Michael Reney’s Shindig took line honours in the 2013 Marion Bermuda race today, finishing the 645 nm course off St David’s Lighthouse at 4.55am.They were certainly glad to finish first, but sorry not to break the record after such a fast start.“It was brutal,” quipped one of the Shindig crew when asked about the last miles to the finish. They had trouble getting the right angle to be able to cross the line going into both the southerly wind and the northbound current.Lady B, John Madden’s Swan 62, finished second, crossing the line at 6.59am.Shindig’s watch captain Mark Riley said: ”The start was as predicted, extremely windy (26+knots). We got off to a great start, real fast speeds up to 23 knots coming out of Buzzard’s Bay. We had a couple of wind shifts outside of the bay and we weren’t sure where we were going to go.“As the steady breeze filled in, we made quick tracks to the (Gulf) Stream. Real fast again, hitting 20’s.”“We covered about 500 miles in the first 45 hours and then the bottom fell out we had no wind for two days. We struggled for the next 36 to 48 hours trying to cover the next 120 miles. It felt like every time we tacked or thought about tacking we were further and further away from Bermuda. It was a long drift in for the last 120 mile.“We knew that the faster we could get South the better we would do.”Riley’s 12 year-old son Jo was among the 15-person crew and the youngest sailor in the race.“It was fantastic,” said captain Riley. “We had some highs and lows along the way, but not too many dads can be as proud as I am of him to be out there on Fathers Day in such a great event on such a great boat. Sailing with all the cadets from Mass Maritime was fantastic.”Sonia Riley, Mark’s wife, was at the dock to greet her husband and son both with kisses. She said of her son’s adventure: “Jo had no idea of what he was getting into.”Riley added: “Arthur Burke (who had donated the boat to Mass Maritime) spoke some real truth in his pre-race comments to the crew, ‘You will have moments of sadness, You will have moments of Joy . . . all of you will hit the wall’ and we did. A couple of us were seasick before the start and some during the race, but they all worked through their problems.”Shindig's crew: Scott Bancroft, Charles Cahill, Priscilla Stoll, Kaitlyn Nanartowich (cook), Sean McLaughlin, Chuck Fontaine, John Sheehan, Matthew Ferlotti, Timothy Dexter (navigator), Art Burke (watch captain), Jonathan Riley, Mark Riley (watch captain), Andrew Morgan, Michae Reney (skipper), Kody North (navigator).