on corrected time and the accompanying Royal Hamilton Amateur Dingy Club Trophy in this year's Marion to Bermuda race.

Her time of 70 hours, 12 minutes and seven seconds bettered runner-up Edward Crawford's Restless by 23 minutes and gave Noonan his second such title -- he also won in 1983 -- making him the first to perform the feat.

Third was Majek a Tripp Javelin sloop owned by Abbot Fletcher of Orr's Island, Maine, which was timed in 72:15:08 and took Class F.

But the silverware did not stop there as Wildflower also took Class G for the third time in 14 years, a testament to fine preparation and consistently good crew work -- and a bit of luck.

"I think (this one is) better than the first,'' exclaimed Noonan as he and his crew savoured the titles at RHADC. "It's largely a well-functioning crew that really makes the boat move, one that does things cheerfully and skillfully.

"We had a couple of young guys, including my son Rick. He and Ken Ackerman did yeoman's duty on sail changes, foredeck and helmsmanship.

"Basically we had a combination of experience and youth on the boat to really make it go.

"We like to be competitive and always have been. We felt we could win it if we had the right conditions.'' Meanwhile, local sailor Paul Hubbard and his men were still stunned at winning the Corporation of Hamilton Trophy -- best Bermuda boat on corrected time -- and completing the "three-peat''.

Making the achievement all the more memorable was that they had seven others to contend with this time around as opposed to just two in 1991. Among those he beat out were Class A winner Tsunami (Buddy Rego) and Kirk Cooper's Alphida , which took line honours.

"It's always great to be first and beat all the big boys,'' said Hubbard, whose Sigma 36 sloop Tonka has become synonymous with the Marion race. "Most of the crew are drifting about the Dinghy club looking at the leaderboard and still can't believe it.

"It's obviously a good feeling to do well, but it was my crew that did all the work, especially navigator Gary Venning.

"The boat went as fast as it could go and Gary put us in the eddys properly so we could get maximum boat speed.

"Coming into Bermuda we had no instruments, just a sexton and dead reckoning and Gary plotted a course and got us in here.'' There was an eerie moment when Hubbard spotted an abandoned sailboat a few miles off the island and fearing someone might be in distress called Harbour Radio to alert them. Fortunately the owner had been able to make it to shore safely and those fears were allayed.

Further history was made when the final Bermuda boat crossed the finish line, with Leslie Swainson's Scheherazade the first all-black crewed boat to take part in the event.

Swainson and his crew of navigator George Washington, Glenn Astwood, Walter Trott, Lovintz Cann and Richard Kelland turned in a corrected time of 83:45:56 that put her 13th in Class E.

"I'm quite happy as it's something I always wanted to do and it all came off,'' said Swainson, who was almost denied the opportunity to take part when he had problems with his registration form in Marion and only a last minute fax from Bermuda cleared him to race.

"It was a straight ride. The run all the way down was good, with nice wind until yesterday afternoon.

"We were about three hours late, but we still made good time.

"We had a flying start and then there was the fog...we didn't have any problems, but we didn't know where we were. And we didn't know where we were when we went out of Buzzard's Bay so we lost a bit of time.

"We made a wrong tack and got caught in some tide and got carried back into Buzzard's Bay.

"The other guys, I guess they know the Bay and if we had a GPS, which we can use to find out where we were it would have been helpful.

"It was scary. You could only see a boat for about a hundred yards, and if it gets up on you you really have to pay attention. We crossed about 15 boats and after we got out of Buzzard's Bay we haven't seen a boat since.'' There was concern when one of his bulkheads cracked due to them being forced into a starboard tack most of the way down, but the Bermudian was able to soldier on and incurred few other difficulties.

"We had to ease it down a bit because it started to break away and we were driving pretty hard,'' said Swainson after clearing customs at RHADC. "It was an easy sail.'' "The crew were very good, it was a together effort. We all enjoyed it and put our best in it.'' "I'm only a little disappointed with our position. I'd like to do it again.'' At press time all but two boats, Beaune Dry and Pertinax , had completed the voyage.

Other class winners were Dear Friend (Bill Kardash) in Class E, White Caps Harvey White in Class D, Panama Red in Class B, Tsunami in Class A and Frodo (Joseph Stegle) in Class C.

HIGH NOONAN -- Ron Noonan, second from right, with John Flood, Kathy Reed and Mark Oldon had plenty to smile about yesterday after taking the overall and Class G honours in the Marion to Bermuda race.