The traditional and open Newport to Bermuda Race records will now stand for at least another two years as light winds put paid to the record breaking attempts by supermaxis Speedboat and Rambler over the weekend.

At press time last night, Open Division leader Speedboat maintained a commanding lead and is now expected to be the first yacht to cross the St.David's Lighthouse finish line today – well outside of the existing open race record held by Morning Glory (48 hours, 28 minutes and 31 seconds).

Speedboat is the biggest and fastest boat in the fleet and is helmed by multiple Volvo Ocean Race winner and past ISFA Rolex Sailor of the Year Award recepient Mike Sanderson of New Zealand.

"The race is looking tricky, we have hit a patch of light air to deal with and so we are hoping there won't be a full park up there and the guys behind us come roaring up," Sanders commented in a radio report, after encountering mild breezes en route to Bermuda.

"The boys have settled into the watch system nicely."

Trailing behind Alex Jackson's 100- foot Juan Kouyoumdian-designed yacht the spuermaxi, Rambler, who had been bidding to break the traditional Newport to Bermuda Race record (53 hours, 39 minutes and 22 seconds) currently held by Roy Disney's Pyewacket.

Founded by Thomas Fleming Day in 1906, the race is the oldest ocean race for amateur sailors in normal boats.

There are 194 yachts competing in this year's race, among them a record local fleet consisting of seven Bermuda boats (Alida, Babe, Belle Mente, Bermuda Oyster, Morgan's Ghost, Nasty Medicine and Whimsical of Wight).

Both Rambler and Speedboat will now be battling for line honours now rather than records.

But both will remember how the much smaller 66-foot Bella Mente skippered by Hap Fauth slipped over the line well ahead of the 98-foot super-maxi Maximus back in 2006. The new 69-foot Bella Mente is within striking distance if the big boats falter.

According to commentary by race chairman Nick Nicholson, posted on the race website on Saturday "two entirely different strategies emerged".

"The fastest boats have chosen to effectively ignore the characteristics of the Gulf Stream and concentrate on sailing the fastest angle, using Bermuda as the waypoint. . . . Speedboat has gone well to the east — about 25 miles — and it appears that navigator Stan Honey is gambling on two things: a weakly-defined area of southward-flowing warm water south and east of the stream, and a potential wind shift into the southeast as the boat approaches Bermuda.

"Andrew Cape, Puma's Il Mostro navigator, has been closely following in Speedboat's wake, but the Volvo 70 can't match the speed of the new Juan K designed 99-footer.

"Rambler, the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse division scratch boat, has sailed a more conservative course, and lines up about five mile east of the rhumb line some 25 miles behind Speedboat and eight miles closer to Bermuda than Puma's Il Mostro at 2000 EDT on Saturday.

"In the amateur-helmed St. David's Lighthouse Division, Andrew Short's Shockwave 5 has a 10-mile lead over Hexe, her closest rival.

"The best action, however, is further back in the field. The Double-Handed Division is tightly packed to the west of the rhumbline, with Bjorn Johnson's Valkyrie dead even with Jason R Richter's Paladin, some 452 miles from Bermuda. Bruce and Dorsey Beard's Sabre 386 Esmeralde is close to her rivals, some 13 miles behind. Paladin, a J/35, appears to have the better of her rivals on corrected time at this point.

In Class One, the smallest of the St. David's Lighthouse Division boats, CCA Vice-Commodore Sheila McCurdy's McCurdy & Rhodes 38 Selkie is dead even with Hiroshi Nakajima's Swan 43 Hiro Maru on both rating and distance to go.

"Given the way that the bulk of the fleet is spread out to the west of the rhumb line behind the faster boats to the east, some are likely to be losers with this strategy, but a race winner may lurk among this group.