One of the biggest fish ever caught off Bermuda was finally hauled in yesterday following a gruelling two hour battle off Challenger Banks.

Former Bank of Bermuda senior vice-President Cummings Zuill hooked the 1,199 pound Blue Marlin, but he needed the help of the five man crew of the Challenger to land it on the boat.

The Bermuda record for a Blue Marlin is the 1,352 pound monster landed by tourist Ken Danielson in 1995, while the world record is 1,402 pounds for a fish landed off Brazil in 1992.

John Barnes, the head of Agriculture and Fisheries, said yesterday: ''That will be one of the biggest fish ever taken out of the Atlantic, definitely up in the top ten or twenty. Just breaking 1,000 pounds is a major, major.

''Granders (fish over 1,000 pounds) are where it's at. Some people spend their whole lives trying to catch a grander and anything over 500 pounds is trophy material.''

Crowds gathered at Spanish Point Boat Club at lunchtime yesterday as news spread through Harbour Radio that the Challenger was coming in with an enormous fish.

The twelve-and-a-half foot fish was wrenched off the boat by crane as weigh master David Garland, the Head Fisheries Warden, checked the weight.

As the fish was being unloaded, Mr. Zuill told The Royal Gazette: ''It was an adventure. I caught one some years ago and it was smaller and friskier and I said I didn't have to do that again, but today I was caught off guard.

``My arms hurt, my legs hurt, it was hot and I was thirsty, but it was an experience.''

Mr. Zuill said the others on the boat - Norberto Herrero, Crayton Greene, Ian Card, and Andrew Watson - were asleep when boat owner Alan Card shouted 'wow!'.

''I looked up to see this wave of water, it was amazing how much water it was pushing. It was incredible, like a boat with a flat front, but you couldn't see the fish.''

The huge fish bit the artificial bait trailing from the boat, and Mr. Zuill jumped into a chair, was strapped in and was handed the rod.

He admitted: ''No one else was around and I wasn't planning to do it. I was harnessed in and given the rod, then the line just goes and goes and goes and there's nothing you can do about it.

''That happened a couple of times then it stayed fairly close to the boat. Ian grabbed the leader (wire between the nylon line and hook) but couldn't hold it, then someone from a visiting boat swam over to help me .

''I was wishing someone else was in the chair. It was very tiring on the legs because if I leaned forward or relaxed my legs I would have went overboard. My arms were tired with working the rod and I was sweating.

''I came right off the seat with this fish pulling. The only thing holding me on was this ledge at the bottom of the seat, but the fish eventually got tired and we pulled it alongside the boat.''

Mr. Zuill said he would have cut the fish free but by the time it was by the side of the boat it was almost dead. The rest of the crew put in gaff hooks to pull it.

The crew tied a noose around the Marlin's nose, but it still took ten minutes to haul it aboard.

''You never know whether to believe fishermen's stories, but they were saying 'wow, it's a big fish'. Then they would see it closer, then it would run off. But each time it got closer before going off, they were saying 'My God, it's bigger and bigger'. Ian said he had never seen such a big fish.''

The fish's organs, stomach and head will be examined by the Department of Fisheries and the National Marine Fisheries Service in Miami, Florida, while the rest was distributed to eat and for bait.