A HUGE fleet of more than 200 yachts will set off from Newport, Rhode Island, today for Bermuda in the biennial "Thrash to the Onion Patch".

Among the fleet will be some Bermuda boats. Preston Hutchings will skipper Morgan's Ghost while Steve Sherwin will helm Nasty Medicine. Colin Couper will skipper Babe while Paul Hubbard and his Bermuda Oyster will again be making the crossing. Derek Ratterey will helm Alida and Bubby Rego will be aboard Defiance.

And depending on the weather, it could be a very fast crossing for some of the yachts which will be attempting to break the record of 53 hours, 39 minutes and 22 seconds set by Pywacket in 2002.

One racing machine to watch out for is the PUMA Ocean Racing's stunning new boat il mostro (Italian for The Monster).

It was only last month that actress Salma Hayek broke the champagne across the bow of the new Volvo 70 yacht at a ceremony in Boston on May 13.

The yacht will be one of seven 70-foot racing machines to compete in the Volvo Ocean Race, which has nine legs, including a 12,000-nautical-mile run from China to Brazil.

But first skipper Ken Read will be trying to win the Newport to Bermuda race.

PUMA team's training base will be in Newport over the next three months and they have competed in several short lead-up races this month including the Halfway Rock Race and the New York Yacht Club Regatta.

Read said that the new Volvo 70 yacht, in ideal conditions, could complete the 2008 Newport Bermuda Race in a little more than a day!

"It hasn't been since the America's Cup in the early 1980s that Newport has seen a real, full-fledged two-boat, grand prix racing programme," Read said at the Puma Ocean Racing headquarters at the Newport Shipyard.

Read, who learned to sail on Narragansett Bay, will have an international crew to train for the Volvo race, scheduled to start October 4 in Alicante, a Spanish port.

Read selected his crew from more than 400 candidates. Many of the world's best professional sailors are available this year, he said, "because the America's Cup is in such a mess", mired in international legal squabbling.

Soon after Puma Racing recruited Read as skipper last year, he enlisted his longtime bowman and friend, Jerry Kirby, also of Newport. At 51, he is the eldest member of the crew. "If you're in a storm, he's the guy you want standing next to you," Read said. "The nastier a storm gets, the more Jerry thrives in it."

Read and his navigator, English sailor Andrew Cape, will be responsible for strategy. Cape has circumnavigated the planet five times. In the 2005-2006 Volvo race, Cape was sailing aboard Moviestar when its skipper ordered the crew to abandon ship as it was in danger of sinking.

Almost immediately after the Moviestar crew was rescued from a lifeboat, Cape joined the Ericcson Racing Team to complete the race. "He's either the gutsiest guy I've ever met or not the brightest," Read said, "but you could say the same for all of us: There's a fine line between guts and sheer stupidity."

Another incredibly fast yacht which will be going for the line honours is the new Juan Kouyoumdjian-designed 100-foot maxi Speedboat, which was launched in Auckland's Viaduct Basin. It's a yacht designed to produce blistering speeds and the first record to fall could be the Newport to Bermuda race time.

Built by Mick Cookson in Auckland this yacht looks fast standing still, her radical underwater features and amazingly flat run aft pointing to a boat that's going to need a lot of handling but could produce startling speeds off the breeze.

It goes without saying that her rig is the ultimate collaboration of latest design thinking and innovation in rig technology.

The 44.3 metre high deck-stepped mast was designed and built by Southern Spars. It is the tallest and most powerful maxi rig produced by the Southern Spars yet, meaning it has the highest righting moment of the maxi rigs produced.

One of the most noticeable features on Speedboat's rig is the aerodynamic structure. The rig uses EC6 carbon continuous rigging with internal tangs. This means the entire rigging runs free from the deck to inside the mast without any bulky external fittings or attachments. Because there are no bulky end fittings on spreaders, the spreader ends are considerably smaller, making for a cleaner, lower drag spreader end. The runners are also made from EC6.

The internal halyard locks will have some of the biggest loads seen on a racing yacht, with the halyard lock for the Code Zero sail having a 20 tonne safe working load.

The owner of Speedboat is Alex Jackson who co-founded Polygon Investment Partners LLP, a London hedge-fund firm with $6 billion in assets.

Skippering Speedboat will be Mike Sanderson who was on the helm of the winning Volvo 70 ABN AMRO. Sanderson was also recently in Bermuda with the Royal Bank of Scotland's trimaran.

"Speedboat is a boat built for breaking records, and we're primarily preparing for the Bermuda Race," said Ben Bardwell, Speedboat's bow man.

Other boats to watch out for are Rosebud, (IRC winner of 2007 Sydney to Hobart), Numbers, (IRC winner Div 1 Key West) and Rambler, (winner Rolex Middle Sea race).

Some of the world's hottest new IRC designs have been gathering in Newport ahead of the race. They also have just competed in the New York Yacht Club 154th Annual Regatta.

"It's going to be ultra competitive," said Dan Meyers about the regatta which precedes the Newport to Bermuda race.

"It's the first time in years that a new group of race boats like this has formed, and it will be our first real go at each other."

"These boats are hot rods," said Johnny MacGowan, a regular crew aboard Numbers. "Downwind, they'll be going 25 knots, all of them."

Though it's clear that both the NYYC Annual Regatta and Newport to Bermuda Race will be key determinants in the 60-footer design wars, Meyers was quick to point out that the races are two different animals.

"Everyone takes their own routing for Bermuda, so once you've started, you're off on your own course," he said.

"At the Annual Regatta, however, all the boats are in close quarters, racing windward-leeward around the buoys. It will be the most interesting competition since the advent of the TP52 class."

****

Olin J. Stephens II has been elected to the Bermuda Race Roll of Honour on the 80th anniversary of the first of his many races to 'the Onion Patch.'

No yacht designer has produced more prize-winners over the race's 102-year, 45-race history. The overall winners of 13 races, the first-to-finish boats in 11 races, and 45 class winners are all Stephens designs, as are the race's only multi-race winners-the 72-foot yawl Baruna (winner in 1938 and 1948) and the 38-foot yawl Finisterre (1956, 1958, and 1960). Baruna is one of the largest boats to win a Bermuda Race, and Finisterre is one of the smallest.

Stephens co-founded the yacht design and brokerage firm of Sparkman & Stephens in 1929 and retired to New Hampshire in 1979. This past April, he and his many friends in the sailing world celebrated his 100th birthday.

The Bermuda Race Roll of Honour recognises extraordinary achievement in or concerning the Newport Bermuda Race and its predecessor races. The English-style spelling of the award's name reflects the crucial contribution of Bermudians to the race, which was first sailed in 1906 from New York and is the oldest regularly scheduled ocean race. Honorees are selected at the time of every race, in even-numbered years.

The inscription on Stephens' Bermuda Race Roll of Honour plaque reads as follows: "Since first racing to Bermuda in 1928, Olin Stephens has competed in boats both large and small, has designed more overall and class winners than any other naval architect, and has done much to make sailing yachts fast and seaworthy, and sailors safe. We feel lucky to have him as a friend and inspiration not only to the Bermuda Race community, but to all who love the sea and boats."

Stephens was 20 when he sailed the first of many Bermuda Races, crewing for the legendary yacht designer John Alden in his gaff-rigged schooner Malabar IX. In his autobiography, All This and Sailing, Too, Stephens recalled the excitement of a boat-loving young man on first reaching Bermuda.

"The green hills and white roofs were part of the race's appeal. When our anchor was down, I dove over the side to visit the other boats and hear about their races. As one boat after another came in, the day went on-a short swim, and on deck another story.' He was so thrilled that he ignored his sunburn. 'It must have been my youth and enthusiasm that kept me out of the hospital."

Two years later Stephens was skipper of his family's yawl Dorade, his seventh design, when she took second place in Class B. He subsequently served as navigator, watch officer, or co-skipper of several other high finishers, including his brother Rod's New York 32 Mustang and two big Sparkman & Stephens yawls, Baruna and Bolero, that between them were first to finish six times and had two overall victories.

Olin Stephens' contributions to the race and ocean racing extend beyond the trophies won by the boats he designed and sailed. For many years he advised the race's organisers on measurement rules and safety requirements, and after the catastrophic 1979 Fastnet Race in England, he co-headed an important technical study of the problem of capsize that led to safer boats. His long service to ocean racing is also recognised in the Olin Stephens Ocean Racing Trophy for the best combined performance in the Newport Bermuda Race and the Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race.

The Bermuda Race Roll of Honour was founded on the race's 100th anniversary in 2006. Six sailors were selected. Thomas Fleming Day founded the race. Clarence Kozlay and Robert Somerset saved the lives of ten men from a burning schooner in the 1932 race. Sir Eldon Trimingham, a Commodore of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club (the race's co-organiser with the Cruising Club of America), helped run the race for many years. Carleton Mitchell's three consecutive wins in Finisterre in 1956, 1958, and 1960 set a record that nobody has come close to matching. And George Coumantaros holds the record for most elapsed time victories in his yachts named Boomerang, and has sailed in 26 Bermuda Races, the second most by any sailor. All but Coumantaros are deceased. Carleton Mitchell was awarded his Roll of Honour plaque soon before his death in 2007.

Five Bermuda Race veterans serve on the Roll of Honour selection committee. Warren Brown and E. Kirkland Cooper represent the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, Kaighn Smith and Owen C. Smith represent the Cruising Club of America, and the committee is chaired by John Rousmaniere, a member of the Cruising Club of America.