the slowest.

As expected, Alexia crossed the finish at St. David's Light early Tuesday morning to claim line honours in the 41st biennial regatta. She was followed nearly three hours later by Sayonara , with Trader crossing the line some six hours after that.

Defending champion Boomerang arrived just before 6.00 p.m. on Tuesday.

That's the good news. The bad was that Alexia completed the 635-mile crossing in 90 hours, 56 minutes and 16 seconds, the slowest race since Tenacious did it in 105:02:46 in 1978.

Twenty years later, Alexia had been expected around 5.00 a.m. on Tuesday but, typical for this race, didn't arrive until 10.16 a.m. Bermuda time.

"It was slow,'' said beaming owner Alberto Roeemers when asked about the trip. "But it's a wonderful sensation.'' Roemmers and Alexia were here for the 1996 race -- and were the fourth boat across the line, arriving in 61:36:58. Of course that was the year Boomerang did it in under 58 hours to set the record.

Despite all the talk of breaking Boomerang 's mark, it became apparent after the first day that Mother Nature wasn't going to co-operate. The only hope was that boats would avoid the ignominy of the slowest race since it moved to Newport fulltime in 1936, the 121:13:12 by Ventura in 1960. "It was a very hard race,'' said the boat's Canadian captain, Gian Ahluwalia. "Then when we heard afer the first radio check that we leading, it got very tense.'' Here's how long the race was: Ahluwalia and other crew members ran out of cigarettes, although they quickly made up for lost puffs after docking at the RBYC early Tuesday afternoon.

Other slower boats, who were hundreds of miles away by the time Alexia arrived, had more serious concerns, like running out of food and water.

"It was a slow, slow race,'' said Joey Allen, a veteran crew member aboard Sayonara . "We were out there a long time.'' Sayonara , owned by Larry Ellison and skippered by Craig Dickson, did take a pretty big prize of its own, however: By finishing second, they clinched the Maxi World Championship over Alexia . The difference for Alexia , as is usually the case with any winner, came with course plotting, this time by John Danly and Ed Adams.

"We had some very good navigators and plotters on board,'' said Roemmers.

"They consulted the weather information, the water temperature, all the data at our disposal, and it worked.'' The strategy? "I think by and large we just had stronger breeze,'' said Danly.

There was more to it, of course. While most of the fleet got swept east of the Rhumb line, Alexia hung tough.

"We wanted to stay west of the competition and then pretty much stayed east of the Rhumb line all the way down until passing through the Gulf Stream and then got to the right hand side later on, trying to stay in the breeze towards Bermuda,'' said Danly.

Alexia was expecting a fresh southwest breeze from there -- only it didn't happen. Like many of the 158 boats, they were becalmed and lost about half of the 60-mile lead they held overnight on Monday.

"Compared to a lot of boats, we knew our boat was better in light air,'' said Danly.

HEBE ROEMMERS -- Wife of Alexia owner Alberto Roemmers was waiting for her husband at the RBYC.