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The jousting between the determined Blake and the ambitious team on Flyer continued throughout the third leg back across the Southern Ocean, making the race compulsive viewing for not just race followers, but for the first time, a growing band of armchair sports fans.

For some of the time, the two boats were in sight of each other and on four occasions, they crossed each other’s paths. Such was the interest in this thrilling battle, that interviews with skippers were broadcast live, with millions of listeners tuning in to hear Blake's reports in New Zealand. At the London Boat Show in Earls Court, British Telecom established a five telephone link up with several yachts, starting with a two-way between Jimmy Saville, the British disc-jockey and Chay Blyth, skipper of United Friendly who described to the crowds the Southern Ocean scenes around him – mainly icebergs – and what his crew were doing at that precise moment – which, he quipped, involved standing on the bow looking for icebergs.

Flyer and Ceramco were neck-and-neck as they rounded the Horn, with just 30 minutes or five nm separating the two. On standby, as expected, was HMS Endurance but a more sinister sight was a fleet of Argentinian warships on an espionage mission ahead of the invasion of the Falklands some weeks later.

While all this drama was unfolding, there were problems further back as the Southern Ocean took its toll on the boats. The start in Auckland had seen six fewer boats than at Portsmouth and a further two were forced to retire due to rudder and rigging crises.

Some of the drama was the stuff of dreams, as a crewmember on Ceramco discovered after a particularly difficult watch. He had a vivid dream that the mast had cracked at a point not visible to the naked eye and this proved to be divine intervention at work for sure enough, when the mast collar was later removed, the crew discovered a serious crack.

Jostling for the lead kept crews on Flyer and Ceramco fully stretched right to the finish line in Mar del Plata but it was the heroic Van Rietschoten, who completed the 6,175 nm crossing first, taking just 24 days. Remarkably, Blake finished seven hours later. The two skippers had staged one of the most enthralling ding-dongs since the Battle of Trafalgar and both were to have a profound influence on the race - transforming it into a Grand Prix event, contested by the world’s most dedicated and committed professionals.