When Neil Burnie does something he always does it in style.

With ideal winds knocking about last Thursday -- capable of getting a windsurfer around the Island in quick time -- Burnie rose to the challenge of setting out to break his existing Bermuda around-the-Island record. He pulled it off.

The president of the Bermuda Board Sailors Association exceeded all expectations when he not only beat his previous record of two hours and 24 minutes set in 1991, but he beat it by a comfortable margin of 13 minutes.

The time (two hours and 11 minutes) is quite astonishing in that it was back in 1980 when Hugh Watlington first set the original Bermuda record of six hours and six minutes.

Since then many new records have been set thanks to the introduction of superior boards. Alex Outerbridge, using a new design of board, subsequently set a new record of five hours and 33 minutes in 1983. But a month later Goffre Pittman trimmed the record even further, taking it down to two hours and 45 minutes after making good use of a small eight foot wave board.

Outerbridge, though, was to improve on the record in 1989 with a time of two hours and 43 minutes on his new equipe board. Two years later he shaved four minutes off the record, lowering it to two hours and 39 minutes.

But Burnie was to come on the scene two years later and set a new record with a time of two hours and 24 minutes.

Itching to continue the trend of minimising the time it takes to circle the Island, Burnie and David Kendall set off from Commissioner's Point at 2.15 p.m. on Thursday in an attempt to better the record.

"It was Joffre's birthday and I thought it would be great to go and break the record on his big day,'' confided Burnie.

While the end result brought cause for celebration, the battle against the clock and the prevailing conditions was anything but an easy task.

When they set off the wind blew at about 12 to 15 knots from the northwest with Kendall taking a five minute lead on the head start. But he made a tactical error and got caught up in a wind shadow at Daniel's Head that slowed him down.

The run down the western side was fast, but they were slowed considerably down the south shore to just off John Smith's Bay.

However, they were confronted with graver concerns when they tacked along the east end where there were rolling swells over the deep water that made some intimidating moments. But both sailors negotiated this section carefully, edging around Fort St. Catherine and headed for the beat to the finish.

Burnie made it around safely and headed for the finish, but Kendall wasn't so lucky.

As he rounded Fort St. Catherine the glare from the sun was so intense that he sailed straight into a reef and destroyed his new carbon racing fin to end his attempt.