BERMUDA'S Fitted Dinghy fleet will stage the opening race of the season on Saturday in St. George's Harbour sticking with tradition by racing on the actual date of May 24 instead of the designated holiday which is Monday when the Bermuda Half-Marathon Derby will be held.

And this week it looked as if the fleet would get a major boost when veteran sailor Jordy Walker decided to bring his boat Bloodhound out of retirement to join the other four dinghies - namely Victory from the St. George's Dinghy and Sports Club, Contest from the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, Elizabeth from the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club and Challenger from the Sandys Boat Club.

For a number of years the fleet has been reduced to four boats as Bloodhound retired over 10 years ago and Port Royal's owners decided not to compete anymore.

But then this year Walker decided it was time to get back in the game and had "rehabbed" his varnished Bloodhound which sails out of the Bermuda Maritime Museum.

But then at the beginning of this week Walker, now in his late 70s, had a bike accident and broke his leg.

But he vowed that Bloodhound would sail this season although it would be later rather than sooner.

He said: "Unfortunately as I have had a bike accident and broke my leg Bloodhound will not be sailing on the 24th of May. But we hope to sail this season at some point - but later on."

Walker, one of Bermuda's top International One Design sailors, was forced to stop sailing Bloodhound back in the 1990s as business commitments became very heavy.

A day before breaking his leg this week, Walker said: "We are attempting to be there (in St. George's Harbour) on 24th of May. It has been a while since five boats were out there.

"We have done a rehab job on her - a total rehab job and reconfiguration. She has been brought into the modern era with all the developments which have happened in the last 15 years in Fitted Dinghies. We have upgraded her."

Walker said he would be skippering Bloodhound and would be assisted by family members and an "all-star crew of IOD sailors who have never practised in a Fitted Dinghy so we are starting out very much as the new boys in the game."

He said: "We do not intend to be a challenge to anybody - we are going out there to have fun and to add another boat and we hope that by the end of the season to be competitive."

Walker said all the sailors are members of the Maritime Museum as one has to be a member of the club under which the boat sails under.

"We call ourselves the Sailing Association," he said adding that the Bloodhound was originally built in the late 1980s.

"Her first race was in 1989 and we stopped sailing her in 1996. She had been used for the first eight years of her life but then my commitments took me overseas and I let other byes sail the boat and use her ¿ she got worn out and tired and they lost interest so we have done a rehab job on her."

In fact the last time Bloodhound made an appearance it wasn't in Bermuda ¿ but rather in Washington DC in 2001 when it was taken over there for the Smithsonian's Folklife Festival.

Walker said that when his leg gets better he will skipper Bloodhound later this summer adding, "I would also like to see Port Royal make a return as well. It would be great to have six Fitted Dinghies out there wouldn't it?"

Port Royal has not competed in about four years.

Many other Fitted Dinghy sailors were also looking forward to Bloodhound's appearance.

Veteran dinghy sailor David Hillier who sails and sometimes skippers Victory from St. George's said: "By having five boats out there makes all the difference. It would be great to have another boat in the mix. If it is just four boats then two (after the start) go one way and the other two go the other way. When you have five boats then that extra boat makes it a lot more interesting."

Last season Contest took the overall Coronation Cup with 79.50 points. Victory was second with 50.75 points, Challenger third at 49.50 and Elizabeth fourth with 48.00 points.