When Merlin's 20-year-old elapsed time record for the Transpacific Yacht Race finally fell in 1997, it fell so hard - six boats beat the mark - that competitors might have been expected to pause for breath after their record-breaking binge.

Guess what. At least three of the six are back for the 40th Transpac - the last of the century - Roy E. Disney with a new, bigger Pyewacket, Bob Lane with a turbocharged Medicine Man, and Victoria under new ownership.

The entry list was not complete as this was written, but it also included Zephyrus IV and Magnitude, new boats that started with high hopes in '97, only to lose their masts in the brisk early pounding to weather before the 2,225-nautical mile race found the friendlier trade winds.

All of the above will be chasing the Barn Door, the desk-sized slab of hand-carved koa wood that goes to the fastest monohull, as well as a new prize: the seven-foot tall elapsed time record trophy commissioned by Disney and created by Andrea Favilli. Nine boats have held the record, starting with Harry Sinclair's Lurline in the first race in 1906.

Disney retired Pyewacket, an upgraded ULDB 70, after it lowered the Transpac standard to 7 days, 15 hours, 24 minutes and 40 seconds, and left no other major West Coast record standing in a two-year spree. He then ordered a 75-foot maxi sled from Reichel/Pugh of San Diego - the same designers who produced the similar Zephyrus IV for Bob McNeil and John Parish.

Until Zephyrus IV was dismasted in the '97 Transpac, its maiden race, Disney believed it was the boat to beat and apparently wasn't sure the old Pyewacket could do it again in '99. So he built a new one.

In its first test early this year, the new Pyewacket outclassed the monohull fleet in the Pineapple Cup from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., to Montego Bay, Jamaica. The boat suffered a half-day of light wind early on and missed Windward Passage's 29-year-old record for the 811-nautical mile dogleg course around Cuba by 1 hour, 48 minutes and 27 seconds.

Doug Baker's Magnitude has also returned to the Transpac with a point to prove. The Andrews 70 turbo sled showed its speed by beating Zephyrus IV in the Marina del Rey, Calif., to Puerto Vallarta, Mex., race last spring.

Mike Campbell's dark blue turbo 70 Victoria made its mark with a record 24-hour run of 337 miles in '97, and then he donated the boat to the Orange Coast College Sailing Program. It has been renamed Front Runner and chartered by Lou Grasso, who has campaigned it hard in the buildup to this race.

Then, there is a wild card: Medicine Man. A three-day head start in '97 set up the Andrews 56 to become the first boat to break Merlin's record. As owner Bob Lane awaited the rest of the fleet at Ala Wai Yacht Harbor he said, "They'll have to break my record now." And, boy, did they ever.

Lane insisted then that he would have preferred to start with the sleds, boat for boat, and this year he will have his chance. The larger monohulls are starting together on July 3, one day after the smaller monohulls, and Lane isn't conceding anything. Medicine Man has a taller sled mast and water ballast - the only boat in the fleet with the latter feature.

Transpac fine-tuned its rules pertaining to boats configured for what is predominantly a starboard-tack race. Faced with the uncertainties of rating the speed potential of boats with new technology, the board of directors amended the Sailing Instructions for 1999 to disallow movable-keel boat designs, or those with water ballast systems that had not raced before July 31,1997.

At the same time, previous competitors such as Medicine Man were allowed to retrofit for '99, subject to having their ratings changed to include a temporary cushion to keep them under the Transpac "speed limit," should their performances dramatically exceed their ratings.

The cushion is in terms of seconds-per-mile, based on a boat's IMS handicap certificate and computations by its designer and US Sailing. A boat rated within that cushion would be required, in effect, to "slow down" by reducing sail area, the length of its spinnaker poles or by altering other rating factors.

Transpac is, for now, more comfortable with water ballast than with canting keels, although Merlin sailed with such a reconfigured arrangement in '97. According to the '99 rules, canting-keel boats such as Merlin are "grandfathered" to be eligible. The same applies to a Schock 40 because its prototype, Dynaflyer's Red Hornet, competed before the '97 deadline, although not in the Transpac.

The first Schock 40 off the production line, Estupendo, has been entered by Antonio Luttman, a member of the Acapulco Yacht Club from Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico.

It was Transpac's understanding that no other new canting-keel designs would be able to meet the start date for '99. Meanwhile, officials expect to develop accurate handicapping procedures pertaining to water ballast and canting keels before the 41st race in 2001.

No such innovations are present in one group of boats - the Cruising class, which was introduced with "invited guest" status in '97. Cruisers are generically described as deep displacement boats with real furniture on board - throwbacks to the Transpac's classic days before fiberglass and ultralights when crews sat down for dinner and slept in real bunks every night.

When it became evident that weight was a detriment to speed in what is essentially a downwind race, such refinements went out the porthole. Now, while others go for records, there is room for those who want some comfort with their competition.

The Cruising class, starting June 29, is a legacy of Hugh Lamson, the Transpacific Yacht Club board member who championed its development in Southern California racing in the early '90s. He brought it to the Transpac with a modest seven entries among the 38 starters in '97. Lamson, 80, died in 1998, after laying the groundwork for a larger turnout this year.

Lamson has been succeeded as Cruising class chairman by Dr. Fred Frye, who won the class in '97 with his Tayana 52 Salsipuedes, and, with a four-day head start, didn't give up the overall lead to Medicine Man until well within sight of Diamond Head. Surfing under full spinnaker in a hearty tail wind, Medicine Man flew past Salsipuedes at about 18 knots

"I thank the Transpacific Yacht Club for including the more traditional yachts back into this race, where I think they belong," Frye said. "The sleds have brought the race into the 21st century, and by looking back at our tradition, we're bringing the race again into the 21st century for those of us that have heavy boats with furniture and fine wines."

Upon request, the Transpac board also approved a doublehanded sub-class of cruisers, providing the applicants passed scrutiny of their boats and sailing skills and had completed an offshore qualifying race.

The multi hull fleet may lack some of the flash of '97, when Bruno Peyron's 75-foot catamaran Explorer took more than a day off the record set by Steve Fossett's 60-foot trimaran Lakota. Explorer finished in 5 days, 9 hours, 18 minutes and 26 seconds. Fossett also beat his own mark in 6:00:30:46.

This summer both were occupied with preparations for The Race: Peyron's non-stop, round-the-world race for boats with no limitations that starts Dec. 31, 2001.