Five days into the 1996 Newport-Bermuda Race, officials were spending their days at the beach and their evenings at the parties.

This year, they're still busy keeping track of the fleet and working out equations for the awards. It's a time-consuming task: by last night, only three of the 30 trophies had been settled, which is what happens when only 35 boats of a fleet of 161 have arrived.

The first two awards were automatic, when Alexia captured line honours on Tuesday morning. She gets the Birdseye Trophy -- a cedar and sterling plaque -- for fastest crossing while her navigators, Ed Adams and John Danly, share the Mistress Trophy.

Ironically, that trophy is named after the 68-year-old wooden sloop that re-entered the race this year -- and is still about 400 miles from Bermuda.

The other award clinched is the Rod Stephens Dorade trophy, which goes to the Group 9-10 winners. That goes to Blue Yankeee , which finished early yestrday morning. The Farr 47, captained by Robert Towse, had an elapsed time of 105 hours, 46 minutes and 24 seconds.

Probably the biggest award, The Lighthouse Troophy, is still up for grabs, although one boat is so sure they've won it that they're parked in the winner's berth at the head of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club quay.

By this morning, Kodiak , Lloyd Ecclestone's Custom 66, could be elsewhere.

The Lighthouse Trophy is a silver and gold replica of the white and red lighthouse which marks the St. David's finish line for the 635-mile ocean course.

The amateur yacht racing in the IMS Division with the best corrected time wins the trophy.

And while Kodiak has won Class Seven in the IMS/Cruiser Division, several boats, including Froya and Ugly Duckling in Class Two and Emily in Class One last night still had good chances to take away the Lighthouse.

Eleven other boats last night still had a shot at the Lighthouse, including Les Crane and Monterey .

Kodiak finished just before midnight on Tuesday with a corrected time of 86:48:12.

Among the boats who arrived yesterday was Temptress , co-skippered by Bermuda's Kirk Cooper and Newport's Dr. Robert Shulman. She came in at 8.45 a.m. yesterday (114:05:49 elapsed time) and leads Class Five.

Waiting for the boats has been an agonishing chore and for one woman, it became too long of a wait.

Susan Pieper, whose husband Ken Ray is crewing on the 80-foot cruiser Sorcerer decided on Sunday to play hooky from work, cashing in her air miles and flying from Annapolis to hopefully surprise him. Yesterday, she had to fly back when the boat hadn't arrived.

EYE EYE, SKIPPER -- Mike Orburne (left), Martin Kenny and Rob Salmon at the Newport-Bermuda finishing line keep a lookout for signs of activity on the horizon.