Other than a lot of nervousness, I don't remember much about this beat except that we defended the left side against Steen Madsen and Anders Friis who both headed out that way from time to time. In winds that were getting lighter, all three of us seemed to pick the puffs and shifts well, and were moving away from the other closest competitors - except for Poul Ammentorp who had gambled everything on holding a loooong port tack to the right side after rounding right with the leaders. Anders (P.) and I certainly kept a nervous eye on Poul and Irene who were far, far away on the other side of the course, and I'm sure Steen and Anders were doing the same, wondering if Poul would get lucky and get just a little shift that would give him the lead. And sure enough, when Poul finally tacked, it was into a starboard tack rummer and he looked like he would cross us. But then Poul sailed into a patch of light wind followed by a skraller and that left Anders, Steen and Al to fight it out for the lead. At the windward mark, it was still Al by about two lengths over Anders who was just a bit ahead of Steen. Aboard Whistle, we had decided that we would defend the left side which would give us the crucial inside position at the leeward mark where we would start the very short broad reach to the finish line. Since the leg was still not dead downwind but rather a starboard tack broad reach, this meant we would have to sail lower than Anders and Steen after rounding the windward mark - something that takes a lot of nerve!
Spectators on shore who could see the whole thing quite well, later told us that it looked like Anders and Steen had passed us almost immediately after we rounded. And it's true that Anders got his bow out in front of ours by sailing higher right after rounding, but then he decided to defend against Steen who was close behind him and trying to take his wind. In winds that were now barely strong enough to fill the spinnaker, Al stood in the boat and constantly watched for puffs that were coming from windward and astern. He would sail higher to get to the puffs and then go straight downwind with them. Halfway down the run, we were actually below the rhumb line while Anders and Steen had worked their way up about 50 metres high of it. And we were still about bow to bow with Anders who continued to hold about a two-length lead on Steen. So while it looked to our support team of Aida and the Coach and his wife, Mette, on shore like Anders and Steen were ahead, we actually were feeling better about our position every minute since the time was fast approaching when Anders and Steen would have to bear away (= slow down) onto a dead run to get down to the mark.