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The last 450 nm came down to filling the two remaining positions on the podium and the contenders included Smith who’s second place into La Rochelle had moved him into fifth place overall with a chance, albeit slim, of finishing third.

There was little respect shown to boats or crew in this final thrust. The teams no longer had to worry about holding anything in reserve for future legs.

"We are going to use every little piece of energy we can drag out of our bodies. There is just going to be nothing left in Southampton," warned Knut Frostad, skipper of Innovation Kvaerner.

Every skipper went hell for leather and after a few hours, less than one nm separated the four leading boats: Merit Cup, EF Language, Silk Cut and BrunelSunergy.

With 60 nm left to the finish, and after a 25 nm detour imposed by the organisers to time the climax of the race so that it was watched the biggest possible audience, it was Dalton and Cayard who were up front, maintaining their fierce rivalry to the end while behind them Smith and Frostad were vying for third place.

The last few miles proved incredibly tense as all the stops were pulled out to steal an extra inch. With strong tides and light airs, none of which were favourable, the going was slow and Dalton’s lead was a miniscule one-tenth of a mile over EF Language.

With two nm to sail, he extended it to six-tenths of a mile and it was Dalton who heard the gun first, with the smiling Cayard just minutes behind.

By this time, there was little love lost between the skippers and the final press conference, involving all nine plus Dennis Conner, was at first a terse affair.

Smith disembarked and immediately blamed the spar makers for his poor showing. "I think you will find that if we did half-decent on the leg when we broke our mast, we would have come second,” he said sulkily and refused to answer questions from journalists who had criticised him on the way round.

After nine months of high tension, it was no surprise that the skippers carried on their rivalries past the finish line, but soon all ideas of lodging protests fell by the wayside and the congratulations were duly offered.

Said Conner, "I would like to congratulate Grant on sailing a wonderful leg. He deserves the win. He then went on to praise Paul Cayard. "I have been a fan of his for a long time. I think that it's time in sailing that he got this well-deserved victory, and so, good on you, Paul."

For Cayard, the moment was one to savour. "It's a special moment for sure," he said. "Going around the world on a sailboat, when your whole life has been sailing, is a big deal. And then to win the race was extra special, and I am sure it has not all sunk in yet. I know from having been in a lot of big races that it takes a certain amount of luck to do what we did on EF Language."

But luck played only a small part. What earned Cayard his remarkable win was an attention to detail that his opponents found at best boring, at worse nauseating. It was a superbly professional effort and few could deny that he thoroughly deserved the 1997 title.

Big question was, would Cayard return?