Nice story and all, but I finally got around to finishing it and the ending is all wrong.
I won the race, handily, with the Excursionist, who was of course promptly captured. We then rescued him, and since the Zeefarer recognized him as the winner of the race, our ship was the first into Port Carnelian. The Excursionist passed the dubious honor of receiving the trophy over to me, and I was declared the winner of the Icarian Cup. So far, so good.
However, the mechanics break down immediately after that. The narration recognizes that the Excusionist was in the lead at the end and therefore ended up getting kidnapped and messed about, but for some reason it then draws the conclusion that he lost the race as a result, and that the Zeefarer was recognized as the winner by the public. That, of course, is not what happened at all, and completely contradicts the events immediately before. So really, it’s all rather a dreadful mess now.