Zaraffa's confirmation yesterday as top boat in the Newport-Bermuda IMS Cruiser/Racer fleet earned them the St. David's Lighthouse Trophy and the second leg in the big three of ocean racing.

And now Skip Sheldon's crew are urging him to try for the "triple crown" by competing in the Sydney to Hobart race in Australia.

This week's victory also handed the Reichel-Pugh design team, that drew the lines of Zaraffa, a creditable treble in this year's Newport-Bermuda Race.

Along with Zaraffa's success, the Reichel-Pugh partnership are celebrating victory by Bob Towse's Blue Yankee in the professional division as well as line honours scored by Roy Disney's 75-foot Pyewacket.

Sheldon commissioned Reichel-Pugh to produce the 65ft IMS racer Zareffa to compete in events like the Bermuda Race. "Our skipper loves ocean racing much more so than round the buoys," said crewman Rodger Erker Jr., who has been sailing with Sheldon since 1992.

Last year they raced across the Atlantic then took class honours and a second overall in the racing fleet in the Fastnet classic.

Next year Sheldon and his crew plan to compete in a second transatlantic to Germany, and are now considering taking Zaraffa to Australia for the Sydney-Hobart.

"That would mean we will have competed in all three classics," Erker enthused, putting the Bermuda race firmly in the same frame as the Fastnet and Hobart events.

Things didn't quite begin as planned, however. "We decided to use the New York YC annual regatta on the weekend before the Bermuda start to give the crew a good shakedown, but there was a lack of communication somewhere and eight of our crew were not able to make it. That wasn't too good a start," Erker conceded.

But with veteran Bermuda Race navigator Dirk Johnson, Ted Hood Jr. as one watch leader, and a bunch of regulars onboard, they came to the start with a flawless game plan and stuck to it.

"Jennifer Clark (the Gulf Stream analyst who briefed skippers before the start) had it all exactly right, and Dirk positioned us to catch the first eddy. Then we caught the meander south and with it an extra 4.5 knots in speed," explained Erker.

A key factor in their success, according to Erker, was that they rode the Gulf Stream mostly in daylight.

"We were lucky because it produced a bumpy ride and we were able to see the waves coming."

They also saw a few waterspouts. "One passed between us and Bright Star and another formed right by the boat and rolled over our stern. Some of the guys who had not experienced these before had their chins on the floor."

But waterspouts and rough rides are nothing new to Sheldon and his experienced blue water men who finished more than two hours ahead of their nearest rival on corrected time in the IMS Cruiser/Racer Division to win the Sterling silver St David's Lighthouse Trophy.

Baker Ellis Silver Company in London crafted the first St. David's Lighthouse Trophy for the 1956 Newport-Bermuda Race. The trophy is a 15-inch silver model of the St. David's Lighthouse which is the landward end of the finish line.

It was first awarded in 1956 and has been awarded biennially to the corrected time winner of the race ever since.