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Still in Punta and the crews were rocked by another tragedy 11 days later when Janne Gustavsson, a popular crewmember on the Swedish maxi, The Card, had a motorbike accident and was knocked unconscious. Without a helmet, the head injuries proved serious and he fell into a coma. The doctors pronounced him brain dead and at the request of his family, turned off the life support system.

The sadness was palpable and everyone was desperate to get going again, to leave the bad memories behind, but the weather in the Southern Ocean was forecast to be especially bad which filled the first-timers with dread. As ever, the huddled chats in the corners of bars manifested themselves in a series of crew changes and Smith was once again the bad guy after he poached Gordon Maguire and Henri Hiddes from NCB Ireland to bolster his Rothmans crew. The project manager of L’Esprit de Liberte did a runner with £100,000 and the crews passports, while the skipper of British Satquote Defender was sacked for incompetence. It was all going off, but against the odds and to the delight of everyone, Fasizi joined the fleet for the start of the second leg.

Steinlager 2 led the fleet out of Punta and again all eyes were on the four big maxis at the front as they made their selections over the best route to Western Australia. To save weight, Steinlager had offloaded both coolers and heaters, but as the temperatures dropped, this decision was starting to look short-sighted. The crews felt compelled to log details of their hardship. “Getting dressed to go on watch in these conditions was a major ordeal. Having been woken by one of the on-watch crew dripping freezing water over your face off his wet-weather jacket with an encouraging, ‘Its bloody wet and cold up there and you’re the next lucky contestant, its time to extract yourself from your lovely warm sleeping-bag and begin to get dressed’. Having slept in your polypropylene long johns which tend to become a little uncomfortable and smelly after ten days, you pull on a woollen sweater, a fleecy-lined bodysuit and a couple of pairs of socks. Slowly, you begin to warm up again with the exertion of pulling on even more layers. Next comes the waterproof, fleecy-lined jacket and leather-lined rubber sea boots. Then you clamber into your triple-lined wet weather trousers and jacket with a built in harness. All that remains is to pull on your balaclava and two pairs of gloves. Normally it is at about this stage of proceedings that, bearing a striking resemblance to the Michelin Man, you experience an urgent desire to go to the toilet.” (The Big Red)

Merit, Rothmans and Fishpie, as the Steinlager crew called Fisher & Paykel, took a more southerly route into iceberg territory and picked up some wind, leaving Blake’s boat trailing by 100 nm.

On Creighton’s Naturally, a sudden and violent broach thrust Bart van den Dwey and Tony Phillips, a cousin of Princess Anne’s husband Capt Mark Phillips, overboard. It was around 0300, the seas were big and confused, and although both men were wearing life-jackets and equipped with flares and personal radio beacon, the business of recovery took more than 45 minutes which put their lives in the balance.

Skipper John Chittenden recorded each development in detail. He recalled, “The first man, Bart van den Dwey, was recovered and successfully resuscitated. Tony Phillips was recovered and resuscitation continued for three hours without success. Bart’s lifejacket was inflated. Tony Phillips’ was not. He hit a stanchion as he went overboard and it is thought unlikely that he was conscious once in the water. Two crew-members, Barry Mercer and Julian Morris, went into the sea three times to assist with their recovery. Both actions were in my opinion heroic – Julian’s in particular. A few days later, by radio agreement with relatives ashore, Tony Phillips was buried at sea.”

In all, seven crew disappeared over the side in the second leg. All but Phillips were recovered, a sign of the growing awareness of safety and an increased professionalism among the crews who were once more tested to the full by the battering they received in the Southern Ocean. Spinnaker poles and booms, arms and legs, breakages were rife and it was only after the Kerguelen Islands that things began to quieten down, though not before Fortuna had created a new 24 hour speed record, notching up 405 nm, the first time a monohull had cracked the magic 400 nm a day run. They came to a crashing halt when crewmember Rafael Tibua broke his ankle in two places after being hurled against the mast by a breaking wave and it was left to the four big guns F & P, Steinlager 2, Merit and Rothmans to engage in a fierce battle for the second leg into Fremantle.

The intrigue was heightened when the last few miles were completed in the dark. Just 22 nm separated the four and the drama continued right to the end. Reports filtered through that the leader F&P had parked up in light winds. Blake hoisted his biggest sails and soldiered on, to cross the line first, around 90 minutes in front. Then Rothmans and Merit staged a breathtaking match-race for second place. Sails went up, came down, went up again and there was a feeding frenzy on both decks in a desperate bid to grab the extra yard. In the end it was Smith on Rothmans who flung the boat over the line in front, by the mere matter of 28 seconds after a nerve-jangling 7,558 nm and 27 days of racing. Unbelievable!

A week later, Maiden crossed the line first in her division, achieving the best result for a British boat in the Whitbread for 12 years. Since this leg was acknowledged as the most difficult since the Race started, it was an extraordinary result and the enormous publicity put Edwards and her crew in the forefront of the public’s attention in Britain and across the world. Interest in the boat and the Race had never been greater.