yesterday's Round the Island Race.

Borrowing a part from retired five-time winner Patrick Stamper, Luis Martins roared home to take line honours and his second straight C Class title in one of the closest finishes in the 35-year history of the Island's biggest powerboat race.

Martins and co-driver Andrew DeCosta completed the 60 nautical-mile round trip to Ferry Reach in 41 minutes and 56 seconds, nosing out fellow C Class competitors Michael Araujo by just two seconds.

And afterwards, Martins credited Stamper, the defending D Class champion who lent him a small electrical part that was only inserted into their 2.5-litre Mercury late the night before.

"Without him, we wouldn't have been able to win the race,'' said Martins, 28.

Araujo and his co-driver, Eugene Bothello, were also up late on the eve of the race -- to 3.30 a.m. -- after being forced to replace a new fuel injection system with an old one.

But Araujo, the 1995 winner, wouldn't go so far as to say that would've made up the two-second difference.

"They deserve all the credit to them,'' he said of the winners. "I'm not sure there's much more we could've done.'' Martins and Araujo each were driving 21-foot Skaters, with the latter's Yamaha having a slight edge in horsepower (about 275 to 260). The pair waged a see-saw battle much of the way but lost sight of each other along the South Shore when Martins went inside the reef and Araujo outside.

It wasn't until they reached Castle Roads, some ten miles from the finish, that they saw each other. Araujo said he was about 200 yards behind the leaders and while he slowly closed the gap, there wasn't enough distance left in the race to catch them.

DeCosta, riding shotgun for Martins, concurred. "If the race was a little longer, they would've had us,'' he said. Martins said hitting a stretch of "clean (placid) water'' was the difference, giving his boat the push it needed to overtake Araujo for the last time, somewhere past Horseshoe Bay.

A barrage of airhorns and the cheers of close to 1,000 spectators greeted the pair as they roared past the finish pylon at Ferry Reach ten yards apart.

Being the first boat across the line was "icing on the cake,'' Martins said after his Gatorade team waded into the water to escort he and DeCosta to shore.

Competitors said conditions were deceptively bumpy, particularly along South Shore, denying any chance of records on this day.

"It wasn't as nice as it looked out there,'' said Martins.

The closest record run came from Paul Rodrigues and Jesse Furtado, who finished a minute shy of the D Class mark in 45:56, good for fourth overall.

Their 22-foot Mercury-driven Progression was just seven seconds ahead of Peter Rans and Stephen Cabral, the second place D Class boat.

Even the two big boys in S (unlimited) Class produced relatively slow times.

Record holders Kirk Roberts and Douglas Davis could only manage 46:46, beating Vincent Trott and Troy Burgess by more than four minutes.

Michael Lopes and Joseph Viera guided their 16-foot Phantom to the A Division title (one hour and two minutes) while Keith Paynter and Jason Ming won the B crown (1:35:48), when they were the only boat in that class to finish.

JUMPING FOR JOY -- Luis Martins and Andrew DeCosta initiated their own traditional dunking ceremony after posting the fastest time in yesterday's Round the Island Race.