There will be no time records set in this year?s Newport to Bermuda Race with even the leaders still a good 200 miles away from home yesterday evening.

The rather pessimistic pre-race forecasts for the record fleet in the centennial sailing of the 635-mile ocean race have proved to be accurate, with the 2004, 48 hour Demonstration Division record and the 2002 main race record of 53 hours in absolutely no danger of being broken.

The best predictions will have the winners coming in some time this evening, although pre-race elapsed time favourite has not assumed the leading position as everyone had expected.

Kiwi Charles Brown had said his $8 million superboat could complete the course in around 33 hours but a lack of breeze has seriously hampered that attempt and with his boat taking an easterly course, and the westerly boats benefiting from the better weather, the pre-race favourite was in an incredible 40th place overall as of yesterday evening with more than 268 miles still to go.

The leader overall, Hap Fauth?s JV66 was a good 59 miles ahead of the Demonstration Division boat and comfortably ahead in her Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division class with 209 nautical miles left and an estimated arrival time of 9 p.m. this evening.the only other boat in the Demonstration Division after the withdrawal of at the start after a brush with the ocean floor, has followed a similar route to heading to the west of the rhumb line.

Joe Harris? boat is also set to arrive in the middle of the night tonight and the round the world sailor was very candid yesterday in his racing blog: ?The wind has been between four and eight knots all night and we are moving slowly and only occasionally directly towards Bermuda.

?The forecast is not a pretty picture with a big high pressure system parked in our path delivering very light winds from random directions. It could take us quite a while to negotiate the remaining 315 miles to the Onion Patch.?

Among the Bermuda boats, Steve Sherwin?s is making the best progress. She is 13th overall, some 247 miles away from home. Robert Mulderig?s is in 20th, two miles further out.

Colin Couper?s (285 miles away), Paul Hubbard?s (354), Richard Hartley?s (307), skippered by David Roblin (346) and Joseph Hoopes? (300) are expected in at various stages tomorrow and Wednesday.