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By now, Cayard had a comfortable lead of more than 100 points over everyone else but it wasn’t enough to guarantee victory. If Swedish Match came into La Rochelle first, and EF Language was waylaid, for whatever reason, at the back of the fleet, Swedish Match could still wangle it, a possibility that Cayard and his navigator Rudiger found completely unbearable.

Krantz, meanwhile was prepared to take a few calculated fliers. "We have a slim chance. It's a game of putting the throttle all the way down, but not taking too many risks."

Collins gave up the ghost on Chessie Racing and handed over to another American, one John Kostecki who was to receive his first, but not his last taster of round the world racing. The Kiwi Murray Ross stepped into Cape’s shoes on Toshiba and Standbridge was back as skipper.

It was Standbridge who made all the running out of Baltimore, but his early gains were eclipsed by the inevitable tussle that was set to characterise the leg, between Cayard and Krantz.

EF Language made a poor start and fell some way behind, which had Cayard up on deck in a lather, making sure his crew worked round the clock to catch up. “We have been in our full-race watch system all night. This means we are pretty tired after getting about two hours' sleep each."

But this uncompromising approach saw the gap close to 1.3 nm before the tacticians started to execute their Atlantic plans.

Krantz headed north, followed by a reluctant Cayard who would have rather have gone south, but was terrified of letting Swedish Match out of his sights. "We will stay right with Swedish Match for better or for worse, but it is frustrating to watch the whole fleet sailing off to the south."

Toshiba held the middle ground and promptly moved into second place and then, on day nine, into the lead though only because a dead seal had impaled itself on the keel strut of Dalton’s Merit Cup to slow her right down. Before long, the seal was extricated and despite a collision with a whale, she got back up to speed and overtook Toshiba.

As the fleet approached France, the leaderboard changed again, but this time it was Lawrie Smith on Silk Cut who was competing with Standbridge. For British race followers, this was irresistible. The godfather of offshore sailing was being given a run for his money by one of his former protégés.

Both had fallen way short of expectations though Standbridge’s fortunes had not been helped by all the chopping and changing of crew. For Smith the story was more one of arrogance and undercooked preparation. Until a year before the start of the race, he had been lined up as skipper of EF Language but the decision by Gallahers, the cigarette firm, to commit a big budget to the race found him jumping ship to take control of the Silk Cut campaign.

From the outset, Smith and his hotly-rated young crew created a glamour culture that had more to do with lifestyle than sailing, as contrived by the publicity group who had been engaged to get as much mainstream press from the project as possible. Models were paid to accompany the crew to pre-race events and one became so embroiled with a crewmember that he left his wife. Smith himself was the subject of rumours, but did little to shift the emphasis thinking that once they got on the water, their sailing would do all the talking necessary. His disappointing performances in the early legs gave weight to the criticisms and the dismasting in the fifth leg ruled Silk Cut out of contention, shattering any hopes that Smith would put a British name on the Volvo trophy.

For the moment though, Smith was giving it his best shot and the battle with Standbridge, who had sailed a flawless leg, proved compulsive viewing.

After almost 13 days at sea, Standbridge crossed the line in La Rochelle to claim Toshiba’s first leg victory of the race. Ten minutes later, Silk Cut finished, taking second place.

The improved performance was down to the new navigator, Standbridge said on landing. "We were very fortunate to get Murray Ross at short notice. He fitted in very well with the crew and did a very good job, and we're very grateful to him."

Behind them, Cayard stuck to his guns of shadowing Swedish Match and crossed the line in sixth, three hours in front of Krantz. It had not been pretty in its execution, but Cayard’s plan had finally landed him the 1997-98 Whitbread Round The World Race for the Volvo Trophy, with one leg still to race.

The determined Californian was unusually low key in his praise of EF Language’s performance. "This was a hard leg for us because we had to have a special position. We had to stay close to Swedish Match and minimise any risk to ensure winning the Whitbread. It was unexciting and boring, but it was the thing to do."