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For the anoraks, this final leg proved the most compelling as route, weather, position, guts and more guts came to the fore. No, not the mal de mer guts kind, but the type that navigators have to show if their skipper needs an all or nothing result. Which ones would plot a safe course up the US East Coast, flying along with the Gulf Stream current and who would risk the ‘Go East’ option in search of stronger and steady winds?

Merit Cup and Brooksfield took the gamble and flew off at a cracking pace while everyone else played it safe until the time came for them to move out, a manoeuvre that was greeted by a full blown gale. The spinnakers went up and their speeds doubled to around 25 knots.

Gales were followed by thick fog and some desperately close encounters as Dolphin & Youth bounced between the obstacles, missing first a cargo container ship by around 15m and then a massive iceberg by a boat length.

The fog lifted and the gales returned which for Heineken, the all-girls boat that changed its name mid-race from Women’s Challenge was almost the last straw as they watched their third rudder break off and float away. A replacement rudder was brought out to her and she carried on.

In Southampton a massive flotilla was awaiting the front-runners and hoping to see local skipper Lawrie Smith make a triumphant return, but it wasn’t to be. Dickson’s Tokio was in blistering form, covering 120 nm in the last six hours to cross the line first but he still failed to make it on to the overall podium. Winston finished second and Field’s Yamaha third, to win the W60 class on overall time. Smith finished second overall after a hard-fought and gripping contest.

Dalton’s was first over the line to win the maxi class and maintained all the way to the champagne bar that maxis were best. It was his last opportunity for a gripe. The end of the 1993-94 race marked the end of maxi racing in the Whitbread, but over the next four years, Dalton became almost evangelical in his conversion to W60s, describing maxis by comparison as ‘slave ships’.