Rudy Bailey and younger brother George in Temptation denied Stevie Dickinson a third straight triumph in the West End Sailboat Club's Long Distance Comet Race which reached its half-century yesterday.

The win by the Bailey brothers, by two minutes over Dickinson and Heath Foggo in a time of two hours, 20 minutes, 20 seconds after leading from start to finish, also prevented Dickinson from moving to within one win of Alton Millett's record 11 long distance victories in the popular race.

And while the event may have been dominated by St. George's skippers over the years, it was fitting that a west end boat should win the race on its 50th anniversary.

The man after whom the trophy is named -- Edward Cross -- was on hand afterwards to present trophies to the first three skippers. Cross made the cedar trophy for the first race back in 1945.

In the following years the event has established itself as the most prestigious of the comet races between the three member clubs, West End Sailboat Club, East End Mini Yacht Club and Mid Atlantic Boat Club.

Yesterday, even though George Bailey was in his first long distance race, he proved the perfect partner for Rudy who notched up his fifth long distance win and denied Dickinson's bid of matching him with three straight wins which Bailey achieved between 1986-88. His other victory came in 1991.

Not surprisingly there was an especially sweet taste of victory for the Bailey family last night. "A free drink for everybody who beat me,'' George announced after receiving his trophy.

Before that the younger Bailey admitted he felt confident going into the race.

"From the time I left home in the morning I had the greatest feeling we were going to win,'' he said.

His big brother and skipper charted the course to victory, having made the left turn outside the channel about 100 yards ahead of Gladwin Lambert and Gregory Proctor in Melody Byron McCallan and Wesley Tucker in Shogun and Dickinson and Heath Foggo - Dickinson's third crew in three years -- in Kitty Hawk .

Dickinson and Foggo quickly slipped another place as Howard Lee and Sinclair Simons in High Yella moved into the top four but before too long the defending champion had climbed back up to second as the boats passed Oil Docks.

"I wanted to get out of the (Town) Cut in the first two and from that point to either increase my lead or pass the person in front of me between the Cut and Fort St. Catherine's point,'' said Bailey of his race plan.

"I was in front from the time I entered the Town Cut and when I got on the other side I had a fairly comfortable lead of about 100 yards which I stretched all the way up. Stevie stayed about three hundred yards behind me for most of the race.'' Bailey gave up a sizeable early lead to Dickinson last year in a race he admitted he should have won. This time he was determined not to make the same mistake.

Quite noticeable is the fierce rivalry that exists between Bailey and Dickinson, as well as the mutual respect. They often refer to each other as `Mr.', Dickinson having done so last year when he commented how Bailey made a tactical error and `got punished'.

"One of the biggest things I wanted to do was prevent Mr. Dickinson from tying my three consecutive wins,'' said Bailey. "I had a very big lead last year and I stopped with absolutely no wind for over a half an hour and all those guys passed me. I was determined to make up for last year.'' Bailey admitted Dickinson's only threat came at the start. There was scare off Oil Docks when a big gust of wind had the skipper and crew facing a brief threat of sinking. "The sails were in the water,'' Bailey disclosed.

Four minutes separated the first three boats with Byron McCallon and Wesley Tucker in Shogun third in 2:24.30, two minutes behind Dickinson and Foggo.

This year's winning time was much faster than last year's by Dickinson which took four hours and 41 minutes in virtually winless conditions.

Yesterday, the top five were rounded out by Malcolm Smith and Damion Payne in Fourth Scrapper in fourth place and Colin Clarke and Scott Fox in Nymph in fifth. Lambert and Proctor were sixth and Lee and Simons seventh. A total of 22 boats completed the race with another failing to start. The race started 34 minutes late.

WEST END WIN -- Rudy Bailey (left) and brother George triumphed in yesterday's Long Distance Comet Race.

NOT THIS YEAR -- A disappointed Stevie Dickinson.