As of yesterday, American Class D cutter, George's Girl, was unofficially posted as the overall winner on corrected time of this year's Marion to Bermuda Race.

Skipper Guy Jones completed the 645-mile voyage, which began in Buzzard's Bay last Friday, in an elapsed time of four days, five hours and 34 minutes.

However, on corrected time, Jones was recorded as completing the race in two days, two hours, 48 minutes and 49 seconds.

Each boat in this year's race was given a specific handicap time prior to the start which was later measured against the first boat to finish.

Local skipper Robert Mulderig seized line honours late on Monday afternoon onboard Starr Trail in an unofficial time of 74 and a half hours. It was learned yesterday that Mulderig had incurred a one-hour penalty for registering his sloop as a non-spinnaker entry when, in fact, he had raced with a spinnaker.

The insurance businessman has since put his Farr 72-foot sloop up for sale.

Another local boat, David Roblin's 45-foot cutter Lullaby was yesterday the unofficial leader among the Class C-2 entries. However, race officials were still tabulating final results. Those results are expected to be posted today.

It was, however, confirmed yesterday that the final boat had made it safely into local waters.

American entry Wayward Wind officially brought the curtain down on the 14th biennial race at 5 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, incredibly still some eight hours before the first boat arrived in 2001.

Boat speed has increased considerably this year because of the use of cruising spinnakers and the allowance of larger vessels.

Apart from one entry, believed to have struck a whale en route to Bermuda, most of the skippers described their voyage as nothing more then a `sleigh ride', hastened all the more by favourable south-westerly winds.

"All the boats are in and secured," confirmed race spokesperson Richard Healy yesterday.

"Wayward got in at around 5 p.m. yesterday afternoon and the interesting thing is that the last boat to come in this race finished eight hours before the first boat finished two years ago."

Philip Hutchinson's boat, Veritas, was the first to finish in 2001 after spending six days at sea.

"This was a quick race. Not the fastest in a sense of elapsed time, but certainly fast in the sense of getting all of the boats in," added Healy, who will set sail for Massachusetts onboard Kathleen over the weekend.

"There is a lot of activity going on at the docks (Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club). The sailors are all drying out their clothes and getting ready for the return leg trip."

Today will see the Marion to Bermuda fleet compete in the traditional Friends and Family Race in the Great Sound.