It was just before 1am on Sunday morning that the first boat crossed the finish line at St David’s Lighthouse in the Newport Bermuda Race.

Black Jack 100, a 100ft maxi yacht, took line honours after arriving in Bermuda at 12.46am, just 35hr 26min 46sec after setting off from Rhode Island on Friday afternoon.

The quick crossing was a little more than two hours outside Argo’s course record and just over 40 minutes outside the fastest time a 100ft yacht has completed the race, with Comanche posting a time of 34:42:53 in 2016.

After docking at Royal Bermuda Yacht Club and getting a couple of hours of well deserved rest, skipper Tristan Le Brun was not too disappointed at failing to achieve a record in his first attempt at the race.

“You can never be sad if you executed the race properly, which we did,” Le Brun said.

“We pushed the boat really hard and records are strongly related to weather. We also had a very tight window. We estimated our chance to break the record at about 30 per cent before the start.

“Surprisingly, for maybe 80 per cent of the race, we could see that we were still within that very tight window and within maybe minutes from breaking the record but then we had one cloud with rain maybe four hours before we finished.

“There was a bit less wind and then your average speed goes down and we finished 40 to 45 minutes out of the record, but it was nice that we could have a crack at it.”

Le Brun oversaw a very inexperienced crew in terms of the Newport Bermuda Race but did have one former champion on board.

“Our team was very inexperienced besides Nick Dana, an American professional crew who was a crew member when Comanche did this race and broke the record.

“He joined us for this race because I was missing one crew and I knew Nick, so I called him and asked him to join my boat. But it was extra exciting that this was the first time for the boat and the crew to do this race. It’s always nice to discover a new area of the world, a new weather system, a new dynamic and new people.”

Le Brun is not spending much time in Bermuda, preparing to leave the island in about 24 hours but he has already formed some key takeaways should he back for another try in a couple of years.

“If we do it again, I would definitely change the sail stack because we maybe underestimated the sea state,” he said.

“We are used to a smoother sea state, more predictable and because of the Gulf Stream, we became aware late in the process that we need to watch out for the sea state in the Gulf Stream.

“That influences what kind of sails we can carry to keep the rig in one piece, which is quite a challenge on this type of boats Other than that, the race was pretty straightforward because we didn’t have any technical issues and it was a straight line between Newport to Bermuda.

“There were not many tactical moves, so it was really a mechanical race where it’s all about how fast can you get the boat to go and that’s what we focused on.”

As for the race record, Le Brun insists everything needs to go his way if Argo’s or Comanche’s records are to be broken.

“I’m always tempted to have another go but don’t forget records are weather-related. You can try ten years in a row but ten years in a row, things are not lining up and the record is not coming.

“I’m glad that we had a start and the opportunity to push really hard to see if we could do something with it. Records are meant to be broken but a couple of things went against us this year.”

By the end of Sunday only eight of the huge fleet are expected to have made it to Bermuda, with the rest of the field expected to arrive on island over the course of the next few days.