli followed by eggs and something for breakfast. Lunch could be two or three courses depending on whether the cooks produced soup and a pudding and dinner was the same. In between, coffee and tea would be served for the watch on deck and anyone else who happened to be around. The wise cooks soon discovered it was best not to offer a choice of hot drinks as they would end up having produce coffee with or without milk and with or without sugar, tea the same, or cocoa and Bovril or whatever else people could think of. If they were just handed a hot drink, they were always grateful.”

The first visit to Auckland proved a resounding success with all the competing yachts adopted by families, a full programme of social activities both formal and informal and a range of facilities made available for crews to work on their boats in preparation for the second Southern Ocean leg, Cape Horn to port. Both boats and personnel were suffering major stress following their gruelling slog through the violent storms, persuading organisers to extend the stopover so that harmony could be restored and boat safety maximised. As announced at the start of the race in England, the legendary French yachtsman Eric Tabarly was allowed to hook up with the race in Pen Duick VI though since his rating certificate had expired, his entry and eligibility to win prizes could only be confirmed when all the paperwork had been verified. But so keen was Tabarly to participate, he decided to race even though there was a strong chance his efforts would count for nothing.