Brutal winds reaching 51 knots lashed the Island yesterday, wrecking and setting adrift boats and knocking out power in hundreds of homes.

The blackout was nearly Island-wide with radio stations, cable and local television going off the air for most of the day. At one point, the only service with an emergency phone line working was the Police.

Any planes on the way here were sent back and the Airport was shut down at noon for the night due to dangerous crosswinds.

A dozen motorboats and yachts were reported adrift with some crashing onto rocks.

Among those that broke loose from their moorings were the ocean racing yacht Climax at Grotto Bay, the yacht Green Fire in the Little Sound and the motorboat Idle Money in Harrington Sound which reportedly struck rocks.

Meanwhile, cargo ships and cruise liners heading towards Bermuda battled towering 25-foot seas.

The Oleander suffered a cargo shift which slowed her down, delaying her by several hours so that she will not be arriving until this morning.

The cement ship Amparo Paola made it here, but was told to stand by offshore until the winds subsided.

Local cruise ship agents reported the regular callers were on the way and following the worst of the storm.

However, whether they will be able to come in and dock as scheduled this morning depends on the weather.

Gale-force winds of 30-35 knots gusting to 50 knots were expected to batter the Island until 3 p.m. this afternoon, US Navy forecasters said.

The Fire Service was kept busy attending more than a dozen weather-related calls involving electricity pole fires and boats adrift.

There were no injuries but one case involved a blown-in window in a house on North Shore in Devonshire in the afternoon, a spokesman said.

A Police duty officer said calls started coming in around 10 a.m. yesterday.

"We were taking all Belco's calls and the Fire Service's at one point,'' he said. "We also got reports of 10 boats adrift. They were all salvaged though.

Fortunately there were no injuries from accidents.'' Bermuda Electric Light Company spokeswoman Mrs. Linda Smith Wilson said repair men were being hampered by high winds and having to do "extensive tree trimming''.

But they were working around the clock to restore power.

"We get power in one area back and lose two -- that's the kind of day we are having,'' she said.

The fact the gale was expected to continue through the night meant power that had been lost and restored could be knocked out again.

She said calls from residents without power started picking up around 10.30 a.m. A total of 17 main circuits were cut and lines Island-wide snapped or touched causing outages, she said.

The outages were scattered throughout the Island in hundreds of homes with no one area being worst hit, she said.

"Crews having been working all day and will work until midnight (last night),'' she said.

"At daybreak they will concentrate on the main lines and after that the small pockets -- the branchline and transformer problems.'' Power was not expected to be fully restored until at least later today. The storm, which hit around midnight on Saturday, was caused by a deep low pressure system that came off the US East Coast and deepened as it crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

A US Naval Oceanography Command Facility forecaster said the system was not unusual for this time of the year. Storm watches for the local area were put out 36 hours before the gale hit.

Seas outside the reef rose to 11-14 feet and they were around five feet within the reef line.

Delta Air Lines local manager Mrs. Jackie Zuill said the Civil Air Terminal was expected to reopen later this morning weather depending.

"We are keeping our fingers crossed,'' she said. Four extra flights into and out of Bermuda had been arranged for passengers stranded here and those who had to turn back to the United States, she said. The Boston-Bermuda flight was sent back while the Atlanta flight never left the ground.

Other air carriers whose schedules were thrown off by the storm are expected to take similar action, making for a busy and crowded Airport today when flights resume.

The storm was last night located 300 miles east of Bermuda and moving away from the Island.